IoT Cloud is transforming CRM

One of the most recent developments in relation to the Internet of Things is what has become widely known as “IoT cloud”, and it is interesting to see how this has influenced a technology that has been around for quite some time now, and is no other than CRM systems. Read below to find out why and how IoT Cloud has the dynamics to transform marketing, as well as customer and product experience, via its connection to CRM technology.

Let us start by stating that IoT includes a great variety of products and services, such as wearables, automobiles, smart appliances, and so on. With so many available innovations, an opportunity arises not only for consumers to be more demanding, but for businesses to better comprehend their customers, and their peculiarities, identifying all this new data in their CRM systems. Thanks to the massive customer data collected by IoT devices, marketing professionals have the unique opportunity to build even more comprehensive and detailed customer profiles. This trend has become more prominent lately with the rise of omnichannel marketing, which essentially attempts a holistic, “360^o” presentation of customer preferences, based on data coming from a variety of both online and offline sources.

This trend and practice is expected to grow even further with the increased presence of IoT devices and the essentially unlimited amount of data these can collect. Furthermore, on a macroscopic level, technology will be able to generate more comprehensive analytics reports and visualizations from within CRM solutions, which can offer even more detailed views of a business’s different customer segments, and even possibly reveal new segments that until then remained unknown.

Having more detailed customer profiles, thanks to IoT data, will allow marketing professionals to generate new leads. And this is only the beginning… By using real-time data coming from connected devices, businesses will be able to optimize both their products and customer experience. As a result, they will be able to offer added value that will surpass their customers’ expectations.

Furthermore, businesses will be able to proactively update or improve their products, based on real-time customer data, thus granting their customers’ wishes before these are even expressed. As for customer service representatives, they will find that having access to IoT device usage data is extremely useful when providing support to customers. The IoT explosive growth, as well as the analytics deriving from this new data, represents a huge opportunity for product personalization.

Certainly, since IoT gives marketing professionals the ability to create more comprehensive customer profiles than what was possible in the past, it comes as no surprise that concerns are raised with regard to privacy issues, especially as IoT adoption is progressing. From a marketing point of view, the significance of a personalized experience that respects customers’ wishes and, at the same time, reassures them where privacy issues are concerned, is and will remain crucial.

In regard to security, it is important for businesses to be able to properly evaluate threats coming from the great number of end points (connected devices), which are not considered safe enough. Of course, there are many steps yet to take regarding these issues, which businesses will have to rapidly resolve, in order to ensure their customers’ trust.