B2B CRM Software Trends

Exploring the Trends

CRM software is evolving rapidly, transforming how sales teams operate. To get an insider perspective on the future of B2B CRM software trends, I recently interviewed CRM expert Jeroen Corthout, Co-Founder of Salesflare.  In our exclusive interview, he shared his insights and unique perspective on what the future of 2023 and beyond looks like in his segment of the CRM industry. I asked him to share how the trends impact your B2B company and others in the industry.

Jeroen has been building CRM technology for over a decade. He provided exclusive insights into the significant B2B CRM software trends shaping the industry in 2023 and beyond. During our meeting, he shared a screen of his exciting technology, which I will discuss throughout this article. As we cover our conversation, I will share what I thought were the most exciting images representing these B2B CRM software trends.

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Trends Shaping B2B CRM

Here are the key B2B CRM software trends that emerged from our discussion:

Trend 1: AI and Automation Will Become More Prevalent

Jeroen explained that AI and automation are making inroads into CRM systems, but we’re still early in the adoption curve:

“There's always these trends in the short term and there's the trends that take some years to develop. What we have seen over the lifespan of Salesflare so far is that many CRMs started off more as a database and became more of a sales system.”

He believes AI capabilities will expand dramatically in the coming years:

The CRM will automatically document interactions, prompt following actions, and suggest responses. This will free up reps to focus on building connections.

Trend 2: Tighter Tool Integration

Constant app switching hurts sales productivity. Jeroen emphasized Salesflare’s seamless integrations with email, calendars, and LinkedIn to avoid this problem:

“That basically you don't have to switch tabs when you're talking to customers, whether you're in Gmail or LinkedIn or so, Salesflare is always there with you.”

Embedded CRM data will become more ubiquitous across platforms. This unified experience prevents workflow disruptions that hinder sales. Jeroen believes integration will continue improving.

A recent survey from Heinz Marketing found that 79% of B2B companies say CRM is critical or very important to achieving their sales goals.

Trend 3: Automatic Data Collection

Manually exporting and importing data between systems is a common headache. Salesflare solves this by automatically syncing data from emails, calendars, and websites into CRM. 

Jeroen sees this as the future of CRM data population:

“We take it for a spin. This first walkthrough is just to show you the very basic aspects of Salesflare in a quick way. It's not real data, but I'll show you real data in a second based on our mailbox.”

The more CRM solutions can automatically pull data from systems sales teams already use, the less tedious manual work is required.

Many legacy CRMs are notoriously complex. Jeroen believes future platforms must prioritize simplicity:

“We layer the software a little so that, you know, you, you don't get overwhelmed, but there is a lot of things below it and, it's, that is not immediately apparent.”

This is one of the most interesting B2B CRM software trends that Salesflare has figured out ahead of the competition and, in my opinion, used to its advantage.

Trend 4: User Experience and Simplicity

While powerful under the hood, CRM interfaces will become more streamlined. User experience will improve as vendors hide intricate functionality.

Jeroen concludes the key to adoption is making CRM easy: 

“The magic of Salesflare is not in the pipeline itself. It's what happens behind it, all the tracking. This [pipeline stages] is something you will find in every CRM. It gives you a little animation. And then you can get started.”

While he is understated in his presentation, the pipeline stages in Salesflare are very cool. It is, however, clear that simplifying the sales rep experience will drive usage and ROI.

Key Takeaway: The Future of CRM Focuses on Automation and Simplicity

Jeroen clarified that CRM is progressing rapidly from essential databases to intelligent sales acceleration engines.

Automation through AI will eliminate repetitive tasks like data entry. Tighter platform integrations will centralize data and unify workflows. Automatic syncing will render manual importing obsolete.

Related Article: CRM Software: The Ultimate Guide For Businesses Of All Sizes

But the most critical trend may be improving ease of use through simpler interfaces. CRM can’t transform sales if reps don’t use it consistently.

As Jeroen summed it up:

“The easiest way to understand how Salesflare can help your team convert more prospects is to experience it yourself.”

The customer experience you create today will determine your competitive position in the CRM landscape of tomorrow.

Gartner predicts the CRM software market will grow over 14% through 2025 as businesses seek to improve customer relationships.

3 B2B CRM Software Trends Shaping The Future of Sales

CRM platforms are progressing rapidly from simple contact databases into intelligent engines driving sales productivity. 

To learn where this technology is heading, I interviewed Jeroen Corthout, Co-Founder of Salesflare, on the B2B CRM software trends shaping innovation.

Below are three key B2B CRM software trends that emerged from our discussion on the future of CRM:

Trend 1: Predictive Analytics Will Transform CRM Insights

Many CRM analytics currently focus on reporting historical performance. But Jeroen predicts machine learning will enable predictive capabilities:

“What we have seen over the lifespan of Salesflare so far is that many CRMs started off more as a database and became more of a sales system.”

Shortly, CRM systems will leverage AI to forecast the outcomes of current deals and prescribe actions to optimize success rates.

Platforms will analyze customer data and sales inputs to predict deal probability, recommend targeted messaging, and guide the next steps.

This shift from reactive reporting to proactive forecasting will provide sales teams and marketing tremendous visibility into funnel and revenue projections. Predictive analytics will power everything from lead scoring to contract value optimization.

Trend 2: Security and Compliance Will Become CRM Priorities

With customer data underpinning CRM systems, security and privacy are growing concerns. Jeroen highlighted how Salesflare builds protection into its DNA:

“We ourselves are based in the center of Europe. So we take GDPR very seriously…Then there's also a big aspect, which is data security. We have a yearly checkup by an external company. We have a vulnerability disclosure program where if you find a vulnerability in our software, you can get a bounty.”

As sales and marketing teams store more information in CRM platforms, data security will move from an afterthought to a core feature.

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Solutions will increasingly leverage encryption, access controls, and protocols like GDPR to safeguard customer data. Security will become a key CRM selection criterion for protecting sales pipelines and retaining trust.

Trend 3: CRM Systems Will Automate More Sales Tasks

As menial administrative work gets handled by CRM automation, sales professionals can spend more time building customer relationships through meaningful interactions.

While CRMs focus on contact management and pipeline visibility, Jeroen foresees platforms automating tasks.

Advanced AI will allow CRM bots to automatically document interactions, prompt follow-ups, draft correspondence, and execute workflows.

This sales productivity liberation will be enabled by hybrid AI tools combining machine learning, natural language processing, and predictive analytics.

Key Takeaway: Data Powers the Future of Intelligent CRM

As Jeroen explained, we’re still early in the CRM innovation curve:

“There's always these trends in the short term and there's the trends that take some years to develop.”

However, the B2B CRM software trends outlined above demonstrate CRM platforms rapidly evolving from simple databases into intelligent engines driving sales, marketing, and customer excellence.

The key accelerant across these innovations is data. Predictive analytics, security protocols, and task automation all rely on aggregating and interpreting customer data in new ways.

The CRM solutions that leverage data most effectively will deliver the most excellent workflow automation and sales productivity. This will separate leaders from laggards.

Experience how AI can eliminate repetitive tasks to empower your team. And how predictive analytics can provide unprecedented visibility into your funnel.

Don’t just imagine the future of CRM – start implementing it today with Salesflare.

The Future Predications On CRM Automation

CRM software is progressing rapidly from essential contact databases to intelligent sales acceleration platforms powered by automation. 

To learn more about where CRM technology is heading, we turned our conversation to the future of B2B CRM.

Here are the key predictions that emerged from our discussion:

Prediction 1: AI Will Dramatically Expand CRM Capabilities

While AI is gaining traction in CRM tools today, Jeroen believes we’re still early in the adoption curve:

“There's always these trends in the short term and there's the trends that take some years to develop. What we have seen over the lifespan of Salesflare so far is that many CRMs started off more as a database and became more of a sales system.”

In a review of the B2B CRM software trends we spoke about, he sees AI transforming CRM functionality in the coming years:

Platforms will auto-document interactions, prompt following tasks, and even suggest responses to accelerate productivity.

Prediction 2: Administrative Tasks Will Be Fully Automated

As AI capabilities grow, CRM systems will automate more administrative, repetitive tasks to free up sales teams. This is one of the most interesting and exciting B2B CRM software trends.

According to Jeroen:

“The software will make a nice summary of the conversation, define next steps. prep this nice follow up email, the sales person can look at it and click, it will follow up, you know, all the data tracking we've already covered, you just have to do some clicks there as well.”

Based on analytical insights, CRM bots will handle note-taking, data entry, follow-ups, and productivity optimization.

Prediction 3: Real-Time Data Syncing Will Become Ubiquitous

Manually exporting and importing data creates significant productivity drags. Jeroen predicts CRMs will get data syncing down to real-time:

Eliminating data silos will enable 360-degree customer views. Sales reps will always have the latest interaction insights at their fingertips.

Prediction 4: Platforms Will Provide Unified Sales Workspaces

Sales teams currently juggle many disparate systems. Jeroen foresees CRMs evolving into unified sales hubs integrating surrounding technologies: 

“I'm not someone who believes in this one business software that will solve it all… if you stay within a certain space, a certain department, let's say, and try to solve as many things as possible in a great way so that department doesn't have to juggle its data all over the place and use all these different tools. I think that's a better world in general.”

While one system can’t meet every need, CRM will become the workspace unifying sales tech stacks.

According to a report from Vendr, the global B2B CRM market size was valued at USD 44.33 billion in 2022 and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.4% from 2023 to 2030

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Prediction 5: User Experience Will Become More Streamlined

Legacy CRMs are notoriously complex. Jeroen emphasized CRM interfaces will progressively simplify. This was another exciting prediction in our conversation on B2B CRM software trends.

Vendors will hide intricate functionality behind clean UIs. Reps will get enterprise-level power through consumer-style ease of use.

Prediction 6: CRM Adoption Will Hit Critical Mass

Many sales teams today still rely on spreadsheets. Jeroen predicts CRM usage will hit an inflection point.

As automation eliminates hurdles to adoption, CRM will become the sales hub in most organizations by default.

Key Takeaway: The Future of CRM Focuses on Automated Productivity

Jeroen clarified that CRM is heading towards being an intelligent engine for sales productivity gains.

Advanced AI will eliminate rote tasks while unifying data and workflows under one roof. This is one of the B2B CRM software trends that I found fascinating. Sales reps will leverage automation to have more high-value customer conversations.

Platforms will get out of the way through streamlined UIs, making selling frictionless. Adoption will accelerate as CRM proves its ability to boost productivity.

As Jeroen concluded:

“I believe in a future where salespeople will just be in conversations and all the other things will happen for them.”

See how AI-driven automation can increase sales productivity by eliminating the busy work bogging down your team.

Get a glimpse into the future of sales acceleration powered by CRM. Learn how removing administrative chaos allows reps to focus on selling.

Experience how intelligent automation will revolutionize sales productivity and your team’s customer connections.

See for yourself by starting a FREE trial of Salesflare’s B2B CRM software. It will automatically pull in your address book and help you nurture leads with less effort.

Listen to our Software Spotlight podcast episode featuring Salesflare: Jeroen Corthout, co-founder of Salesflare CRM, explains how the platform integrates email, calendar, and other tools to automatically capture sales interactions and enrich data. This creates detailed timelines to help users effortlessly track leads without manual data entry, enabling sales teams to focus on selling rather than administrative tasks.