If you have any experience in marketing or sales then you understand how important it is to have customer relationship management systems, also known as CRMs. In this day and age, you must have a CRM if you are going to be successful at your business. It is capable of performing all the tasks that you depend on daily.

The technology behind CRMs is still fairly new. When they were first introduced in the 1990s, CRMs did not have much versatility to them. In fact, users had to place a CD into their desktop computer to install the software. In the early part of the 2000s decade, this all changed with the invention of cloud technology. Instead of depending on software to use the CRM, you could just go on your browser to access it. Users did not need to install the software onto their computers anymore.

Today, another technological breakthrough is coming to CRMs. They are now going to have a chat interface included too. You may not understand the importance of this new update yet, but you will once you learn about the evolution of CRMs.

Prior to the Existence of CRMs

It is hard to believe there was a time when CRMs did not exist. Back in those days, marketers were forced to manually gather data and examine it. They used statistical modeling to understand the data so that they could enhance their customer communication practices. Toward the end of the 1980s, software developers introduced contact management software. This was pre-CRM software that could store customer contact data.

The Original CRMs

As more people began owning personal computers, CRMs were eventually created in the early part of the 1990s. Developers added automated sales features to contact management software, such as automated interaction tracking and automated inventory control. These software programs had a variety of names at the time. However, the one name that stuck was CRM. This name has been used ever since.

Throughout the 1990s, developers enhanced CRMs to the point where their complexity was far greater than it was when they first came out. By the time the year 2000 came along, CRMs had many new functionalities to assist users with services, sales, and marketing practices. There were even CRMs which had collaboration abilities through the internet, intranet, and extranet. These new functionalities were necessary for what is called the “2nd Transformation” of CRMs.

2nd Transformation

There were many CRM vendors at the turn of the century. But, the growing bubble of the dot-com industry was about to burst. Once that happened, only the most popular vendors with the most advanced internet technologies were able to survive. More specifically, these were technologies which allowed users to have customized cloud-based solutions and SaaS (software as a service). The ability to manage and organize additional business elements was also an attractive feature. Since more businesses were becoming involved with e-commerce, these new CRM functionalities become crucial for their success.

3rd Transformation





We are now experiencing the 3rd transformation of CRMs. This involves the introduction of the chat interface feature. The benefit of a chat interface is so users can easily perform any task in CRM without having to search for the necessary feature in their browser. You just need to type in simple language into the chat interface, and then CRM will be updated.

Closer.bot is a good example of this type of tool. This lets users do the following:

1) Type to Establish Deals

Here is an example. We’ll call the deal “XYZ Corp” and their email is [email protected].

The following is what could be done here:

– Open your internet browser, click on the word “sales” and then the word “deals.” Click on the phrase “create a deal” and then type in the name of the deal. Click the word “create” and then type in the description of the deal. Click on the word “save,” then click on the “contacts” tab. You will want to create a new contact. Just enter the email address [email protected] Now click on “create contact” and then choose the contact. You will want to scroll toward the bottom to locate the deals tab and then click on “add the deal.” Enter the name of the deal “XYZ Corp.” After that, just click “done.” The association between the contact and the deal will now be established.

An alternative way of doing this is simply typing in: create a deal XYZ Corp [email protected]

Here is how Closer.bot works. If you want to use Slack to manage deals, then Closer.bot will help you. Just add this tool to the workspace in Slack. Then, you need to use the slash command so that the CRM system can be integrated with it. You don’t need to manually update any of the information by opening your browser.

Even though this newer method is easier to perform, a lot of older users will likely want to keep using the previous method. As for the newer users, they will have a bigger advantage over the older users because they will get to take advantage of the chat interface by learning how to use it.

2) Deal Search

Use the chat interface to search for deals. For instance, if you want to locate XYZ Corp, you will instantly see the proper deal come up. You can update the deal with your activity log by entering something like “update XYZ deal new description.” There is nothing else you need to do after that. You won’t need to wait to load the features or learn how to use them anymore.

3) Notifications

If you want to receive notifications from Closer.bot whenever big deals get closed, you can set an option to receive notifications when certain events like this take place. This tool also lets users sort out their deals by their closing date. All deals which are deemed “low-priority” can be filtered out too.

Right now, Closer.bot is compatible with Hubspot. The short-term plan is to have the features of Closer-bot be available in every CRM platform out there on the internet. That way, users can minimize the time that they spend maintaining their CRM each day.

You can no longer afford to use the older methods of working with CRM. If you want to increase the number of deals that you close with CRM’s 3rd transformation, then you must take advantage of the features which Closer.bot has to offer.