CRM technologies are more than two decades old. In the early days of CRM, companies leveraged these solutions to provide "inside-out" efficiencies –  operational efficiencies for sales, marketing, and customer service organizations. CRM aggregated customer data, analyzed that data, and automated workflows for front line personnel.  Companies could easily argue business benefits by measuring operational metrics that were important for the company – like reducing marketing costs, increasing revenues from salespeople, decreasing sale cycle times, better pipeline visibility, decreasing service resolution times, and more.

Because of this quantifiable return on investment (ROI), CRM became a must-have in large organizations and today more than 2/3 of large companies use CRM.

Today, being successful at CRM builds on  yesterday's internal operational and extends the power of these solutions to better support customers through their end-to-end journey to garner their satisfaction and long-term loyalty — a “customer-first” or “outside-in” perspective.

Our data at Forrester shows that good customer experiences correlate to customer loyalty. And loyal customers are more willing to consider another purchase from a company, are less likely to switch business to a competitor, and are more likely to recommend to a friend or colleague – all dimensions that have a direct impact on top line revenue.

Modern CRM strategies enable good customer experience. They support customer easy, effective customer engagement, that leaves the customer feeling good about the interaction. How? By leveraging the vast amounts of interaction and transaction data to deliver contextual experiences that build trust relationships, that add value to the customer and preserve the value of the company brand. Join me in San Francisco on June 30 at Connect 2016 to hear more about how CRM drives engagement, relationship and revenue.