How Aurea NextGen solves the top three CRM challenges

I read a few stats recently that really hit home as we develop and introduce our NextGen CRM:

• First, 42% of sales reps feel they don’t have enough information before making a call to a prospect.
• Consequently, only 39% of a sales rep’s time is spent selling or interacting with prospects and customers. They’re spending too much time gathering information, not selling. 
• As a result: Only 24% of salespeople exceeded their quotas in 2020.

The takeaway is clear: reps need better information, faster, to close more deals. That’s why I’m so excited about Aurea’s NextGen ACRM. I’m writing this post as a quick introduction to the major benefits you can look forward to. In future posts, we’ll take a deeper dive into each section, and even answer the top questions we hear from you along the way. 

Three major challenges with legacy CRMs
91% of companies with more than 11 employees now use CRM software. Adoption isn’t the issue. 

The first major challenge is that the nature of work is changing. As selling becomes more remote, data-driven, and “social,” reps simply can’t keep up with every new article, tweet, or account update that could make or break an opportunity.

Second, most legacy CRM solutions aren’t smart enough or accessible enough to help reps sell more. Older CRMs have become “sales accountability tools,” helping sales leaders track productivity and pipeline, but not “deal closers” that actually guide sales reps to the best sales intelligence to close more opportunities. They aren’t mobile friendly. They provide passive information, not actionable intelligence. 

The third challenge is around deployment: many CRM solutions are forcing companies to the cloud faster than they are ready to go. They’re discontinuing on-prem solutions, or limiting new innovations exclusively to their cloud offerings. 

Major enterprises have invested millions of dollars in complex, critical integrations between their on-prem CRM solutions and other productivity tools. It’s unreasonable to expect you to abandon them, and unfair to keep you from innovating (and closing more deals) just because your timetable to move to the cloud isn’t this month or year. 

Our ACRM experts recently hosted an entire podcast about the changing nature of how sales reps work, the future of high-performing sales teams, and how technology like NextGen ACRM will help. It’s a great listen and I encourage you to stream it now for a much deeper dive on these challenges (and how NextGen ACRM will solve them).

NextGen ACRM will be the most intelligent CRM ever
We’re building NextGen CRM because we believe reps should spend more time selling, not gathering their own intelligence and spending hours updating CRM records.  NextGen ACRM will do much of the heavy lifting for your sales reps. A few examples: 

• It will use powerful AI and machine learning to identify which reps are ready to buy and which are in danger of leaving
• It will keep critical customer data constantly up-to-date, so every decision is made with real-time information
• The entire experience will be frictionless for sales reps. We’re using the same technology (Amazon Lex) behind incredible experiences like Alexa to give reps instant access to powerful insights from anywhere — using an effortless, voice-activated experience. That means reps can do things like get account information, update records, and even schedule follow-ups with the power of their voices. 

You won’t have to choose between cloud or on-prem. You can have the best of both.
Many CRM vendors are forcing enterprises to the cloud. We know it’s not that simple, though. You can’t abandon the functionality and integrations you’ve grown accustomed to with your current investment in Aurea CRM. Many of you have spent enormous amounts of time and money adopting and extending industry-specific workflows and customizations that a “one-size-fits-all” cloud solution won’t support. 

One of the things I am most excited about with NextGen ACRM is that we’re building it to allow you to stay on-prem for as long as you need to, while still benefiting from all the new features and functionality of our NextGen cloud solution.

The ultimate goal is obviously to transition you to the Cloud, where our most powerful innovations will be developed and introduced. But NextGen ACRM will allow you to make that transition entirely on your own timeline, since your current on-prem CRM will work seamlessly with our next-gen cloud platform. The two work hand-in-hand, staying constantly in sync — allowing you to continue using your customizations and industry-specific workflows for as long as you need to. 

Any questions? We’d love to hear from you and start a conversation about how NextGen ACRM will work for your unique company and challenges. Feel free to contact us, and stay tuned here for much more information about NextGen ACRM.