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45 CRM Statistics and Facts You Need to Know

Written by:

Victoria Yu is a Business Writer with expertise in Business Organization, Marketing, and Sales, holding a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from the University of California, Irvine’s Paul Merage School of Business.

Edited by:

Sallie, holding a Ph.D. from Walden University, is an experienced writing coach and editor with a background in marketing. She has served roles in corporate communications and taught at institutions like the University of Florida.

Updated on July 21, 2024

45 CRM Statistics and Facts You Need to Know

CRM software, or customer relationship management software, is lauded by many advisors as the future of business and customer relations. But how exactly does it benefit businesses? And what can we expect from CRMs in the future? To answer those questions, let’s look at 45 of the most recent CRM statistics in 2023 to objectively determine the true layout of the CRM industry and how the market might change in the future. 

Key Takeaways

  • Customer relationship management (CRM) software tracks customer touchpoints and data in hopes of improving customer management and the customer experience.

  • CRM software is prolific across the world and in almost every industry, with market segments valued at billions of dollars each.

  • Rather than being accessed on-premises, CRMs are now increasingly being accessed through the cloud and mobile devices, reflecting the world’s shift to online workspaces and marketplaces.

  • Though CRM platforms could greatly improve a business’s customer experience, sales efficiency, and operations, the usefulness of a CRM system depends on how well its features and functionality match the needs of the individual CRM buyer’s business.

  • In the future, the CRM market is expected to grow regardless of market fluctuations and continuously improve, thanks to new AI technologies.

What is CRM?

Before we dive into the nitty-gritty details of CRM, let’s start off with a description and overview of CRM.

Customer relationship management (CRM) is when a business tracks customer-company interactions and creates customer profiles so a company can derive data-driven insights and improve its customer experience through personalized interactions.

Though the term technically applies to all efforts to track and personalize customer experiences, CRM usually refers to a software solution platform that records, stores, presents, and manages all that data in one easily-accessible location.

As a customer progresses through the marketing, sales, and customer service departments on their sales journey, each of these departments use the CRM platform to manage customer accounts, tracking each customer’s progress, actions, and preferences. This breaks down information silos and gives businesses a comprehensive understanding of their customer journey and customer base, helping to shape overarching marketing strategies, individualized sales tactics, and personalized customer service interactions. 

CRMs can also automate routine tasks in the sales process, thereby boosting employee efficiency.

On a micro level, companies aim to use CRMs to improve their sales conversions and customer retention by using the customer profiles within to personalize their messages and interactions with customers, appealing to them on a personalized level. 

On a macro level, a company can also use its CRM to analyze its customer database to segment customers and improve its strategies with data-driven insights.

Key CRM Statistics

Global CRM Market

CRM solutions sound great, right? The rest of the world thinks so too, as shown by how quickly the global CRM industry is growing. A majority of organizations are already using CRM for sales and are looking to implement CRM technology to improve customer service and automation, as well.

  1. The global CRM market is valued at over $71 billion in 2023 and is projected to grow to $157 billion by 2030.
  2. The global CRM market size is expected to grow at an annual growth rate CAGR of 13.9% from 2023 to 2030.
  3. Approximately 80% of organizations use CRM systems for sales reporting and process automation.
    • Source: Grand View Research
  4. Approximately 61% of global software decision-makers were implementing, had implemented, or were expanding their implementation of customer service software, and 58% of software decision-makers intend to do the same for sales force automation applications.

CRM Market Segmentation

Not all CRM vendors and consumers are made equal. The biggest merchant in the CRM industry is Salesforce, while the biggest consumer markets are large enterprises, retail companies, and North American businesses. However, other industries and countries are catching up, representing an opportunity for growth.

  1. Salesforce is the leading vendor of CRM applications worldwide, with a market share of 23.8% in 2021. The next leading vendors are SAP (5.4%), Microsoft (5.3%), Oracle (5.1%), and Adobe (3.8%).
  2. By enterprise size, the large enterprise segment accounted for 61.1% of the CRM market in 2022. However, the small and medium businesses (SMB) segment is expected to grow at a CAGR of 15.5% until 2030.
    • Source: Grand View Research
  3. By end-use, the retail segment of CRM users was the largest market share of 23.5% in 2022. This is closely followed by the banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) segment, which is expected to grow at a CAGR of 15.6% until 2030.
    • Source: Grand View Research
  4. By region, the North American market accounted for 43.6% of the global market. However, the Asian Pacific region is the fastest-growing region, with a CAGR of 15.6% until 2030.
    • Source: Grand View Research
  5. The fastest-growing adopters and largest investors of CRMs in 2023 are businesses in Poland (62%), Columbia (57%), Denmark (55%), Spain (55%), Brazil (53%), Italy (53%), and India (52%).
  6. On the other hand, 33% of companies in Portugal, 30% in Japan, and 28% in Ireland have not used CRM software in at least two years, meaning they either have never used it before or used it before and stopped. This represents an opportunity for growth in the industry.
    • Source: Gartner

CRM Adoption and Growth in Specific Industries

Though CRMs are currently most popular for distribution, engineering, and government organizations, specialized CRMs for unique industries such as healthcare and banking are also gaining traction. Conversely, industries that don’t focus on increasing revenue or don’t deal in physical products have been the slowest to adopt CRM technology. 

  1. In the past two years, the highest investment in CRM software has come from the distribution/inventory management (59%), engineering (57%), and government (57%) industries.
    • Source: Gartner
  2. The industries with the lowest investment in CRM software are nonprofits (44%), business, consumer, and consulting services (39%), and advertising (30%).
    • Source: Gartner
  3. The market value of operational healthcare CRM was approximately $5.7 billion in 2019 and the market value of analytical healthcare CRM was approximately $2.8 billion. By 2025, the operational healthcare segment is forecasted to swell to $11.9 billion.
  4. The global banking CRM software market was valued at $9.5 billion in 2021 and is projected to reach $39.2 billion by 2031.

Cloud and Mobile CRM Platforms

Traditionally, CRM software was installed directly onto a company’s servers and could only be accessed on-premise. However, with the rise of remote workers and the digital marketplace, businesses are increasingly turning to cloud-based CRM platforms that can be accessed over wifi, as well as mobile CRMs that can be accessed through mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. These cloud-based and mobile CRMs have been found to be more effective at sales enablement than traditional on-premise CRM solutions. 

  1. In 2023, 67% of sales representatives work on a hybrid or remote basis.
  2. Globally, almost 70% of professionals work remotely.
    • Source: HubSpot
  3. Companies are increasingly investing in cloud-based CRM software solutions, with between 70% to 80% of CRM investments made in software-as-a-service (SaaS) tools.
    • Source: Gartner
  4. The global mobile CRM market was valued at $26.2 billion in 2022 and is expected to grow to $52.4 billion in 2029.
  5. Nearly 27% of the global CRM market was mobile-based CRM platforms in 2022.
    • Source: Future Market Insights
  6. The North American segment has the largest share of the mobile CRM market, at 25.7% of the global market in 2022. The European segment accounts for 20% of the market.
    • Source: Future Market Insights
  7. Among Android apps in 2023, the most popular installed CRM software development kits (SDKs) were Intercom (47%), Auth0 (11%), Zendesk (11%), Tobit (7%), and Kount by Equifax (6%).
  8. In 2021, it was found that 65% of mobile CRM sales reps were able to reach their target, while only 22% of non-mobile CRM sales reps met the same goal.
  9. Salespeople were found to be 14.6% more productive using mobile CRMs as compared to traditional CRMs.

Reasons for CRM Adoption

Though we gave a broad overview of what CRMs could do to help companies, what specific outcomes are businesses hoping for when they adopt a CRM platform?

In general, company demand for CRM tools is driven by customers’ increasing demands for more pleasant and personalized customer interactions and better customer service. Some other considerations are making sales processes more efficient and improving communications and analytics.

  1. When they interact with a company, 85% of customers expect consistent interactions and 56% expect all offers to be personalized.
  2. Eighty percent (80%) of consumers say that they’re more likely to purchase from companies that offer personalized experiences.
  3. In a 2018 survey, only 16% of US organizations considered their company’s delivery of real-time customer interactions across touchpoints and devices as effective.
  4. The customer service segment dominated the CRM market in 2022, having a revenue share of 23.7%.
    • Source: Grand View Research
  5. In a 2020 survey, 69% of chief information officers (CIOs) responded that improving customer experience was a very important factor driving their digital transformation efforts.
  6. When asked about their top sales goals for 2023, 29% of sales leaders responded with making the sales process more efficient, 25% with upselling and cross-selling existing customers, 24% with winning more market share, 20% with improving sales and marketing alignment, and 18% with leveraging their CRM to its fullest potential.
    • Source: HubSpot
  7. Of businesses that purchased a new CRM, 45% previously used general-purpose tools such as Excel, Outlook, or emails to manage customer interactions and processes.
  8. The CRM analytics segment is expected to grow at a CAGR of 13.7% from 2023 to 2030.
    • Source: Grand View Research

Considerations When Buying a CRM Platform

When shopping for the best CRM platform for their specific needs, companies often utilize buying groups of IT employees to make the decision, since IT employees often handle the day-to-day management of the CRM system. Beyond the CRM’s basic tools and features, these buying groups also consider the CRM system’s cost, data privacy compliance, user experience, and implementation support when making their purchase decisions. In other words, CRMs are judged by both what they can do and how easy it is to do it. 

  1. The largest portion of CRM buying groups are composed of four to six people (41%), while 26% are seven to nine people, 17% are ten or more people, and 16% are one to three people.
    • Source: Gartner
  2. CRM buying groups usually include IT employees, with 41% of company respondents saying that all of their CRM technology needs are handled entirely by their IT department.
    • Source: Gartner
  3. The top decision criteria when buying CRMs were ease of use (55%), price (54%), and functionality (51%).
    • Source: Gartner
  4. When researching which CRM solution to purchase, buyers refer to online training (48%), video tutorials (41%), and product documentation/user guides (40%).
    • Source: Gartner
  5. The three top features buyers look for when buying CRM software are user experience (84%), training and support services (84%), and data privacy (83%).
    • Source: Gartner

Outcomes of CRM Implementation

Though CRMs can provide amazing returns on investment and benefits when utilized properly, a majority of companies find their CRM systems to be poor fits with their business needs, requiring further research and effort before they can identify and implement a CRM solution that best suits them.

  1. CRMs pay back $8.71 for every dollar spent.
  2. It’s estimated that businesses can gain additional revenue of $394 billion by 2026 by adopting CRM.
  3. Business executives responded that the top benefits of adopting digital business models are improving operational efficiency (40%), meeting changing customer expectations (35%), and improving new product quality (26%).
  4. Only 40% of sales professionals feel that their CRM is “very effective” or “extremely effective” at improving sales and marketing alignment. The remaining 60% responded that it was moderately effective, slightly effective, or not effective at all.
    • Source: HubSpot
  5. The three main reasons why businesses become dissatisfied with and replace their current CRM system are inefficiency (30%), lack of functionality (20%), and difficulty using the software (20%).
    • Source: Gartner

Future of CRM

Though companies in 2023 fear a recession, it doesn’t seem to mean that they’re going to cut spending on CRMs – on the contrary, spending for information technology such as CRM platforms is expected to increase in the coming years.

As the CRM industry develops further, companies will contend with growing issues in safely utilizing all of the data they collect. However, they’re also poised to capitalize on new AI integrations into CRMs, such as Salesforce’s Einstein GPT, One AI’s solution for CRMs with multilingual capabilities, and HubSpot’s CHatSpot.ao content assistant. 

  1. Though 83% of companies fear a recession in 2023, 51% plan to increase IT budgets. Of those IT budgets, 18% of will go to managed services such as CRMs, up from 15% in 2020.
  2. In a global survey, 90% of executives said that their organization collects data from the physical world through ERP, CRM, or PLM systems, but only 50% say that they use the data efficiently.
  3. It’s predicted that by 2024, at least 30% of organizations will be forced to expand data management and privacy measures to mitigate risks of data breaches caused by ecosystem partners, costing $4.6 million per breach.
  4. The global artificial intelligence market was valued at $100 billion in 2021, and is expected to grow twentyfold to $2 trillion by 2030.

Conclusion

Customer relationship management (CRM) has evolved enormously beyond simple Excel spreadsheets full of customer data. Now, the global CRM market is a multi-billion dollar industry spanning the world over and touching every facet of the business world. 

Though many businesses are eager to implement CRMs, finding a suitable solution for each business’s needs is proving to be a struggle. Hopefully, as the market matures further and new technologies are introduced, the CRM industry will continue to grow and improve operations and customer satisfaction for all CRM buyers.

FAQs

Should my company invest in a CRM?

As CRMs become more and more commonplace in every industry, your company will likely have to adopt one in order to meet consumers’ rising customer service standards and stay competitive with businesses around you.

However, there’s no need to buy one right after forming your business. CRMs can cost anywhere from $10 to $100 per month per user for SMBs, so be sure that you have the cash flow to support your CRM before you even consider investing in one.

Who are some vendors of CRM software?

Some vendors of CRM software are HubSpot CRM, Salesforce CRM, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and Zoho CRM.

What features should I look for in a CRM?

When shopping for a CRM, consider what end goals you’re trying to achieve, and base your search around those aspects. For example, if you’re looking to improve your sales department, you could search for CRMs that aid in marketing automation, lead generation, and sales pipeline management. 

Additionally, consider if you want an on-premise, cloud-based, or mobile CRM. The pricing structure for a CRM will vary depending on your deployment type as well as per vendor.

Thinking about the future of sales, customer service, and data analysis, it may also be wise to consider searching for a CRM with AI integration and capabilities.