Report Examines SMB Trends, Challenges and Future Planning

Prioritizing customers

Successful SMBs understand that customer satisfaction — including a great customer experience — is the lifeblood of thriving businesses. Most businesses today focus on reaching the right target audience, managing customer relationships, and addressing customer needs, even as trends shift and competition intensifies.

However, satisfying customers requires agility and the ability to keep up with evolving trends and preferences because customer expectations are higher than ever. In fact, Salesforce’s report revealed that 65 percent of customers expect companies to adapt to their changing preferences — and this number jumps to 78 percent for B2B customers.  

Successful businesses prioritize customer needs and preferences in the following ways:

• Marketing: The report revealed that 86 percent of businesses adapt their marketing strategies and tactics based on customer interactions; 86 percent also say they engage customers in real time across one or more marketing channels.
• Customer experience: Most marketing organizations (84 percent) have led customer experience initiatives across their business, while 83 percent believe the customer experience is the key competitive differentiator.
• Customer control: Eighty-one percent of respondents allow customers to control how their data is handled and used.
• Customer retention: SMBs understand that customer retention is a significant priority, with 85 percent of sales reps stating that their managers urge them to prioritize long-term customer relationships instead of short-term wins.

Investing in technology

New technologies constantly emerge and fuel how business is conducted. To stay competitive, businesses must embrace, adopt and adapt to emerging technologies that can increase their productivity and boost their bottom line. 

Notably, mobile technology is a constantly growing and increasingly significant factor for SMBs. Today’s businesses must be able to drive sales from anywhere because customers expect to conduct online and mobile transactions anywhere, anytime. Customers also expect attention and support via software and online tools for customer outreach. 

However, there’s no more significant current tech trend than the rise and rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. AI is opening up untold possibilities for SMBs, boosting productivity and allowing business leaders to focus on growing their organizations while leaving many day-to-day tasks to generative AI tools. 

With regard to AI adoption in business, the Salesforce report noted the following insights: 

• More than 60 percent of respondents currently use or plan to use AI. 
• 64 percent of respondents said AI investment can help their business operate better.
• 62 percent of SMB respondents said AI can help with conducting customer service more efficiently. 
• 71 percent of SMB marketing teams have fully identified their AI strategy.

These are some of the most common ways AI tech is being used by SMBs today: 

• Automation: Many SMBs use AI for automated customer interactions (90 percent) and automated data integration (88 percent). Additionally, 88 percent of SMB marketing organizations leverage AI for process automation.
• Personalization: Eighty-seven percent of organizations reported using AI to personalize the customer journey across different channels, significantly enhancing the customer experience.
• Consumer analysis: AI is widely used by SMBs to accurately identify customers (87 percent), predict customer and prospect behavior (79 percent), and improve customer segmentation and look-alike audience modeling (78 percent).
• Business identification: Eighty-five percent of businesses said AI helps them bridge online and offline experiences. Additionally, 82 percent use AI to drive the best offers in real time, while 81 percent use it for programmatic advertising and media buying.

Building trust with customers 

Building trust with customers is a cornerstone of success because it fosters customer loyalty and repeat business. However, as AI tools grow more popular, customers’ concerns about AI must be addressed to ensure transparency and customer confidence. According to the Salesforce report, “Customers have concerns about AI, and there’s an opportunity for all companies, including SMBs, to build trust.”

For example, with realistic chatbots on the rise, nearly all customers surveyed (89 percent) said it’s important to know when they’re communicating with a real human or AI. And amid AI advancements, 68 percent of customers said it’s especially important for businesses to demonstrate trustworthiness in their operations.

Customers revealed the following AI transparency factors that would improve their trust in the AI tools that businesses use today:

• More AI usage visibility (57 percent)
• Human validation of outputs (52 percent)
• Additional consumer control (49 percent)
• Third-party ethics review (39 percent)
• Greater government oversight (36 percent)
• Industry standards (32 percent)
• Requests for customer feedback (29 percent)
• Staff training on diverse data sets (27 percent)
• Transparency of underlying algorithms (27 percent)

Planning for the future

Businesses are definitely planning for an AI-powered future as the technology expands and its uses proliferate, particularly as AI helps businesses gain deeper customer insights. For example, SMB marketing teams are starting to use predictive AI, which allows them to identify patterns from existing data to make predictions about future outcomes.

Consolidation is another trend SMBs are embracing as they face the future. Amid a dizzying array of customer-focused tools — including the best CRM software, sales process automation tools, prospecting solutions and much more — sales reps are finding themselves overwhelmed. Moving forward, 95 percent of reps say their business plans to consolidate the tech stack within a year to simplify things and focus on serving customers.

SMBs optimistically embrace growth and innovation 

Despite the challenges of operating a successful company, small and midsize businesses remain optimistic about growth and future planning. They’re prioritizing customer needs, investing in AI, monitoring technological advances and focusing on long-term customer relationships. By adapting strategies, enhancing customer experiences and ensuring AI transparency, SMBs are positioning themselves for sustained success in a rapidly evolving market.