CRM is a Four Letter Word, AI Can Fix That

In any client-facing function, especially those inside the high-stakes world of investment banks, the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system is indispensable. Millions of dollars are invested in tech teams building, maintaining, and customizing CRMs. And yet, usage across bankers remains inconsistent. As a result, the ROI is far from maximized. The key to unlocking a CRM’s full potential may lie not in prodding employees to log in to record and read notes, but in seamlessly integrating the rich information they offer directly into daily workflows.

This has been the white whale of many an enterprise. Custom solutions, email notifications, and summary emails have by and large failed. However many of these attempts were deployed before AI tooling hit important inflection points across the enterprise. This article explores how investment banks can enhance CRM adoption, improve collaboration, and increase their ROI on existing systems by leveraging the transformative power of Unprompted AI.

The CRM Conundrum in Investment Banking

CRMs, at their core, are large contact databases for storing and retrieving information about sales and client relationships. Yet, they can quickly become unwieldy and complex, especially in organizations that prioritize customization over standardization. It is almost a design feature instead of a bug, with an entire cottage industry built around customization and complex data processing. Investment banks, for instance, frequently modify platforms like Salesforce to an extensive degree in order to meet their specific requirements. This customization caters to various stakeholders inside the banks, supporting functions from reporting and monitoring to various sales workflows. Stakeholders change, teams evolve along with their needs, and the system often grows in complexity. The result is a byzantine user experience, eventually leading to low user adoption. Ironically, the higher the investment and the more tailored the system, the less it is used, and the lower the ROI for the teams using it.

This dynamic has a real cost for banks, who rely on their CRM system for consistent revenue optimization. Low adoption rates in CRMs result in missed opportunities, and less data going into the systems. This increases coordination costs, often leading to redundant processes for bankers to gain exposure to this vital information. This lack of data flow not only hampers the effectiveness of the CRM but also creates a vicious cycle that further discourages the use and trust in the system.

Breaking the Cycle with Unprompted AI

The solution to this dilemma can come from an unlikely place: AI. But not the “chat” variety making the news today. Unprompted AI is the right tool for pushing insight to busy knowledge workers. Unprompted AI is exactly what it sounds like. It requires no prompts and therefore no prompt engineering or user initiation. Instead, it “pushes” information to the user at exactly the right time by integrating into their knowledge flows. The idea there lies in delivering timely and relevant insight directly to employees, as they are going about their daily work, without asking them to break their flow to log into a system to retrieve information.

It's a novel concept. Unlike traditional systems that require users to pause what they are doing, think about an upcoming meeting, and then actively log in and navigate a system, Unprompted AI proactively pushes content to users when appropriate. It learns from users’ interactions, getting smarter and more tailored to the individual’s needs. This approach solves the problems of context switching and complex navigation associated with most CRMs, making information access effortless and natural.

But how does the AI have the wherewithal to actually deliver timely and relevant information to just the right employees? ModuleQ’s Unprompted AI leverages advanced algorithms, is tailored to the role specific to the user within the bank, and it takes advantage of human feedback to train itself over time. All of this ensures that the right content reaches the right person at the optimal time.

ModuleQ has been pioneering development in Unprompted AI, and the results have been encouraging. Take one successful deployment at a bank as an example. By receiving timely, AI-curated insights about a potential client's market position and investment interests, the bank's sales team was able to tailor a pitch perfectly. 

The new AI functionality didn't just provide data; it offered actionable intelligence at the right moment to the right stakeholders. The “side effects”, could be just as powerful as the main goal – it produces more focused and more productive bankers as they can stay “in the zone” while leveraging internal insights to help them close deals.

The adoption of CRM systems in investment banking should not hinge on mandating usage. Instead, it should focus on integrating these robust systems into the natural workflow of employees through innovative solutions like Unprompted AI. By pushing relevant, timely information directly to users, investment banks can transform their CRM systems from cumbersome databases into dynamic tools, driving sales while strengthening client relationships. The entire goal is increasing ROI on these critical initiatives and investments. The future of CRMs in investment banking is not just about storing data; it's about intelligently delivering it to empower decision-making and drive business success.