Effective client management has become mission critical for companies across nearly every industry aiming to deliver personalized 5-star service at scale, reduce churn and strengthen loyalty.
As boundaries continue to blur between CRM, workflow automation and customer intelligence, having the right data foundation combined with AI-enabled insights can make or break your ability to build trust and lasting relationships.
This comprehensive guide pulls together an expansive view across software landscapes, use case scenarios, buyer perspectives, implementation recommendations and future capabilities shaping the client management arena.
Let‘s explore this pivotal corner of business technology powering human relationships.
The Evolution of Client Management
Client management refers to the systems and processes used for maintaining close relationships and optimized interactions with active customers and accounts – not just attracting net new leads the way traditional CRM software focuses on.
While CRM remains essential for new pipeline generation and sales automation, client management picks up where most CRM systems leave off – at the initial point of purchase. Forward-looking businesses now recognize that winning repeat sales from existing clients requires an equal if not greater investment in technology and resources.
Veteran industry analyst Esteban Kolsky explains the need for this functional split:
"Client management aims to enhance loyalty and maximize customer lifetime value through relevant, timely and hyper personalized engagements – a completely different undertaking compared to routing new leads through a standardized sales process. Companies need specialized systems purpose-built to deliver white glove service at scale."
As Kolsky mentions, the breadth of use cases and capabilities under the client management umbrella continues to expand – now encompassing CRM, sales automation, project management, workflow triggers, customer service, self-service portals, lifetime value optimization, payment processing and more.
Let‘s explore some key drivers shaping the market‘s growth trajectory.
Client Management Software Industry Growth
While client management remains subsumed as a feature within CRM, the broader customer experience platforms market reached $18 billion in spend in 2022, expanding at 15% CAGR according to Gartner projections.
Within this, the penetration of workflow automation and AI-enabled system personalization core to modern client management continues gaining adoption:
- 23% of businesses now actively use sophisticated customer journey orchestration tools to optimize post-purchase experience
- AI-enabled Next Best Action recommendations now have over 50% penetration rate amongst enterprises
And the need for unified customer intelligence, analytics and omni-channel automation will only intensify across companies fighting rising acquisition costs and retention challenges.
As platforms bring together previously siloed sales, marketing and service capabilities while extending to reimagine back office functions like billing, the entire client management ecosystem represents the new playing field which competitive differentiation will be won or lost.
Now let‘s analyze typical buyer profiles.
Client Management Software Buyer Personas
Client management solutions now target a wide spectrum of potential buyers depending on company size, industry and specific pain points. Generally, personalized service-centered businesses face the greatest need – and highest ROI upside from adoption.
Common groups include:
Consultants, Agencies & Professional Service Firms
These project-driven businesses live and die on maintaining ongoing client relationships and clear visibility into account status, new sales opportunities and delivery history.
Key Drivers
- Too much tribal knowledge living in email inboxes
- Projects delivered inconsistently
- Resource/bandwidth limitations
Desired Outcomes
- Centralized client account status
- Standardized on-boarding and services delivery processes
- Increased account visibility to fuel upsells
Healthcare Organizations
With frequent patient touchpoints across clinical, insurance and billing scenarios, healthcare providers urgently require unified patient data, intelligent workflow routing and consumer-friendly experiences.
Key Drivers
- Disjointed legacy systems limit holistic view needed
- Difficult to personalize at population scale
- Patient satisfaction/NPS scores declining
Desired Outcomes
- Connected patient health history across engagement channels
- Reduce wait times and human-assisted service needs via automation
- Boost patient self-service convenience
Software/Technology Companies
Both B2B and consumer-facing software vendors must balance marketing, sales, onboarding, training, account management and customer service – constantly at risk of delivering disjointed, inconsistent customer experiences.
Key Drivers
- Prospect > Customer handoff gaps generate churn
- Lack unified platform usage telemetry
- Inability to preemptively trigger retention triggers
Desired Outcomes
- Connect marketing engagement with product telemetry data
- Automate lifecycle workflows tailored to usage signals
- Predictive support issue resolution
Those snapshots illustrate both functional and emotional elements factoring into buyer decisions. Now let‘s map top solutions to customer profiles.
Best Client Management Systems by Buyer Persona
With an understanding of buyer drivers across core segments, we can match solutions delivering the greatest fit for each:
Professional Service Firms
| Platform | Key Strengths |
|---|---|
| Hubspot CRM | Robust free version. Integrates with Hubspot Marketing. Great for agencies |
| Teamwork Desk | Project management + help desk/shared mailbox built-in. Resource management |
| OnePageCRM | Simplicity focused. Contact + deal management. Mobile-first design |
Healthcare Organizations
| Platform | Key Strengths |
|---|---|
| Salesforce Health Cloud | Unified patient data. Call center capabilities. Regulatory compliant |
| SoftClinic | Specialized patient management + telehealth. Custom reporting |
| DrChrono EHR | Integrated EMR + patient billing. Medical device connections |
Software/Technology Companies
| Platform | Key Strengths |
|---|---|
| ChurnZero | Dedicated account management + retention suite |
| Totango | Product usage analytics + lifecycle automation |
| Strikedeck | Customer success tools. Health scorecards |
Of course this just scratches the surface of matching client management software to your specific situation. But it provides guardrails for narrowing down the overwhelming number of choices in the broader market.
Now let‘s switch gears into recommendations for actually rolling out your selected system.
Implementing Client Management Software
Once you‘ve aligned on the ideal platform for your client relationship needs after mapping capabilities, buyer psychology drivers and budget limitations, next comes the actual legwork of getting up and running.
Like any business technology overhaul impacting processes and employee workflows in place for years, effectively implementing client management software while achieving user adoption requires careful change management.
Follow this 5 step roadmap for smooth implementation:
Step 1: Establish Clear Objectives
Be unambiguous in call out exactly what specific pain points the new system aims to solve. Is it eliminating sales visibility bottlenecks and redundant manual entry? Is it scaling personalized service through automation? Rally your team around tangible objectives.
Step 2: Audit Processes and Data
Review current workflows and identify how the new system will augment or replace legacy elements. Take stock of existing client data housed in spreadsheets, documents and other platforms to understand migration needs.
Step 3: Clean Data then Import
No implementation succeeds starting with outdated, duplicate or invalid data. Do the legwork to clean up historical customer records so they integrate accurately.
Step 4: Pilot with Core Users First
Don‘t try boiling the ocean. Start with a focused pilot group of admins, sales reps and account managers who will leverage the platform daily before expanding access more broadly. Get the kinks worked out.
Step 5: Continually Train and Optimize
Client management implementations never really end. Continually train employees on new features added, gather frequent feedback on what‘s working and what‘s not, and keep enhancing configurations.
Missteps like failing to achieve internal buy-in, spotty data quality practices or lack of continual user enablement are what torpedo many software rollouts. But following that 5-step blueprint can stack the odds in your favor.
Now even with smooth implementations, companies always have alternatives to evaluate. Let‘s overview competitive options.
Top Client Management Software Competitors
The client management landscape continues expanding at a rapid clip. Here we analyze alternatives making waves for both SMBs and enterprises:
SMB Client Management Alternatives
| Software | Key Differentiators | Ideal For |
|---|---|---|
| OneDesk | Intuitive UX. Email sync and tracking. | Startups and small teams |
| Contactually | Focus on personal relationships/touchpoints | Real estate, financial services |
| Streak CRM | Gmail-based. Simple sales/pipeline view. | Early-stage SaaS startups |
Enterprise Client Management Alternatives
| Software | Key Differentiators | Ideal For |
|---|---|---|
| SAP CX | Integrated with SAP ERP and back end. | Existing SAP customers |
| Pipeliner CRM | Visual sales processes. AI automation. | Sales teams 20-200 reps |
| Nimble | Unified contacts across emails/social media | Loosely coupled enterprise systems |
Evaluating alternatives head-to-head within your ideal market category exposes gaps that first choice vendors may miss. This outside-in analysis remains vital for getting the maximum ROI on client management spend and resources.
The competitive standouts above all offer unique spins, but lack the comprehensive end-to-end capabilities leading to a truly frictionless, personalized post-purchase experience. Which leads us to the final section – gazing into the future.
The Future of Client Management Software
Where do the next big innovation waves appear to be heading within intelligent automated client management? Observing three key directions:
1. Embedded Business Services
Point solutions for everything from billing and payments to contract management, proposal generation and more plug ever tighter into core client management platforms via APIs – eliminating the extract gaps stalling out personalized service.
2. Total Experience (TX) Replaces CX
Rather than limited to optimizing isolated customer touchpoints, next generation systems will connect insights across the entire employee experience as well to spot hidden bottlenecks and mismatches between internal workflows and external delivery.
3. Evolving to "Customer Intelligence X" (CIX)
Client management will no longer be differentiated based simply on organizing data, but rather uniquely applying intelligence – predictive, prescriptive and conversational – to turn insights into decisive actions in real time aligned to organization objectives and individual employee strengths.
Exciting times ahead!
While features and capabilities will come and go, client management at its core will remain centered around serving people – building human relationships between employees, partners and customer based on trust. Strengthening these bonds makes businesses and lives better.
Hopefully this guide provided clarity mapping the client management software landscape to your specific use case and a ray of light towards elevating customer and employee relationships alike in the years ahead via automation.
Now go wow your customers at scale!
