The future of CRM: Smarter, faster, and built to win

Emily Rust, CRM and industry expert services practice leader at ServiceNow, co-authored this blog post.

Customer relationship management (CRM) is no longer just about tracking records in a database with process flows. Modern CRM must be a connected, intelligent engine that drives performance across the entire revenue lifecycle, from marketing to quoting to fulfillment to customer servicing—all powered by CRM AI agents.

At ServiceNow, we’re helping customers move beyond disconnected tools to an intelligent, unified platform that connects every team in the revenue engine—from first touch to final invoice. It’s a complete CRM reinvention.

My conversations with customers over the past several months have echoed the same theme. Expectations for CRM are evolving fast, and traditional systems have not delivered on their promises. Businesses today want more than data storage; they want action.

They need a connected revenue platform that brings together sales force automation; configure, price, quote (CPQ); contract lifecycle management; and order management on one unified system.

ServiceNow Customer Relationship Management helps answer that call, providing an end-to-end experience, accelerating actions, automating complex processes, and aligning every team in the revenue engine.

Why today’s CRM isn’t cutting it

Sales teams want best-in-class tools that let them self-serve and find qualified leads so that they can quote high-value deals quickly without red tape. At the same time, revenue operations and finance are under pressure to streamline fulfillment, handle contract changes smoothly, and eliminate manual handoffs.

Over the past two years, the most common friction points I’ve heard from customers are:

• Data silos between marketing and sales systems
• Challenges with order fulfillment
• Complex mid-contract changes

Siloed marketing systems leave sales representatives and sales development representatives (SDRs) flying blind. They can’t see lead engagement history, score intent accurately, or prioritize outreach effectively.

When a customer requests a contract change, the process often involves canceling the original contract, recalculating proration, and manually issuing a new contract. Teams are juggling spreadsheets, chasing approvals through email, and going back and forth across departments. This slows everything down, increases risk, and drains resources.

In a high-velocity sales environment, this kind of inefficiency is not acceptable.

Modern CRM expectations

Today’s revenue teams want more than a digital database. They want CRM that acts as the intelligent control center for their operations. They expect:

• A unified platform connecting the front, middle, and back offices
• Real-time data that drives fast decisions
• A single data model that reduces system complexity
• AI-driven automation that eliminates guesswork

When marketing, sales, contracting, fulfillment, and customer service teams all work on one intelligent platform, organizations can move faster, serve customers better, and help prevent revenue loss.

Most customers I’ve interacted with are trying to stitch these capabilities together through customizations or bolting on additional applications, but ServiceNow delivers them out of the box.

Marketing and lead management alignment

Tenon, a marketing automation tool built on ServiceNow’s single data model, works with CRM AI agents to qualify and nurture leads. It handles demo requests, responds to inquiries, and advances lead stages. This gives SDRs time to focus on high-value conversations while warm leads flow into the pipeline efficiently.

Guided sales experience

ServiceNow Needs Analysis and Playbooks features help sales reps receive visual, step-by-step guidance through the entire sales cycle. They no longer need to memorize workflows or guess what information is required to progress a deal.

The system captures key business needs, recommends products relevant to those needs, and helps ensure everything is ready to move from opportunity to quote to order. Reps have clear visibility into what’s been completed, what comes next, and how close they are to closing. This helps save time, reduce errors, and accelerate deal cycles.

Unified contract lifecycle management

ServiceNow Contract Management Pro, a built-in and not-bolted-on solution, brings sales, revenue operations, legal, and finance into one shared workspace for full visibility and a single source of truth.

Contract AI agents can suggest missing clauses and frequently negotiated language. This helps standardize approvals, speed up negotiations, and close deals faster without having to chase alignment.

Streamlined customer lifecycle workflows

ServiceNow lead-to-cash core fundamentals and move, add, change, delete (MACD) workflows are built on a composable architecture, triggered from sources such as the installed base or service contract lines for scalable, flexible execution. ServiceNow CPQ supports upsell, cross-sell, and service suspension and recovery within existing contracts.

When forecasting is required, workflows can start with an opportunity, followed by quoting and ordering. And where sales agreements exist (original equipment manufacturer, reseller, and managed service provider use cases, for example), ServiceNow enables direct order creation, meeting compliance with volume and pricing commitments.

This unified approach streamlines the customer lifecycle with speed, precision, and adaptability.

Order fulfillment

Order fulfillment delays are often a result of missing or incomplete information. With ServiceNow, that’s no longer a concern. Our CRM AI agents check billing, purchase orders, start dates, and more before an order moves forward.

If something needs attention, AI agents automatically flag the appropriate person to address it. The order keeps moving, even if some items are fulfilled later. This makes the whole process faster, clearer, and easier to manage.

A connected customer journey

Bolted-on systems and reactive CRM strategies belong to the past. The future of CRM is a unified, AI-powered revenue platform that connects every step of the customer journey, from lead to quote to order to cash.

Now is the time to explore what’s possible and unlock a new level of speed and efficiency in your revenue operations.

Find out how ServiceNow expert services can help your organization boost customer satisfaction.