Report:
The Forrester Wave™: Customer Relationship Management Software, Q1 2025
How does Forrester define the Customer Relationship Management Software market in 2025?
The CRM market is at a moment of reckoning driven by AI innovation. While AI delivers real value through insights, predictions, and automation from customer interaction data, CRMs have become over-engineered and complex, eroding their value. Organizations struggle with feature proliferation, deployment complexity, license tier decisions, and AI adoption. The market must simplify with AI at the core to improve purchase, deployment, and value realization. Buyers should prioritize vendors offering: 1) AI at scale with cohesive predictive, generative, and agentic AI tools; 2) Simplicity in CRM operations through intuitive UX, product-led growth, and transparent pricing; and 3) A clear path to business value through industry CRMs, low-code tools, curated marketplaces, and partner ecosystems.
Key Facts for The Forrester Wave™: Customer Relationship Management Software, Q1 2025 in 2025
- Publication Date: 24-Mar-2025
- Document ID: 4d612f88
- Summary: In our evaluation of customer relationship management (CRM) providers, we identified the most significant ones and researched, analyzed, and scored them. This report shows how each provider measures up and helps you select the right one for your needs.
- Authors: Kate Leggett, Linda Ivy-Rosser, Faith Born
How did the Customer Relationship Management Software market evolve in 2025?
- AI is driving real value in CRM through improved productivity and effectiveness
- CRMs have become over-engineered, and complexity is eroding their value
- Organizations struggle with deployment, adoption, and understanding license tiers and add-ons
- AI features add further complexity to business decisions
- The rate of change affecting businesses has risen 183% since 2019 and 33% in the last year
- All CRM vendors offer predictive AI, generative AI, and are starting to offer AI agents
- Customer interactions produce high-quality data that AI can leverage for insights and predictions
- The CRM market must craft products differently, with AI at the core, to simplify deployment and value realization
What product features are required to be included in this year's evaluation?
- Has a comprehensive CRM offering. To align with Forrester's definition of CRM, providers included in this Forrester Wave were screened to ensure that they can support each of the key CRM activities.
- Provides integrated or unified applications. There must be cohesion and consistency in the CRM. Discrete applications comprising CRM are at a minimum strongly integrated.
- Offers a CRM suitable for enterprise organizations with complex requirements. The vendors that we included focus on and have references from large organizations with complex requirements. These requirements include the ability to scale on a global basis, manage end-to-end business processes, and manage large volumes of customer data.
- Targets multiple industries. The vendors that we evaluated target CRM buyers across a diverse range of industries and business models, including B2B, B2C, and B2B2C. CRM applications purpose-built for a specific industry or a narrow set of industries are not included in this evaluation.
- Generates over $100 million in revenue from its CRM. Each vendor generates over $100 million in revenue from its CRM and must provide customer references to attest to the CRM's capabilities and viability.
- Has significant interest. Vendors in this Forrester Wave must have significant interest from Forrester clients, as evidenced by inquiries, mentions in the competitive set of other vendors in the evaluation, or other clients that mention the vendors.
What are the common features of top products in the Customer Relationship Management Software space?
No common features specified.
Scope Exclusions
- CRM applications purpose-built for a specific industry or a narrow set of industries
- Vendors generating less than $100 million in revenue from CRM
- Point solutions that do not offer comprehensive CRM capabilities across key activities
- Vendors without significant Forrester client interest or market presence
- Solutions not suitable for enterprise organizations with complex requirements
- Standalone applications without integration or unification across CRM functions
Inclusion Criteria
Vendors must, among other requirements:
- Has a comprehensive CRM offering that aligns with Forrester's definition of CRM, supporting each key CRM activity
- Provides integrated or unified applications with cohesion and consistency across discrete CRM components
- Offers a CRM suitable for enterprise organizations with complex requirements including global scalability, end-to-end business processes, and large customer data volumes
- Targets multiple industries across diverse range including B2B, B2C, and B2B2C business models (not purpose-built for specific industry)
- Generates over $100 million in revenue from its CRM
- Has significant interest from Forrester clients as evidenced by inquiries, competitive mentions, or client references
Offering Strengths — Relative Weighting
- Contact and account management — 5%
- Lead management and digital sales engagement — 5%
- Sales execution — 5%
- Configure, price, quote (CPQ) — 5%
- Sales planning — 5%
- Customer success — 5%
- Renewals management — 5%
- Digital customer service — 5%
- Case management — 5%
- Customer service operations — 5%
- Coaching and learning — 5%
- Product catalog and pricing management — 3%
- Collaboration — 5%
- Content (knowledge) — 5%
- Process management — 5%
- Business tooling — 5%
- AI (predictive, generative, agentic) — 4%
- AI trust and security — 3%
- User onboarding — 5%
- Support for global deployments — 5%
- Marketplace — 5%
Strategy Strength — Relative Weighting
- Vision — 15%
- Innovation — 10%
- Roadmap — 13%
- Partner ecosystem — 12%
- Adoption — 13%
- Pricing flexibility and transparency — 12%
- Community — 15%
- Supporting services and offerings — 10%
FAQs
Q: What does this research cover?
A: This research evaluates 12 significant customer relationship management (CRM) software providers across current offering capabilities, strategic vision, and customer feedback. The evaluation focuses on enterprise-grade CRM solutions that support sales, service, and customer success functions with integrated AI capabilities. The report assesses vendors on criteria including contact management, sales execution, customer service, AI capabilities, process management, marketplace ecosystems, and strategic direction.
Q: Who should use this research?
A: CRM customers should use this evaluation to inform purchase decisions by prioritizing vendors that offer: 1) AI at scale with cohesive toolsets for predictive, generative, and agentic AI across all license tiers; 2) Simplicity in CRM operations through intuitive UX, product-led growth, well-defined product tiers, and transparent pricing; and 3) A clear path to business value through industry-specific CRMs, low-code tooling, curated marketplaces, and strong partner ecosystems. The research helps buyers match vendor strengths to their specific organizational needs, industry requirements, and complexity levels.
Q: What are the mandatory features of vendors included in this market?
A: Vendors included in this evaluation must offer a comprehensive CRM that supports all key CRM activities including contact/account management, lead management, sales execution, customer service, and customer success. The CRM must provide integrated or unified applications with cohesion and consistency across discrete components. It must be suitable for enterprise organizations with complex requirements such as global scalability, end-to-end business process management, and large customer data volume handling. The vendor must target multiple industries and business models (B2B, B2C, B2B2C) rather than being purpose-built for a specific vertical. Additionally, vendors must generate over $100 million in revenue from their CRM and demonstrate significant interest from Forrester clients.
Q: What are some reasons for not being included in this report?
A:
- CRM solutions purpose-built for a specific industry or narrow set of industries
- Vendors generating less than $100 million in revenue from their CRM offering
- Lack of comprehensive CRM capabilities across key activities defined by Forrester
- Insufficient integration or unification across discrete CRM applications
- Inability to support enterprise-level complexity including global scale, end-to-end processes, and large data volumes
- Limited target market scope (only serving specific industries or business models)
- Insufficient interest from Forrester clients as evidenced by inquiries and competitive mentions
- Inability or unwillingness to provide customer references to attest to CRM capabilities and viability
Q: What should buyers consider when evaluating products in this market?
A:
- AI at scale: Prioritize vendors offering cohesive toolsets for predictive, generative, and agentic AI with robust trust and security practices. Look for AI included at all license tiers and vendors that provide a maturity roadmap with quantified value at each step.
- Simplicity in CRM operations: Prioritize vendors with simple UX that masks product complexities, nudges users to right outcomes, and offers true product-led growth. Look for well-defined product tiers, clear add-on value, and transparent consumption pricing.
- A clear path to business value: Prioritize vendors offering industry CRMs with pre-built workflows, low-code tooling for business user control, curated marketplaces, and strong SI/ISV partnerships that provide straightforward, cost-effective paths to value.
- Vendor alignment with your business model: Consider whether the CRM suits your B2B, B2C, or B2B2C engagement model and industry vertical.
- Scale and complexity requirements: Ensure the vendor can support global deployments, end-to-end business processes, and large customer data volumes.
- Customer feedback and references: Review customer satisfaction indicators and speak with reference customers about their experience with the vendor's products, innovation pace, and support quality.
Q: How has the Customer Relationship Management Software market evolved in 2025?
A:
- AI is catapulting the CRM market to a moment of reckoning with real value but increasing complexity
- CRMs have become over-engineered, with complexity eroding their value
- Organizations struggle to consume innovation at the rapid pace vendors deliver it (rate of change up 183% since 2019, 33% in last year)
- AI features add further layers of complexity requiring business decisions around their use
- The market must craft products differently with AI at the core to simplify purchase, deployment, and value realization
- Vendors are offering AI agents for narrowly defined tasks like lead qualification and service ticket resolution
- GenAI is being used extensively for content creation, summarization, and insights
- Predictive AI powers insights, forecasts, and next best actions across all vendors
- Industry-specific CRM solutions are packaging workflows, data models, and extensions for vertical needs
- Product-led growth motions and consumption-based pricing models are emerging
- Low-code tooling is enabling business users to take greater configuration control
Q: What differentiates Strength of Offering vs. Strength of Strategy?
A: Strength of Offering (Current Offering) evaluates vendors' existing product capabilities across CRM functional areas including sales, service, customer success, AI features, collaboration, process management, and platform capabilities. It focuses on what the product can do today. Strength of Strategy evaluates vendors' vision for the market, innovation approach, product roadmap, partner ecosystem, adoption and onboarding practices, pricing models, community engagement, and supporting services. It focuses on the vendor's strategic direction and ability to execute on future plans.
Reference
- Forrester, The Forrester Wave™: Customer Relationship Management Software, Q1 2025, 24-Mar-2025, ID 4d612f88
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