Mobile CRM: The New Way of Meeting Customer Needs

We have already talked about some of the mobile customer relationship management options available. Perhaps this was jumping the gun a little bit. Today we are going to rectify that by talking about some of the benefits of mobile customer relationship management software.

Of course, mobile CRM has many of the same benefits of any other type of CRM software, however the ability to take the software on the go is critical. With the outburst of technology, every aspect of business is changing. There has been an inclination towards mobile workers. This is made possible with the usage of high end communication infrastructure.

As a result, an organization’s task of managing the employees has become more difficult since the employees are scattered all over the world. However, there are many advantages of this design as well which includes higher flexibility and lower expenditure.

As mentioned earlier, all the aspects of a business are affected by the technology and so is Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Customer Relationship Management refers to the use of customer data to improve relationships with them. With an increasing trend of mobility in the businesses, there is a need of Mobile Customer Relationship Management.

A mobile CRM platform will provide employees with the relevant customer information on the go. The application makes use of a cloud server which stores the customer data. Mobile Customer Relationship Management allows organizations, especially the ones with extensive sales departments, to mobilize their sales force.

A mobile sales force will increase the discretion of individual front line employees, who will have direct access to customer information. This will improve the overall quality of the service and eventually, relationship with the customers. The benefits brought by Mobile CRM has made it very popular. As per the research conducted in 2014, a whopping 87% percent of the businesses used Mobile CRM as opposed to only 12% in 2008. this growth is not slowing down either.

Such growth and popularity is justified. As time has passed, we have observed an increased inclination to work on mobile phones. It is very obvious that people use mobile more than their desktops. Same goes for the businesses. The ease and flexibility provided by mobile technology is addictive and provides the employees and organizations with more options. Consequently, organizations are developing strategies to shift their entire CRM program on a network to enable mobile working. This trend has also led to growth in the number of mobile applications related to CRM as well.

How to Get Started With Mobile CRM

Any sensible organization would not vote for an overnight shift to Mobile Customer Relationship Management. This is because the management needs to win the approval of the sales force as well. More importantly, the organization should develop a cost benefit analysis of the strategy as well. In general, an organization must focus on the following areas before implementing a Mobile Customer Relationship Management strategy:

1. Getting the approval from inside:

This includes the employees as well. Especially the employees who will use the application must have a positive outlook towards it. The organization can begin by circulating the idea and proceed by providing in house training to the employees.

2. Introduction of the devices:

Before an organization starts rolling out members of sales force equipped with these devices, an introduction is required. To increase the interest of the sales force, device introduction should be interactive, where sales force members try the application themselves.

3. App usage:

The instructions to operate Mobile Customer Relationship Management application of your choice must also be provided. The transition from traditional to Mobile Customer Relationship Management must be made very easy for the staff.

4. Clarification of goals:

The sales force, who will put Mobile Customer Relationship Management to good use, must understand the goals behind putting such a strategy into motion. The new equipment will be used to its full potential only when the employees will have a clear image of what they have to achieve from it.

Employ Mobile CRM and Reap the Rewards

As we are well aware, much of the sales staff of a company is mobile nowadays. Although this is very feasible, it deprives the salesforce of the crucial information available at the office. Therefore, to compliment the mobile salesforce, mobile customer relationship management has now become a necessity. Using such a system, the organizational members can access the data about potential and current customers using a simple application on their smartphone. Apart from the obvious advantages in terms of time and flexibility, Mobile Customer Relationship Management provides a host of other strategic and commercial advantages.

Availability of Round the Clock Information:

Previously, when a sales representative would be on the road, he would be completely cutoff from the information about the client he would be visiting. With the help of Mobile Customer Relationship Management, the sales representative would be able to prepare up to the last minute for the meeting with the client.

In addition, he will also have the option to review the information and check whether he has missed anything. This will boost the productivity of the salesforce since he will be able to use the information.

Increase in Sales:

An immediate result of the increased productivity of the salesforce is increased sales. As more members will be able to meet their targets, the overall sales of the organization will skyrocket. Recent research about sales departments of various companies suggest that 65% of the salesforce in the companies with Mobile Customer Relationship Management achieved their quotas.

This figure was only 22 percent in the companies that operate without it. This improvement is due to the fact that instead of wasting time recalling whatever information a sales representative had about a customer, he can prepare. Moreover, the salesforce can work more precisely with the information at hand and can, therefore, produce better results for themselves and the company.

A Shorter Sales Cycle per Customer:

In a traditional setup, a sales representative would get the information required about the customer, have a conversation with that customer and return to the office. In a single trip, an employee would handle a maximum of four customers. At the office, the new information would be added to the database and the employee will be given a new task.

Such a tedious sales cycle increases the overall time taken and hurts the performance of the individual and the company as well. Mobile Customer Relationship Management solves this problem. The sales representative can directly update the customer database file from his smartphone and move on to the next customer. In this manner, a single sales representative is able to handle more customers a day which is good for the business, as it increases the customer base.

Efficient Production and Planning:

One of the most important tasks of management is to plan production and carry it out efficiently. To decide what to produce and the related quantities, managers need information about customers. Instead of waiting for the data to be provided by the sales staff, the production managers can now receive real time data from the Mobile Customer Relationship Management application.

This information will guide the production staff to channel the resources accurately to satisfy customer needs. Furthermore, with fresh information coming in almost daily, the organization can make better plans and focus on the implementation of those plans.

Development of Stronger Customer Insights:

The use of Mobile CRM will ensure that the salesforce will keep on bringing fresh information about the customers. However, developing meaningful insights from this information is very important.

With Mobile Customer Relationship Management, the burden on the management will be reduced, since the information cycle will be more or less automated. As a result, the management can focus on developing insights from the information brought in by the salesforce.

Unbeatable Flexibility:

Consider a scenario where a company operates a salesforce and uses Mobile Customer Relationship Management. In such an arrangement, the company can update every single member of the salesforce simultaneously with the use of Mobile Customer Relationship Management application.

Hence, whenever any fresh piece of information about a customer is received, it can be put on the cloud server where every member of the sales department can access it. This will relieve the trouble of the sales department since they will not have to update the concerned sales representative individually. Apart from that, the organization can extend the use of such a system to aid them in reassigning the jobs as well.

Low Costs of Training:

Since these applications are operated on smartphones, employees will already be familiar with its operation. Nowadays, smartphones are quite common and company will not have to train the employees exhaustively. The only new thing will be the application itself. With many applications available out there, the organization can select the one which is most familiar to the employees.

Accelerating Purchase Decisions:

Information flow in any sale is two way. Sales people are not the only recipients of information. The customer is also taking information from the sales representatives about the product they want to buy. In a traditional setup, a simple memory loss or a lack of availability of information would cause the entire sale to go down the gutter.

With Mobile Customer Relationship Management, such mishaps do not happen. The sales team member can easily fetch all the data required by the customers and provide it to them as per the need. In this manner, the customers always have the information they need to make the purchase and this leads to a prosperous business.

Betterment of Cash flows:

Extending the previous point, the information about billing also takes time to get processed. This time hurts the cash flow timing of the organization. Mobile CRM application helps here by providing a safe and quick path for the exchange of such sensitive information as well.

Conclusion

Mobile Customer Relationship Management serves as a very important tool for organizations in the modern competitive marketplace. A large number of organizations have already shifted to this option, whereas many are in transition. With the mobility of workforce, especially sales representatives, making information available on the go is no longer a matter of choice. It has become a necessity. Even though such setup requires initial investment, the rewards brought in by it are far greater. As a result, companies can employ a strategy for the implementation of a mobile CRM software and reap the aforementioned advantages that it brings.

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