Top 5 Benefits of Mobile-First CRM

CRM or customer relationship management software is a powerful technology that has been constantly used by sales teams of businesses across many industry verticals for past 20+ years.

Traditionally, CRM databases were used on desktop computers. And though it still serves many important functions such as tracking customer relationships, set follow-up reminders and mapping of the sales pipeline – it remains stuck inside the office. It evolved as computing power increased with SaaS computing and became a powerful, software system rich with features. It is now capable of optimizing the sales funnel and giving valuable analytical statistics to the management and decision-makers.

However, despite its value, the sales rep could not retrieve any important information stored inside the desktop CRM. The kind of convenience they were looking for was unavailable to them as soon as they entered the field. The scenario has changed over time and market now has several mobile-first CRM solutions, such as ForceManager, which are providing much needed flexibility and autonomy. Mobile CRM, designed for mobile devices, gives access to customer data through a mobile app or a web-based browser with cloud CRM.

CRM: Some Quick Facts

1.   Gartner reports indicate that by 2017 the customer relationship management market will be globally worth $36.4B.

2.   For every $1 spent, CRM offers an average return of $5.60.

3.   Sales reps saw productivity increased by 15% when they had mobile access to CRM applications.

Here are the Top 5 Benefits of using a mobile CRM:

1.   Increase in Sales & It’s Completed Quicker First and foremost, a mobile CRM will increase sales. While they’re in the field, your sales rep will have instant access to account history, product information, pricing and promotional materials that in turn will help them close more deals and increase the overall deal value. As all of the necessary information will be available on their phones, they will not have to waste time looking up for contact info to remember the last conversation with a prospect. This shall remove the clutter helping them to create genuine relationships and ultimately closing more deals.

2.   Increased ROI on CRM as Data Collection Increases Manifolds Another key benefit of using mobile CRM is to allow your sales force to access real time data while out in the fields meeting prospects and customers. The mobile CRM makes it faster to collect valuable information, delivers insight into what is happening in the field and how to best allocate resources. By allowing sales reps to use the CRM in the field to update contacts, input notes, request information or submit a proposal, management will always have access to the latest customer data, thus increasing the return on the CRM investment.

3.   Enhanced Productivity Mobile CRM by utilizing core technologies on smartphones, tablets and all handheld/mobile devices gives instant info about an upcoming meeting, contact information and recent notes for the prospect without having to navigate separate applications or search at any other place. Thus, it boosts and maximizes the productivity of sales representatives. Having mobile CRM can be an enormous time-saver and helps in organizing and viewing your weekly agenda in a map-layout, optimize planning and make more client touches than otherwise possible.

4.   BYOD-Friendly A mobile CRM works impeccably across all devices and platforms, including wearable and syncs information across all such platforms. So adopting mobile-CRM for your company allow your sales team to use the mobile/handheld device they prefer most in the field. Additionally, it helps to keep pace or outpace competition in the marketplace and shun use of outdated mobile devices.

5.   Helps Provide Best Customer Service Earning customer loyalty isn’t easy. The objective is to acquire lifetime customers and so it’s critical that sales and customer service are aligned. Having access to the same updated information is imperative when it comes to finding, communicating and responding to queries, complaints and potential problems facing your current and future clients. Mobile CRM certainly makes it incredibly fast.

Conclusion

In 2015, having a mobile CRM will no longer be an option. This valuable technology shall be making your business more connected, your sales team more effective and management more efficient in allocating resources.  All that in turn will yield higher revenue because with mobile CRM – your sales teams won’t be wasting time in the office with data entry when they could be out closing more deals.

How Mobile Commerce Becomes a Force Multiplier in Ecommerce Domain?

Though it may not be the reality right now, just as using a shovel (not your hands!) can dramatically increase the effectiveness of your ability to dig a hole, mobile commerce has the potential to be the force multiplier for businesses in e-commerce domain. Accordingly, it will be a strategic priority for retailers of this domain to best serve the customers keeping in mind the type of device used by the consumer (mobile or stationary) along with his location, context and more.

The user experience on mobile devices will also need optimization so that the consumer completes a purchase, gets the best deal and receives a quality product that fits his needs. The size of screens has even hindered the growth of mobile commerce but with the availability of tablets and bigger smartphones, things are expected to change. Another hurdle, when it came to using a mobile device to shop online, was security.As soon as these things start to fall in place, E-mcommerce will soon move ahead. In fact, things are already changing fast as is evident from the facts provided below.

      Mobile Commerce: A Depiction of Past, Present & Future

Here’re a few facts about mobile commerce – how it’s advancing in the present and how it’s expected to fare in the coming 4-5 years.

# PayPal’s research
The spending figure for mobile shopping in 2013 was roughly $102 billion. Globally, mobile commerce is estimated to grow to roughly $291 billion in 2016.

# Digiday Goldman Sachs
By 2018, global e-commerce sales made via mobile devices are expected to reach an astounding figure of $638 billion, roughly the size of the world’s e-commerce market in 2013. Since tablets, not smartphones, will be the primary drivers of this growth, the gen-next tablets with innovative new features such as voice-control, cameras for 3-D imaging, measurements, etc., are expected to dominate mobile commerce sales.

# ABI Research
By 2015, global spend through mobile devices will come close to $119 billion, accounting for 8% of all e-commerce activity.

# EMarketer Report
M-commerce would amount for roughly 15% of all e-commerce sales by 2017. So if online retail sales will grow to roughly $434.2 billion by 2017… a little math says that’s roughly $65 billion would come from m-commerce.

So definitely, the mobile commerce is on the cusp of becoming a multi-billion dollar industry. Keeping that in mind, e-commerce companies/retailers will now have to launch mobile optimized websites facilitating consumers to research products online and execute the shopping transactions and think of much more distinct strategies for all, including – tablet users and smartphone users.

To seize the opportunity and be a part of the upcoming online retail growth revolution in the coming years, e-commerce merchants will have to act faster. A few suggestions:

•   For quick penetration in the ever-growing m-commerce marketplace, pursue aggressive mobile marketing and customer acquisition tactics to win in the long run. It calls for, taking a long-term, strategic view and immediately start investment in mobility, whether it’s mobile responsive websites or enterprise mobile apps.

•   Stay focused on site performance and execution – develop a user-friendly layout with minimal text, large buttons, little scrolling and make checkout as easy as possible from mobile devices. Delivering an experience of hassle-free intuitive shopping and quick checkout is key to conversion.

•   Make customer experiences fulfilling during the holiday period

•   Assure quick delivery of orders despite all odds, even if shoppers place the order at the last minute and delivery networks are congested.

Mobile Business Apps Trends in 2015

Mobile business apps continue to evolve in 2015 and the reasons are obvious. Mobile devices have made everything more accessible offering the kind of ease and convenience that wasn’t there before. Besides, they are productive, efficient and help business owners and customers alike. Furthermore, mobile-supported practices and protocols are easy to implement.

Having said that, would you not be interested to know what’s trending in Enterprise Mobile Apps in 2015 and how to make its best use.
Listing down the top mobile app trends of 2015:

Emphasis on Use of Analytics

While many app developers make the mistake of not having helpful mobile properties and in-app analytics in place, it is a strict no-no.

Having a solid data monitoring system will help save time, gather useful information and analyze business and increase efficiency and revenues in 2015. If taken seriously,  this is one of those 2015 enterprise mobile app trend that will help you improve your business every step of the way.

Emphasis on ROI & App Monetization

Although native development technologies gives a natural and intuitive user experience, HTML5 and other multi-platform app development tools are more resource efficient, so using them is recommended. This would greatly help to earn ROI, if an app is to be developed and maintained for three different operating systems considering that the number of enterprise mobile apps are on a continual increase.

So it is recommended that in 2015 a thoughtful app monetization strategy is devised to make the best use of multichannel application platforms that support both – native and HTML5 applications.

Improved User Interface (UI)

The user interface of Enterprise Mobile Apps will evolve from passive screens to proactive context-aware notifications in 2015. Such apps will use sensors and web services to anticipate user needs and provide the relevant type of interaction (e.g. touch, voice control) as needed; all making the screen a less significant part of how we interact with mobile apps.

Data quality

The data quality has emerged as a big issue and enterprises are most likely going to employ best available data quality solutions in 2015.

As enterprise mobile apps typically include information from multiple systems (e.g. ERP, CRM, etc.) on a single screen and dealing with obsolete or wrong information (all that comes under data quality) on small touchscreens is frustrating for users, firms will use integration platforms to match and duplicate data across multiple sources, thereby allowing users to work more effectively.

App Performance

App performance will become the critical element in 2015.

So such apps will be made that could work offline and are more responsive. This will ensure that users continue to work even when there is limited or no network connectivity.

Design Approach

Mobile apps must be designed to have compatibility for multiple platforms to keep up with the ever-increasing number of devices in the market in 2015. While the biggest demand is still for iOS apps, Android has also shown tremendous growth and your apps should reflect that, if you wish to be successful and accessible.

Diverse Choice but Select Executions

To give users seamless functionality and good navigation, an app design will have to give endless possibilities of features and options in 2015. So making a cool, unique and fun app, but that is not overloaded with excess features will be trending.

M2M communications

Using M2M communications will help in the following:
•    Generating timely, actionable data
•    Speed up decision-making,
•    Streamlining supply chains,
•    Understand customer demands, and
•    Bring new products to market quickly

So more and more companies are planning to add sensors and networking technologies to their products to find new ways to gather powerful insights. In fact, M2M communications are also being currently used in media & agriculture industry. While farmers use them to automatically adjust the composition and amount of fertilizer needed based on data from satellites and ground sensors, advertisers use these to enable billboards to display personalize messages to passers-by according to data collected from their mobile devices.

Geography

Geo-fencing features in enterprise mobile apps could help to track data based on customer location and this is another latest trend on a rise in 2015.

In a nutshell, those enterprise mobile apps will be the greatest hits that give 100% user-satisfaction because users are looking for functional apps that are directly usable, serve a specific function and concentrate on a few basic features that work seamlessly – rather than a huge app that does a million things at once.