Introduction

Is your CRM slowing down rather than speeding things up? You are not alone. Many businesses today struggle with transactional CRMs that are time consuming and cumbersome.  HBR report reveals that traditional CRMs often fail due to poor user adoption.  Sales reps, the heart of any revenue-generating business, find transactional CRMs to be disruptive to their daily tasks.

This is exactly where a Mobile CRM can step in to make a difference. 

Sales reps and account managers are constantly on the move, juggling between multiple tasks and customer interactions.  They don’t just need another tool.  They need a powerful, easy-to-use mobile CRM that makes it easy for them to access and update customer  information anytime and anywhere. This empowerment improves their operational efficiency, sales productivity and as well transforms the way they work. 

With smart phones usage on the rise, adopting a mobile CRM strategy becomes essential.

Here are some topics that could guide you with your mobile CRM strategy –

1. Three Strategic Imperatives To Consider A Mobile CRM
2. Key Factors For Selecting The Right Mobile CRM
3. Top 10 Benefits Of A Mobile CRM
4. Mobile CRM With Personal Assistant
5. What Are The Ideal Features To Have In A CRM Mobile Application?
6. Conclusion

THREE STRATEGIC IMPERATIVES TO CONSIDER A MOBILE CRM

Execution

In this hyper-competitive environment, ability-to-execute will define an organization’s success. Execution is all about getting things done in an effective and efficient manner.

This becomes more relevant when your business relies on customer-facing teams. They are usually juggling and balancing many activities.

Companies’ priority should be to make their team’s time best utilized for revenue-generating activities. Their teams should not spend time on mundane non-revenue tasks. That way, high productivity levels will help in meeting company objectives..

Customer Intelligence

Customer intelligence is another aspect that feeds into business performance. Superior intelligence about customers will help you gain competitive advantage to outperform competition.

We all know that reps who engage with customers often will have the most intelligence. It is thus imperative for organizations to make sure this intelligence gets captured. And also have a process to keep this intelligence for future use.

User Adoption

User adoption is a critical factor for successful CRM (Customer Relationship Management) initiative. As per an analyst report, more than 46% of CRM projects fail due to poor user-adoption. Organizations will have to consider all aspects to drive adoption for a successful project.

Organizations can achieve these only with a comprehensive mobile CRM software strategy. Mobile CRMs equip your teams with full CRM access on their devices. It can deliver unique distinct capabilities that are not possible through conventional CRMs.

KEY FACTORS FOR SELECTING THE RIGHT MOBILE CRM

While making a mobile CRM investment, one needs to consider requirements of end users as well as organizations.

End-User Perception

End-users perceive CRM software as a tool meant for managers to track team’s activities. Reps believe CRMs only benefit managers to micro-manage, and it is not meant for their needs. As a result, users are usually not very motivated to use CRM systems.

Business leaders and managers will need to fix this perception. They should position the CRM initiative as one focused towards the rep’s requirements. End users need to buy-in to the CRM application plan without any hesitation.

Alignment of Priorities

Sales reps prefer to be left alone to focus on what they know best – sell. They like to be independent and creative when it comes to managing all their activities. They love to spend time with their customers and opportunities. And they hate to spend time on mundane activities that make them less productive.

Most reps believe that CRM tools do not add much value to their personal work. Rather, they think it is counter-productive.

They will use a mobile CRM app only when they see their productivity levels going up. They will engage with these tools once they see its impact on their personal performance.

Easy-to-Use

The biggest impediment for poor CRM adoption is the factor of ease-of-use. It is very important for users to find the mobile CRM app very easy to use and intuitive. They should find it as easy as any other app like whatsapp or Facebook app that they engage with.

The user interface (UI) , user experience (UX) and design aspects play a key role in motivating users to engage more often with the mobile CRM application.

Lack of Customer Intelligence and Data Quality

It is reported that less than 30% of valuable customer information makes it into CRM systems. This is due to the many factors we discussed till now. Without adequate customer intelligence, organizations cannot leverage data for strategic decisions.

Companies need to motivate and make it easy for users to engage more with their mobile customer relationship management CRM. Only then will they have them capture intelligence about their customers and stakeholders.

High Attrition

High attrition among reps often leads to organizations losing out on valuable customer intelligence. This information could have been well leveraged to gain competitive advantage. Also, without access to this intelligence, new reps will take a lot of time to get productive.

Companies need to have a strategy to get their reps to capture all the intelligence. They will also have to make sure that the data is always available in the future and not lost due to attrition.

Industry Best-practices

A new CRM initiative should help companies adopt some industry best practices. It will then propel a learning culture in an organization to drive exemplary performance.

Over a period of time, organizations will start seeing amazing results. They will be able to justify the return on investment (ROI) of CRM.

Disconnected Processes

Disconnected processes always lead to inefficiencies across the value chain in any company. Digital intervention and automation go a long way in fixing many of these process gaps.

If executed well, tremendous efficiency gain is possible to boost business performance.

Excel Hell

Spreadsheets and excels are great tools for calculations and managing standalone data. But it gets complicated when you start running your business on these spreadsheets. It is not easy to control, manage and share these across the enterprise. Business dependency on these sheets leads to inefficiencies, data loss, inaccuracies and leakages.

Organizations will have to strive towards structured data with a single-version-of-truth. This is possible only through a proper CRM strategy.

Change Management

While introducing a new CRM solution, leaders should make change management very easy. Continuous communication with their teams would help everyone appreciate its strategic need. Teams should be onboard and support the new initiative.

CRM project roll-out needs to be well planned and thought-out with minimal disruption.

User Training

If not planned well, organizations end up spending a lot of effort and money to get users trained. It is important to select a CRM mobile app that is very easy and intuitive; and does not require extensive training.

It will make it easy for users to embrace the CRM solution and use it well in a short time.

Ease of Deployment

Deployment of any new technology requires one to consider many factors. These include time, resources, governance, change management, training needs, best-practices, etc.

Easy deployment of a new CRM solution will improve the chances of a successful project. It will also reduce associated costs and risks.

Customization Needs

One needs to assess the amount of customization during the initial stage. It is important to make sure that there are no surprises later.

The mobile CRM solution needs to meet the team’s expectations when they start using it. This will also have a direct bearing on the effort, time and cost of implementation.

Total-Cost-of-Ownership (TCO)

Generally for any CRM initiative, organizations interact with two entities. One is the software vendor and other is the consulting or implementation partner. The latter provides consulting services towards configuration, customization, implementation and training.

Organizations thus end up budgeting for two vendors. This often leads to very high costs. One should also factor in expenses towards infrastructure and ongoing support.

Data Security

In this era of connected systems, data security and associated risks become very important. Data is the new fuel nowadays. One cannot afford to make any compromises when it comes to aspects on data security.

The CRM solution project should adhere to the best of the data security standards.

TOP 10 BENEFITS OF A MOBILE CRM

High User Adoption

With the right CRM mobile app, one can expect very high user adoption and engagement. It should be like what we see in the case of popular apps viz. whatsapp, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram etc.

More Customer Intelligence

High user adoption and engagement increases the amount of customer intelligence in the CRM. It also helps you improve and maintain the quality of data.

Mobile CRM app helps users to capture and update customer data with ease. This data could range from contact details, opportunity status updates, next steps, minutes of the meeting, competition activities etc.

Improved Sales Performance & Velocity

Your field-warriors should have easy access to customer information. That will empower them to better engage and interact with their customers. As a result, you will witness significant improvement in their performance and sales velocity.

Right mobile CRM software will help them retrieve required data with ease. This could include customer data, past interactions, opportunity stages,  sales pipeline,  next steps, pricing etc.

A recent research revealed that 65% of sales professionals working at companies with mobile CRM achieved their sales targets, as against 22% from companies without mobile CRM strategy.

Higher Productivity

There are unique features that mobile CRM solutions deliver for high user productivity.

These include voice-enabled notes, business card scanning, GPS to capture customer address, mobile personal assistant, calendar integration etc. With these, users can save a lot of time and can focus on their core business activities.

A recent study reported that the productivity levels of teams using mobile CRM increased by over 15%.

Competitive Advantage

Data is the new fuel. Due to above reasons, all the intelligence and insights will now get captured with a mobile CRM app. This information will always be available to feed in to better decision making. This can deliver unparalleled competitive advantage to any company.

Convenience

Users find it convenient to use a CRM mobile app as compared to any conventional desktop application. It provides customer-facing professionals the flexibility to use it anytime anywhere. They don’t have to now worry about carrying their heavy laptops everywhere. Also, it gets much faster to log in to mobile apps and easier to navigate through very few screens to get their job done.

Affordability

In the last few years, smartphones and tablets have become very affordable. Also, with BYOD policies, organizations need not make huge investments in devices.

Most mobile CRM systems, like HappSales, are now available as software-as-a-service (SaaS) subscription. As a result, organizations need not worry about huge upfront capex investments. This also allows them to reduce their risks.

Less Training Needs

Mobile CRM tools are designed to be easy-to-use and intuitive. This eliminates the need for any extensive training.

Improved Success Rate of CRM projects

All the above factors make sure that the success rate of CRM solutions are now much higher with a mobile-first strategy

Leverage Gig Economy

New trends around the gig economy allow organizations to create a large talent pool. Companies can provide the associates with a simple mobile CRM app to get started. Reps can be empowered with required information to engage with clients. Features like attendance, punch-in punch-out, etc. helps companies to track team’s activities.

MOBILE CRM WITH COPILOT

Sales professionals and account managers are constantly under pressure. They have to do more with less, and be more productive in less time with fewer resources.

That’s where a New-gen playbook with Copilot can make a difference.  No more struggle to update customer data and interactions manually. With AI powered Copilot, sales reps can update opportunities, activities and capture client interaction on the go. Thus sales reps can focus more on revenue generating activities and less on mundane tasks.

A Copilot with mobile CRM can help by –

• Voice Commands – Reps can speak to their CRM, dictate notes and set activities using voice commands.
• Smart Reminders – Intuitive Activity dashboards and automated reminders helps the team to be on track with all upcoming meetings, tasks, and deadlines.
• Real-time insights – AI can analyze interactions and suggest personalized recommendations based on previous insights

This radically enhances the productivity of the sales reps and enhances that no important detail falls through the cracks. 

WHAT ARE THE IDEAL FEATURES TO HAVE IN A CRM MOBILE APPLICATION?

1. Digital personal-assistant for users
2. Easy access to Account & Contact intelligence and data
3. Ability to view the org structure of the account
4. Business Card Scanning to effortlessly scan and capture customer data
5. Easy updation of customer database to keep it up-to-date
6. Voice-enabled for easy data capture
7. Opportunity & Pipeline Management
8. Lead management
9. Capability to easily capture customer interaction details and minutes of the meeting
10. Activity management and reporting
11. Integration with calendar (like google calendar)
12. Quotation management
13. Reminders & Alerts
14. Access to digitized documents and forms; with option for signatures
15. Access user notifications
16. Attendance Management with GPS
17. Expense Management
18. Offline Support while operating in remote locations with no telecom network coverage
19. Access to Performance Reports and Dashboards

CONCLUSION

A mobile-first strategy for a CRM solution is a low-hanging option with the highest impact. It gives an opportunity to turn CRM into a strategic tool for execution and growth.

A right mobile CRM app will give your users the confidence before you embark on a CRM initiative. They will be completely supportive of your steps in this strategic direction.

Organizations have to consider this investment on priority. They have to equip their teams with the right ammunition and tools. Only then will they be able to win your battles in the marketplace against competition.

It has also become a necessity to provide these tools to support your remote employees. They need easy access to the right customer information to get their jobs done better.

Mobile CRM application with personal-assistant will deliver many more benefits. These include high user adoption, better productivity, compliance and hygiene. All such factors are vital for a successful and effective CRM project.

Author Bio
Author Name: Navin Nair
Navin is the Founder & CEO of HappSales. He comes with 25+ years of industry experience in sales and key account management. Armed with vast experience, insights and a great team, he is on a mission to help companies and customer-facing teams in getting their jobs done faster & better, while maximizing their happiness quotient!