September 1, 2014
By Sarah Sluis,

Could Mobile CRM Solve Field Sales' Biggest Problems?

makes CRM more helpful to salespeople. There are also apps that leverage mobile devices to bring information into the sales meeting, helping marketing see what content is helpful and allowing companies to track how information is digested after the sales call.

Taking Advantage of What's Intrinsically Mobile

The wrong way to go about mobile CRM is to simply move all functionality from a desktop system to a mobile system, Gartner's DeSisto cautions. It would be excessive and ignore all the unique properties of mobile technology. Instead, he advises sales application managers to focus on task-driven mobile applications that consider what a salesperson's day looks like and design features to help them sell and be more productive. The challenge is "identifying new processes that mobility can enable versus automating existing processes that may now be outdated," DeSisto writes in the report "Mobile Devices Are a Major Disrupter for Sales Applications."

To increase adoption, companies are already providing applications that cater to users' existing mobile technology habits. For instance, many people check their phone first thing in the morning. Clari organizes its tasks around a rep's day, greeting him with a "good morning" and showing him relevant emails, appointments, and news articles and social media posts affecting his business.

Selligy's app knows when the mobile device is stationary or moving, and uses that to decide when to push the end-of-meeting questionnaire. For example, if a meeting is scheduled from 3:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. and the user hasn't moved by 4:00 p.m., it won't show up. Once it picks up on movement, a likely sign the meeting is over, the sales rep will receive a push notification asking her to fill out a survey, allowing her to quickly update the system in the elevator or during the walk to her car.

Insightly takes advantage of the camera feature, enabling users to snap a photo and attach it to the record. Its app, like many others, lets users click to call or text from within the app, allowing them to launch a new program without toggling to another first.

Many mobile applications will launch a maps application from the contact or calendar screen. Selligy's app goes a step further, and lets a user know just how many minutes he has before he needs to depart for his next meeting.

Mobile, unlike laptops, comprehends context, and has more potential to understand the actions and behavior of its users. Gartner calls this "cognizant computing," and predicts that technology providers that "adapt their strategy to exploit this will generate new revenue, find new ways to differentiate themselves, and foster engagement via mobile apps," according to a May 2014 report by analysts Andrew Chetham and Jessica Ekholm. Mobile CRM may not have all the functionality of a desktop system, but its ability to use context can aid in gathering more data and improving the productivity of the salesperson.

Mobile for Sales Content

Tablets are sleek and impressive, and they're also an excellent place for salespeople to turn when they're stumped or need to answer a question correctly to comply with regulations. "Mobile is the answer to the problem 'I don't have the resources with me on

Previous Page Next Page