September 1, 2014
By Sarah Sluis,

Could Mobile CRM Solve Field Sales' Biggest Problems?

the call.' We're asking salespeople to go out and sell at the speed of change. There are changes to the economy, customer expectations, new products/enhancements, and we inflict change on top of that. So how do salespeople keep up?" Dickie asks. One way is by arming reps with mobile devices filled with product information, inventory, and other materials to keep them from getting stuck on a call. The content space includes tools such as Savo, Brainshark, Clearslide, MobilePoint, and Showpad.

Mobile-first solution Showpad puts marketing materials at salespeople's fingertips to help them sell. It also gives marketing teams insight into what materials are actually useful during sales meetings. The company, which has more than 500 customers, has seen particularly strong traction in manufacturing, where salespeople may not have in-depth knowledge of all the SKUs its company sells, and life sciences, where they are restricted in the types of claims they make. The app was developed with the consumer experience in mind. "The goal, at the end of the day, is to make a salesperson's job easier. They really want to have all the capabilities at their desk out in the field, and do as little admin work as possible," says Julie Zisman, Showpad's head of marketing. She touts 60 to 80 percent adoption rates for the tablet and smartphone-based app.

Tablets can do more than impress prospects; they can increase the confidence of the reps themselves. "Salespeople sell what they're comfortable selling. They don't know what questions people will ask, or all the information about the competitors. By putting that into [content apps], you'll make salespeople comfortable selling products, they'll do it more, and you'll get better [new] product adoption," Zisman says.

Winning Over the End User First

Enterprise software is becoming more like consumer software, and there's nowhere this is more apparent than in mobile apps. On a desktop, enterprise software developers can keep adding features, but that simply isn't possible on a mobile device. They are also building apps in environments designed not just for enterprises, but for consumers as well. Developers of iPhone apps work off Apple's guidelines, which are designed to ensure simple, user-friendly experiences.

"You can no longer get away with clunky business apps," says Jesse Gibbs, senior product manager at Insightly. "It's becoming the expectation that apps where you have to refer to a manual are no longer acceptable, and that used to be the norm." Insightly, which targets small businesses that don't have much time to learn systems, made sure to pare down its offerings on its mobile app. "Our goal is to not necessarily replicate everything on the Web site," Gibbs says. Instead the developer chooses which features might be most valuable to users on the go.

"Hiding complexity [is] the hardest part of getting mobile CRM right. You can't ignore the complexity, because you won't end up with the data the organization needs. And you can't show the complexity to the user, because he just won't use it," says Chris van Loben Sels, Selligy's director of business development and marketing.

Many of these mobile-first companies aren't just designing for the end user, they're also selling to the end user. "I've been in CRM for a long time, and it's always frustrated me that the end users of the product, whether it's Siebel or Salesforce.com, never liked the products we sold. They were built for the needs of the company, and purchased by the company. That's why you see the low adoption rates of enterprise software in general, and CRM is the worst offender," Tactile's Ganapathi says. His company's app, Tact, is available for free in Apple's App Store. The app has spread organically through organizations, starting with one user and growing to dozens in the same organization, "without making any effort to pitch the product to them," he says. The company expects to sell its app in the same model as Box.com, which offers a free version and then upsells to enterprises trying to add features and security to the cloud storage system. "We think this is the future of business applications," he says.

Selligy takes a similar approach, offering a free version to an individual user available in the App Store. Enterprise accounts cost from $40 to $75 per user, per month, but include features such as forecasting and the ability to update custom fields that appeal to enterprises.

Clari, which offers a free trial of its app through its Web site, is chasing after potential enterprise accounts with added features sales managers can use with the data they're receiving from their mobile workforce. "We're seeing CEOs and CFOs are arguably as addicted to the experience as the reps are, because it's so simple for them to engage and see where things stand with deals," Clari's Byrne says.

Designing for the end user and selling to the end user both flip traditional enterprise models on their head. DeSisto, though, is not completely convinced this "land and expand" model will work for all sales apps, noting that he has plenty of free versions of apps he finds perfectly useful without upgrading to paid versions. While that may be true for an individual salesperson, it's not necessarily true for a team. "The value for the enterprise comes from adoption across the entire team. It gives them new visibility. The upsell from a couple of people to a whole team unleashes value," van Loben Sels says.

The Future of Mobile CRM

Done right, mobile CRM promises to improve the quality and amount of data salespeople are entering into their CRM system. It gives managers visibility into what's going on in the field, and enables them to connect those same reps back to the office with better marketing materials or details about an account from another department. "Our view is that CRM is the backbone upon which people are running their businesses," Byrne says of Clari. "We seek to complement and get more out of that CRM system." Mobile CRM's benefits are myriad, but for NewVoiceMedia's Girolami, the end benefit is not for businesses, but those they serve. "It gives the business more insight, and you're going to give the customer a better experience."

Contact the editor at editor@destinationcrm.com.