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Equip Your Sales Team to Close Deals in a
Slowing Economy
Workforce mobilization has become a key competitive requirement for
most companies seeking to create greater intimacy and presence with customers.
However, enabling mobility is more than just providing laptops and mobile phones
to your sales force and sending them out into the field. It’s about selecting
the appropriate technologies and offering the right user experience so your team
can be more productive.
 Many businesses have already realized that a Customer Relationship Management
(CRM) tool gives them a better understanding of their customers’ needs, driving
revenue, customer satisfaction and loyalty. For the most part, the goals of
“mobile” CRM are not fundamentally different from “desktop” CRM. Mobile CRM is
about leveraging the unique advantages of a CRM environment even when employees
are on the go.
While mobile CRM has traditionally been addressed by outfitting users with
laptops, today’s mobile CRM extends the computing environment even further to
the latest in smartphones, like BlackBerry® and Windows Mobile® devices. These
smartphones integrate voice, e-mail, and other data services in a incredibly
convenient hand-held form.
Why not just use laptops?
While laptops will always play a critical role in the mobile toolset,
smartphones introduce some unique advantages ideally suited for mobile
professionals, especially for CRM. These advantages, as measured against
traditional laptop computing, are:
Form factor – Smartphones are far less obtrusive than laptops—ideally
suited for tightly-packed airline seats, taxis, or subways. They are often used
for pre-meeting research before customer or prospect engagements (sometimes even
in the customer’s lobby) and they ensure that data is always available and
accessible and not confined to those situations where it’s “convenient” to use -
it’s always convenient.
Immediacy – Real-time information access and capture requires a device
that is ready on touch. Smartphones are specifically designed to be highly
responsive and available. This ensures that valuable customer and prospect data
and opportunities are always captured. Alerts can be sent to the wireless device
from the CRM system either on demand from internal personnel or as triggered by
a critical event.
 Discreetness – For capturing or referencing timely data, it’s not always
practical, convenient, or even appropriate to pull out a laptop during a
face-to-face conversation. Smartphones provide a level of discreetness that
doesn’t disrupt business flow or conversations when being accessed to retrieve
or input information.
Benefits of Mobile CRM
While users have been able to access basic contact details on devices for some
time, truly mobile CRM is a holds great potential to significantly transform the
way mobile professionals can connect to and interact with business-critical
information—driving revenues, productivity, and customer satisfaction. Mobile
CRM on a smartphone offers unique benefits for your organization because it:
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SalesLogix Mobile
Sage SalesLogix Mobile CRM for BlackBerry® and other mobile devices allows you
to view, edit, and add contact and account details, take notes, schedule
meetings, complete activities, update opportunities, and issue and review ticket
information, all from a handheld device. You can easily access key customer
information using quick lookups or filtered searches. You always have access to
the most up-to-date customer information, whether in the office or on the road.
SalesLogix Mobile is tightly integrated into the host smartphone environment.
Rich features such as one-click dialing or e-mailing from contact or activity
records, handwriting recognition, BlackBerry dashboard capabilities, and
integration with Pocket Outlook enable mobile workers to get the most from Sage
SalesLogix, while taking advantage of the convenience and productivity afforded
by their handheld devices.
Easy mobile access to CRM means that more information is captured and
transparently synchronized with the company-wide CRM system so it can be
immediately accessed by all members of the sales, support, and management teams.
Similarly, as internal users engage on a customer issue and update the CRM
system internally, critical updates can be synchronized with mobile sales
professionals, in real-time.
Learn more about:
SalesLogix Mobile
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- Empowers your field team by adding another layer of convenience, which
translates into increased effectiveness and greater job satisfaction.
- Improves the quality and timeliness of the customer/prospect data added to
the CRM system. Making it easier for mobile users to input data means more
data will be added to the customer record, and therefore data will be more
timely, accurate, and complete.
- Streamlines and even accelerates sales or service processes as information
can be immediately retrieved or requested. It also improves the mobile user’s
ability for on-the-spot problem solving. Many to-dos and follow-up action
items that used to be done offline can be eliminated as problem resolution can
be initiated in real time.
- Increases customer satisfaction through greater responsiveness from the
field professional and customer service and support, especially through
streamlining urgent questions and requests onto the appropriate parties.
- Increases revenue for field sales teams by moving opportunities through
the pipeline more efficiently. And, these greater efficiencies and
productivity mean that the mobile sales professional has the flexibility to
visit more clients and close more deals, sooner.
What's My Payback?
Mobile CRM helps organizations deliver on the goals of their CRM initiative
through increased revenue, improved productivity, and greater customer
satisfaction and loyalty. While productivity and loyalty are softer metrics to
measure, the return on investment for mobile CRM, especially within field
sales-focused organizations, will ultimately be measured in terms of revenue
realized.
For example, working towards a productivity goal, if a 10-person sales force can
be made 10 percent more productive through mobile CRM by driving greater
efficiency around key sales tasks and activities or by allowing quicker
follow-up on leads, the sales force has virtually been increased to 11, without
an additional headcount or associated expenses.
Similarly, for customer loyalty, if customer churn can be reduced by 10 percent
through better service and response, the organization is no longer replacing
existing customers with new customers, but effectively gaining and building the
customer base at an accelerated rate.
When measured against the potential for fully realizing your CRM goals and
ultimately increasing revenues, the payback for an investment made in mobile CRM
can be measured in months for most organizations.
Click here to learn more about SalesLogix Mobile |
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