You’re relaxing on a Sunday afternoon, watching your favorite sport on TV, or just enjoying a cool drink out on the deck.  Suddenly, you get that sense of mild panic as you remember that you’re traveling on business tomorrow and you really need to prepare… 

In days gone by, at this point you’d reluctantly get up from your comfortable seat, search for your laptop, open it up, and peruse the travel and meetings schedule to remind yourself of who you’re meeting and when and where those meetings are. 

But this method is very 20th century.  Today, nearly all reputable CRMs have some form of mobile accessibility provided at no extra cost (often included in the main user license fee).  So, if you use a CRM solution at your company, chances are, all you would need to do to prepare for your trip is take your phone out of your pocket.  But this isn’t the only good thing about mobile CRM. This feature offers several benefits that can vastly improve your CRM usage.  

Easy Access to Information 

Well, it’s generally true that the easier it is to find information, the more likely it is that we will act on it or leverage it more often.  It all comes to down to taking the path of least resistance.  If I have to spend a few minutes on my laptop, compared to a few seconds on my phone — either on an application or via a mobile-friendly website — guess which one I’ll use more? 

While there are many higher-level benefits to using mobile CRM, sometimes it just comes down to the question of, “What will make my life a little easier?” 

For example, imagine you are taking a trip to see a client.  You no longer need to locate client information on your computer and manually transfer it to your phone or car GPS system before your trip.  Now you can instantly locate client information by opening the account or company record in mobile CRM, clicking on the address in the record, and allowing your mapping application to determine the best route. 

Better On-Site Client Meetings 

Let’s say you have some time to kill after you meet with your client.  Rather than waiting until later to write up your meeting notes at the office or at home, you can open mobile CRM and compile your notes into the “Notes” or “Activity” module right on your phone.  You can ether type them out or press the microphone icon and simply dictate your notes directly into the appropriate module.  (Speech-to-text can be used in many other mobile CRM modules, but avoiding tedious notetaking is by far one of the neatest time-savers for mobile CRM users). 

Now let’s say that meeting with your client went really well and they want to place an order – right there and then.  If you have a CRM that’s integrated with your ERP system, then you will have access to quotes and order forms in mobile CRM.  So, placing that urgent order can be done right from your phone in front of the client. 

Increased Employee User Adoption 

Another benefit that is often overlooked is that mobile CRM increases employee CRM user adoption.  Certain age groups are more familiar and thus more comfortable with using modern CRM platforms – so it’s no surprise that younger people generally adopt CRM more quickly.  However, all age groups can adopt modern CRM platforms – especially with mobile devices. 

Older ager groups, who might feel uneasy about learning a new platform on their computer, often don’t have the same reluctance when using CRM on their phones.  One explanation for this phenomenon is the fact that due to the relatively small size of phone screens, mobile CRM applications or websites are trimmed-down versions of their parent CRM solutions.  Phone screens are thus less cluttered and easier to navigate, ensuring quicker adoption for users – whatever age they are. 

Mobile CRM is invariably easy to use and deploy and adds value to your company’s CRM investment.

For more information, contact us to discuss your mobile CRM needs.