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Is Now the Time for Mobile CRM?
As a fervent BlackBerry fan, I've been especially interested in the adoption of CRM on handheld devices. This is one of those areas that has been talked about for a long time before reaching any critical mass. Although mobile CRM almost seems like old news (nearly every CRM vendor offers a mobile component), the fact is that it's really just taking off among users.
There seem to be several reasons for this. One is that mobile professionals are starting to think more about how to get real business intelligence into their hands when they're on the road or with clients. Tony Castle, president and CEO of Castle CRM (a New York-based Sage Software partner), called this strategic access when we met earlier this week during a briefing with Sage on some news they'll be announcing in September. I had asked everyone their opinion on mobile adoption. He was making the point that mobile access to contact information and your calendar is great, but it's not enough. The real benefit is access to deeper customer and product data and historical information like purchase history. We recently covered this topic in our April magazine article "Business Intelligence in the Palm of Your Hand."
Another reason is the technology itself. Chris Reich, director, product management at Sage, pointed out that as the phone increasingly becomes integrated with handhelds, and thus those devices become more integrated with users' daily activities, demand is increasing for mobile CRM applications. "We've seen more interest in the first half of 2006 than we have in the past two years," he said. "It's on every RFP now." This doesn't surprise me, because it seems that companies are increasingly recognizing the benefits of real-time access to relevant customer information.
Sage's Larry Ritter, vice president of product management, pointed out that corporate IT support for mobile devices is more standard today than it used to be. In the past mobile users were often on their own when it came to support issues. This, of course, helps with the always challenging user-adoption issue.
What do you think? Are you a fan of mobile CRM? That is, access to real customer intelligence from anywhere, anytime? Or is it just a nice-to-have that will get more hype than true usage?
Yes, the time is ripe; in fact, it's a bit too late in 2006. Vendors that are not offering it yet are losing on something.
Further beyond a valuable addition to the Information Architecture used for customer management, I would like to point out the broader meaning of 'mobile CRM':
The mobile handset has become an inseparable part of our life, carried everywhere by billions(!) of people. No other electronic item has ever reached such ubiquity, not even transistor radios (and by far not iPods, despite the hype). The only personal technology item of similar omnipresence has been the (wrist)watch -- but even this is being replaced: research shows growing numbers of people leaving their watches behind, using the phone instead. If asked to pick only one item among iPods, cameras, game consoles, PDAs etc. people unanimously choose the phone.
Yet customer strategists don't seem to notice this trend! I have seen too many companies with a decent CRM deployment, proud of their 'multichannel capabilities' that do not take inbound SMS from their customers. When asked if they use the SMS channel, they usually respond "Of course, we run multiple SMS campaigns every day." Yes, you spam people with irritating messages that don't add value to the lives of 99.5% of recipients. But can they talk to you through this most natural, cost-efficient, and universally available channel?
I have (good) answers to all arguments that 'it's not easy' or 'they can always make a voice call from the same mobile' or 'technology cannot interpret what they wrote and using humans is inefficient' -- but the point is that mobile communications are the way we all live nowadays. SMS is only one (admittedly immensely popular) way to communicate, but there is mobile email, mobile chat, push-to-talk, mobile Web/WAP feedback forms, etc., etc.
Communication is crucial in relationship building, but the humble box in our pocket is more than a commuication device. It serves a growing number of needs from learning to entertainment to safety/security to being the new 'money,' and more.
It is time to start thinking about the opportunities this picture offers for adding more value to customers -- and receiving more value in return!