- Mobile CRM software is designed for mobile devices and usually has corresponding desktop versions.
- The key benefits of using a mobile CRM center on keeping your sales, marketing and customer service fully functional wherever, whenever.
- When implementing a CRM, you should prioritize your offline needs, team, technology and growth goals.
- This article is for business owners and sales department leaders who are interested in purchasing a mobile customer relationship management (CRM) software solution.
These days, most important business software platforms come with mobile apps, and customer relationship management software (CRM) is no exception. In fact, mobile CRMs are uniquely dynamic tools that are so powerful that you need to fully understand them to properly harness them.
What is mobile CRM?
Mobile CRM describes CRM software that you can use on smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices without losing any of the functionality and user-friendliness of the program's desktop version. Through mobile CRM, your sales, customer service and marketing teams can log into and use your CRM software wherever, whenever. This flexibility makes mobile CRM ideal for traveling sales professionals, conference and trade show use, working from home, and more. [Read related article: How to Choose CRM Software]
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Growth of mobile CRM
The growth of mobile CRM software is tied to the growth of the mobile market app as a whole. With more and more users wanting to access their programs from their smartphones and tablets, businesses have made developing mobile apps for the software a priority.
Research shows that the mobile app market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.4% between 2019 and 2026. This massive CAGR stems from consumers demanding mobile app availability.
CRM software is contributing to that growth. Research forecasts a 13% CAGR in the mobile CRM market by 2029. A prominent factor in this growth is widespread CRM use in the healthcare and finance industries. Mobile CRM has also grown due to the rise of flexible pricing models over traditional subscriptions. These newer models give companies more control over how the money they spend on mobile CRM benefits them.
Today's employees want on-the-go CRM access, and your customers likely expect around-the-clock service. As such, mobile CRM isn't just useful for business – it's the modern-day standard.
What are the benefits of mobile CRM?
There are a number of benefits of mobile CRM, including:
- Real-time CRM data. Mobile CRM platforms give you the very latest information about your sales pipeline, urgent needs, salesperson activity and more, just like a CRM dashboard does.
- On-the-go data. As you and your employees move from location to location or navigate myriad programming options at a conference, mobile CRMs remove any limits on accessing your data. A mobile CRM allows your sales, marketing and customer service employees can keep doing their jobs while they're on the move or located elsewhere.
- Better sales processes and customer service. If a sales prospect contacts your company with a question, an untimely response could turn a likely deal into a lost one. Likewise, if a customer reaches out to your company for help, a slow response may make the customer feel unattended to, thus they are more likely to shop elsewhere. With mobile CRM, you avoid these struggles since your team has the information and quick access to handle inquiries as they happen.
- Instant scheduling. With a mobile CRM, your team has full access to scheduling tools, so instant calendar additions are no problem. As a result, mobile CRM reduces the likelihood of missed sales.
- Instant data analysis and reporting. You can analyze recent data and compile reports with just a few taps on your smartphone or tablet screen.
- Data and contact updates. In addition to analyzing data, your team can update information wherever they are located with a mobile CRM. If, for example, a member of your sales team just ended a promising meeting and needs to immediately update their prospect's contact card, they can do just that in seconds with a mobile CRM.
- Remote file organization and sharing. Sales, marketing and customer service teams quickly generate piles of documents. Members of these departments can organize and share these documents from any location at any time. The result is a more organized, cohesive team.
Considerations for implementing mobile CRM
When implementing a mobile CRM for your company, keep the following considerations in mind:
1. Think about your whole team.
It's easy to gauge the value of CRM software purely in terms of how it makes work easier for your sales, marketing and customer service reps. However, if there are ways your CRM can make work easier for other departments, such as HR or logistics, structure your mobile CRM to benefit these teams, too.
You should also consider how your mobile CRM can facilitate communications across all of your departments. You can streamline this communication through your CRM software's information-sharing or built-in messaging tools.
2. Know why you're using your mobile CRM.
Chances are that your overarching mission when using CRM software is to save your team invaluable time. You'll likely have a similar goal when implementing a mobile CRM solution, but you should get more specific. That's because, given the numerous advantages of mobile CRM, you likely can't harness every benefit. Instead, decide which advantages your mobile CRM will directly facilitate the most.
For example, if your primary reason for using a mobile CRM is to support the needs of your team so they can be entirely remote, focus on dial-in features instead of reporting. This way, your team can easily convene for calls without ever being in the same room. If your main need with mobile CRM is minimizing your team's workload upon returning from work travel, focus on mobile data access and reporting.
3. Look at the larger technological picture.
When you think of mobile CRMs, you might think of employees accessing the CRM software on their personal phones. In reality, this picture presents a few potential problems.
For starters, personal phone CRM use erases work-life balance for employees. It's also a security issue, as a lost personal phone could suddenly jeopardize your company's information. Additionally, there are potential installation problems, as some mobile CRM apps only work on iPhone or Android, but not both. And certainly, your team's personal phones aren't all one or the other.
That's why you should look beyond the mobile CRM to all of the technology that your team will use. This might mean buying work smartphones or tablets for your team and restricting mobile CRM use to only these devices. It also entails taking steps to ensure the security of your CRM and the data it holds. From endpoint to endpoint, your CRM should be secure and user-friendly for your whole team.
4. Consider your offline CRM needs.
In an ideal world, your mobile CRM is accessible all the time. In reality, not all locations have uninterrupted internet access despite the prevalence of Wi-Fi. You'll need to consider your mobile CRM's offline capabilities as you find a solution.
As you search for the right app, ask yourself: Can your mobile CRM facilitate reporting and data analysis without real-time updates? Can it store your employees' offline updates for syncing once the employee comes back online? A good CRM should do both with no issue.
5. Keep your mobile CRM flexible.
Flexibility is key when choosing a mobile CRM solution. Flexibility doesn't solely pertain to employee ease of access at all times and locations; it also pertains to a CRM's ability to be easily modified and fully scalable.
For example, if your company pursues an international growth opportunity, you need your mobile CRM to have multilingual and multicurrency features. It should also integrate seamlessly with other platforms and scale across all your departments.
A mobile CRM that you can use today should always be ready for use tomorrow – more sales, marketing and customer service tools often mean more customers, which is why you're using CRM in the first place.