Mobile CRM

Waiting for B2B Mobile CRM
October 16, 2012

It is not hard at all to find an example of a mobile B2C CRM app -- all one has to do is fire up the nearest smartphone. But B2B mobile CRM? That is a qualified yes -- assuming one is willing to limit one's thinking to salesforce automation as a B2B discipline. To be sure, there is a case to be made for that argument. When, though, will B2B mobile CRM expand beyond this traditional deployment?

Mobile CRM Gives Retailers Ammo Against Showrooming
October 09, 2012

Showrooming enabled by the proliferation of smartphones has become the bane of brick-and-mortar retailers. Basically, consumers waltz into a local Best Buy or similar big box store, find the product they are thinking of buying and check it out. So far, so good, from the retailer's perspective -- only then they go online to buy it from an etailer like Amazon.

Bizness CRM Homes In on SMB Prospects
October 05, 2012

There are countless of CRM apps for small businesses, Bizness Apps CEO Andrew Gazdecki readily admits. But CRM apps aimed at companies that sell to small businesses? Not so much. Enter Bizness Apps, which has launched Bizness CRM, a Web-based app, as well as native iPhone app, that is aimed precisely at this constituency.

Mobile CRM Gets Gamified
October 02, 2012

CRM is a mature software category with a decades-plus history of development and evolution. Still, one important problem remains unsolved: A lot of employees, especially sales staff, just can't be bothered with it. Corporate "solutions" have ranged from bribing to arm-twisting to appeals to corporate loyalty. None, though, have worked so well as building gamification features into the system.

Mobile CRM's Golden B2B Side
September 18, 2012

Without a doubt, mobile CRM has become a must-have deployment in the B2C world. Expect that trend to move into the B2B community for similar reasons: The devices are becoming ever more equipped to serve multiple needs, and their uses can soothe a lot of pain points. B2B, more so than B2C, is highly sensitive to screen size and quality.

Mobile CRM's Tricky Back End
September 11, 2012

Want to extend your company's CRM presence in the mobile world easily and effortlessly? Vendors are lining up to help -- at least with the first part of that sentence. Sales, service and marketing are all categories in which vendors are actively rolling out products aimed at the mobile space. Whether their deployment, though, is "easy and effortless" is an open question.

The Rise of Self-Service Mobile CRM
September 04, 2012

Increasingly, CRM vendors -- and their customers -- are recognizing the value of applying mobile technologies to the self-service piece of a CRM operations. In response, more and more vendors are rolling out new applications for companies that wish to target this emerging, but rapidly growing, demand point.

Mobile CRM: Cost Center or Profit Maker? Part 2
August 28, 2012

Buried in a recent J.D. Power and Associates 2012 U.S. Credit Card Satisfaction study -- which showed consumers' satisfaction with credit cards was at a six-year high -- was this very telling factoid: Only 7 percent of credit card customers use their mobile phones to complete transactions, up from 4 percent in 2011.

How Mobile Can Help CRM Get Past Its Adoption Issues
August 23, 2012

If Winston Churchill had been a CRM pundit, he may have penned the immortal turn of phrase, "never in the course of human events have so many paid so much to have so few use an application." That would have made him a pretty awful CRM writer. But give fictional Winston a break -- it is difficult to summarize the ongoing struggle with user adoption in a concise way.

Mobile CRM: Cost Center or Profit Maker? Part 1
August 21, 2012

Jeff Hasen, Hipcricket's CMO, recently had what he called his "10 millionth" bad customer experience with Comcast. It's galling enough to be treated poorly by a company when you buy just about all of its services, as Hasen does with Comcast. Worse, though, is when you are a mobile CRM expert, as Hasen is, and can so plainly see how easy it would be for Comcast to lighten some of its customers' suffering.

Nuance's Nina Challenges Siri, and She Means Business
August 07, 2012

There is a new natural-language, speech-based virtual assistant in town: Nuance on Monday introduced Nina to rival Apple's Siri. Nina can be used by smartphone application developers -- or any other type of user who would like to deploy the technology's mix of speech recognition, text-to-speech and voice biometric technology, for that matter.

SAP Lets Enterprises See What Customers Really Feel - in Real Time
August 02, 2012

SAP on Wednesday unveiled a rapid-deployment solution for marketers. It lets users analyze customer sentiment from social networking sites, communities, wikis, blogs and other sources. Users can combine the information with CRM text data and, if they so choose, business intelligence applications to get results in real time. The results are displayed on mobile devices or desktops.

Sowing the Seeds of CRM Adoption
July 20, 2012

When people ask me what I write about, I say "CRM," but I could just as easily say I write about adoption. Adoption failure is the arch-enemy of CRM, the great CRM investment-waster, the adversary to those who want to organize, rationalize and economize their customer data and how it's handled. We've known this for years, and yet as an industry we're still combating resistance to the use of CRM.

Avaya Beefs Up BYOD Support in Unified Communications
July 19, 2012

New mobility and security features are among the areas of focus in Avaya's latest iteration of Avaya IP Office 8.1, its unified communications platform for small and mid-sized enterprises. The company also built out the scale of the application; it is now able to serve 1,000 users in a single location, up from its previous support level of 384.

Tweeting CRM
July 16, 2012

Most businesses recognize the need to be on Twitter to post about their latest products, services and recommendations. In addition to such marketing uses, however, it can also be used to manage customer relations. "To remain competitive, businesses have to figure out how to acquire, serve and retain customers through social channels," said Justyn Howard, president and CEO of Sprout Social.

Social CRM Evolution vs. Mobile CRM Revolution
July 13, 2012

CRM technology -- along with the way we use it -- is going through an interesting patch of development right now. In part because mobile devices are now delivering on their potential, there's a renewed vigor around mobile CRM. At the same time, social CRM continues to gain attention and energy.

Votigo Ventures Into Full-Scale Social Marketing
July 12, 2012

Votigo has debuted a full-fledged social marketing suite that builds around its original core functionality of social promotions. The 6-year-old company is offering a price point that is reasonable for small and medium-sized businesses, as well as functionality that can scale to enterprise level fairly easily, said Mike La Rotonda, co-CEO and founder.

Avaya Mixes It Up to Give Customers a Seamless Experience
June 28, 2012

Avaya has added new products and enhanced existing ones in its Customer Experience Interaction Management portfolio. The overarching goal of the changes was to allow users to reach out to customers via any channel the customers chose -- for example, mobile application, social media or phone.

Pega SFA Update Homes In on Processes
June 19, 2012

BPM provider Pegasystems has taken its various sales-related applications and vertical offerings in the category and created a comprehensive sales force automation application it is calling "Pega Sales Force Automation." This offering follows a marketing application that Pega built in a similar fashion in the marketing space.

Elements CRM for iOS Doesn't Stint on Functionality
June 08, 2012

Ntractive, the developer of Elements CRM, a cloud-based CRM app for Macs only, has expanded its product line to include the iPad and iPhone. Ntractive is taking a different approach from other CRM vendors that have pushed their applications onto these devices, said CEO Justin Bartak.