The Mobile CRM Customer Advantage

Nobody outside of CRM cares about how mobility affects business.

Mobile technology has been with us for a long time now, and the mobile phone in particular changed the way we live and work. In the CRM industry, we spend a lot of time focused on how mobility has changed the way sales people work. It’s time to remember the other side, because CRM is supposed to be about the customer. It is customer relationship management after all. And in the long run, we are all customers of something.

To put it more succinctly, nobody outside of CRM cares about how mobility affects business.

The benefit to everyday life and consumerism is where it’s at.

Cell phones, tablets, laptops, and other gadgets which can access the Web, have become fixtures in our lives. If we’re curious about something, we look it up. If we desire an item, we can usually buy it online. If we have a problem, service is just a few taps away. Now, more than ever, commerce is about creating awareness and letting the customer sell to him or herself.

The advantages of mobile CRM for customers are many. A lot of the benefits are in the service arena—mobile and social go hand-in-hand, so users of low-power devices (compared to a PC anyway) can get more immediate service than a home-based user, and probably with less frustration than finding a sales clerk in the store who is also useful.

If the customer is going to do all the heavy lifting, the best thing a business can do with its approach to mobile is to let customers do what they want to do, easily and completely:

• Customers don’t buy without doing research, so make it easy for them to get product info.
• Reviews, especially by other customers, are more powerful than sales pitches. Let those reviews, positive or negative, have a prominent place on your mobile site.
• Convenience trumps location. Any special offers should be tied to user accounts, not brick-and-mortar stores or physical coupons.
• People hate to have their time wasted, especially on their mobile devices. Limit your targeted offers in frequency and size, and make sure they’re well targeted.

But whatever you do, remember that the mobile component of your CRM is not an add-on or afterthought. It is a vital part of your strategy—a strategy your customers don’t care about. They want what they want, so give it to them. It costs you little or nothing, and a bad mobile experience will sour a customer the same as any other bad experience will.