By Aleksandr Peterson, TechnologyAdvice
Not every business is a brick-and-mortar business. From insurance estimators, to handymen, field service agents, realtors, entertainers, and traveling salesmen, there are thousands of self-employed professionals who do most of their business on the road.
That means they need technology that can go with them: a recent survey by ConstantContact revealed that 66% of small business owners use mobile technology to get work done.
Even businesses with office locations do a considerable amount of work away from the office.
Decision makers make decisions while they’re standing in line for Starbucks, or riding the 901 train home from San Jose (or wherever). According to IDC, the world’s mobile worker population is on track to hit 1.3 billion this year, which accounts for 37% of the overall workforce.
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Mobile Businesses And Technology
When it comes to technology, mobile businesses face several unique challenges. First, they don’t have the infrastructure of a physical IT environment, which means their computing capabilities are limited to whatever can be done on a tablet or smartphone.
Second, since they’re constantly traveling and visiting clients, they can’t dedicate as much time to administrative tasks. To top it all off, mobile businesses are usually run by a select few individuals, or even one person, who serves as the “chief-everything-officer.”
In other words, mobile businesses need IT solutions that are portable, intuitive, and self-sustaining. ConstantContact’s study noted that businesses most frequently use mobile apps for calendars and time management (82%), customer communications (74%), GPS (52%), and accounting/invoicing (44%). Interestingly, customer relationship management (CRM) software is one of the most popular business tools on the market, and the best CRM software can address all of the above needs in a mobile solution.
Why CRM?
Here are some CRM features that mobile businesses are likely to find useful:
- Calendars/scheduling
- Account and contact records
- Task management
- Sales Pipelines
- Price Quoting and Invoicing
- Integrated calling and emails
- File sharing and storage
- Geo-location (for navigation and mapping)
- Offline Access
That being said, there are hundreds of CRM solutions on the market, and it can be difficult to know which are optimized for mobile use, and which would only cause headaches. Not to mention, a “mobile CRM” can be packaged many different ways: Some are billed as “mobile-first,” which means they’re designed specifically for use on mobile devices, others are traditional CRMs with separate mobile apps, and some act as third-party mobile clients to an existing CRM system. In an effort to sort through the confusion, let’s take a look at four of the best mobile CRM solutions:
With its “post-PC,” mobile-device-centered design, Base is one of the more innovative mobile CRMs on the market. This Intelligent Sales Productivity Platform has been used by over 5,000 clients worldwide — among them, notable companies such as Nationwide, Century 21, and 3M. Base is cloud-based and can work from a desktop, but it offers complete mobile functionality through apps for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone. Where many mobile CRMs stop at contact profiles, Base offers all core features, plus geolocation, reporting, and offline access.
Zoho is one of the leading computer-based CRMs on the market, and just so happens to have a full-featured mobile app which is “free forever” for 10 users or less. Zoho offers integrated call logging, geolocation, offline access, and a full range of core CRM features in this basic app. They also have a peripheral app for mobile lead tracking and a card-scanning tool for capturing contact information from business cards. This makes it a lot easier to make new connections on the road, at trade shows, or conferences. Zoho’s mobile apps are currently available for iOS and Android.
Ondigo is a mobile-first CRM designed to give small businesses simple, affordable CRM functionality from their smartphones or tablets. Although Ondigo doesn’t offer some of the more sophisticated features of best-of-breed solutions, their app is a free download for native use, and more than sufficient to help professionals manage their day-to-day interactions with contacts. Ondigo integrates with Skype, Facebook, LinkedIn, and WhatsApp. It can also, for a fee, automatically log interactions in Salesforce. The best part? Their name is On-di-go … get it? Like “on the go.”
Similar to Ondigo, Resco CRM can act as its own standalone mobile-first CRM, or it can serve as a mobile client for Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Turns out, Resco is actually higher-rated by users than Microsoft Dynamics’ own CRM app. The standalone side of Resco is designed to give small and medium size businesses simple, intuitive CRM features from their mobile device, including custom dashboards, accounts and contacts, activities, deals management, built-in geo-location, integrated calling, emails, and offline access.
Whether you’re a mobile business, or a brick-and-mortar business with partially mobile workers, it’s important to have access to the right tools when and where you need them. Mobile CRMs fulfill this need by putting contacts, accounts, productivity, and sales automation in the palm of your hand. Don’t settle for scribbling down notes in the middle of sales calls and using disparate applications to organize your day. Conduct all of your business in one place, from any place, with a mobile CRM solution.
Aleksandr Peterson is a technology analyst at TechnologyAdvice. He covers gamification, CRMs, project management, and other emerging business technology. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
