If ever we needed proof that mobile CRM is taking off, it’s the prediction by Gartner that mobile CRM apps will grow by 500 per cent in 2014. Employees want access to information and they want it now in a user-friendly, intuitive, smart device interface, irrespective of time of day or location.
It’s an issue that’s raised with David Beard, CRM principal with Sage CRM on a daily basis.
CRM has received a lot of negative (and perhaps unfair) press over the years. And there’s no doubt that in some quarters, there still exists a widespread perception that CRM implementation is a risky and excruciatingly painful undertaking.
According to Orson Herbst, product manager with Herbst Software, organisations want to buy and use CRM but successful implementation depends on many factors.
We’re probably all familiar with the Pareto Principle as it applies to sales; 80 per cent of business typically comes from 20 per cent of customers. In fact, research suggests that a five per cent reduction in business lost can generate anything between 25 and 85 per cent additional organisational profit.
It’s perhaps the strongest argument for hanging onto those hard-won customers but is it also a cogent argument for interacting and engaging them on their chosen communications platform?
According to recent figures from the CSO’s ‘Information Society Statistics’ report for enterprise, just 32 per cent of organisations are currently using Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools to manage client activity. Given the relative maturity of the technology – CRM has been around in one guise or another since the 1980s – this is perhaps a surprisingly low figure.
But is the current economic downturn prompting organisations to take a fresh look at how they manage customer contact?