The Impact of Mobility on Social CRM

By Barton Goldenberg

The key impact of mobility on Social CRM will be the ability of businesses and customers to use mobile devices to engage with Social CRM applications. As millennials become an increasingly important part of the workforce, their ‘always on, always connected’ approach to everything they do will require Social CRM information to be accessible on their mobile devices.  Here are some examples of how organizations can benefit:

• Sales reps will be able to remotely access customer profiles, including both transactional data and sentimental insights gathered from Social Media communities. This will help them sell smarter.
• Marketing personnel will be able to engage with Social Media communities directly from their mobile devices to secure insights from customers/prospects participating in those communities.
• New “Location & Context Push” services will become the norm. Consumers will receive special promotions on their mobile devices when in the vicinity of specific location sensors or beacons (e.g., a Marriott Rewards member receives a $5 coupon when they are in or near a Marriott gift shop). Similarly, businesses’ field employees will be able to use mobile devices to receive special location-sensitive information.

Mobile devices will also increase adoption of Social CRM applications and tremendously improve worker productivity. A recent study conducted by Blackberry compared weekly usage from mobile CRM users to desktop/laptop CRM users.  The study found that desktop/laptop users accessed their CRM application much less often during the week than mobile users. It also found that desktop/laptop users spent more time on Sundays preparing weekly reports than mobile users, whose reports got done during the week.

In the next post, I will discuss the growing influence of Gamification on Social CRM.

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Barton Goldenberg, is the founder and president of ISM Inc., customer-centric strategists/implementers serving best-in-class organizations globally. As a CRM leader for 30 years, he was among the first three inductees in the CRM Hall of Fame. Recognized as a leading “customer-focused” author, his latest book, The Definitive Guide to Social CRM, is hailed as the roadmap for Social CRM success. Barton is a popular speaker on “maximizing customer relationships to gain market insights, customers and profits”. He is a long-term columnist for CRM Magazine and speaker for CRMevolution and frequently quoted in the media.