March 17, 2009

This week, my colleague Angie Hirata (she runs marketing and business development for us), did some customer and prospect visits in Milwaukee and Chicago after our Mobile CRM seminar, so I invited her to be a "guest blogger". So she can share some of the things she discovered on her tour this week that would be valuable for readers to hear.

 Here are her observations on what people are doing (or want to do) with CRM in their businesses now.

The Economy

Recession? What recession? Great to see a pretty positive mood in the Midwest. Don't feed the fear! Even customers who said they have seen a slight dip in demand, were optimistic of the economy turning around soon. A lot of them have been in business for decades, so have seen the cycles before and are confident in their businesses! They continue to invest in CRM to stay on top in their markets, move forward, and plan for long-term growth.

CRM

The old adage of CRM starting with SFA (sales force automation) still holds true! When sales management and IT get together to implement CRM, the other aspects - marketing and customer service - continue to be an afterthought. Some customers didn't even know Maximizer CRM had a customer service module. And some didn't know what their customer service department was using to track issues and RMAs. When we talked or showed people that they can do SO much more with Maximizer CRM than they are doing now - they were all keen to do it. Just remember that a phased approach is always the recommended one - baby steps to success!

Mobile CRM

People are more excited than ever with the idea of what they can do with mobile CRM. I found that there is greater adoption of smartphones amongst small/medium businesses than 12 months ago. And people are "getting it" that apps make smartphones more powerful, and in turn - field sales people more productive! As I expected, there was a mix of scenarios that people are in right now:

• A tool & die manufacturer: they have had a mix of Windows Mobile and BlackBerry devices that field reps nationwide bought on their own. They considered moving everyone to iPhone. But changed their mind and will be standardizing on BlackBerry Storm with Verizon citing lower cost and better fit with IT infrastructure. Next step - getting MaxMobile on the device.
• A pump manufacturer: last year, their field sales reps just had old cell phones. Now, they've standardized the team on iPhones. They were laggards with BlackBerry, but skipped that whole generation and are bullish on iPhone and its applications.
• A medical equipment manufacturer: the president had a HTC Windows Mobile device, but the rest of the staff use BlackBerry. They have considered iPhone, and we discussed options of offline and online access to CRM data (MaxMobile = offline data; Wireless Web Access = online data). Since some of his staff go to rural areas to visit hospitals and physicians, he realized that offline is more important to ensure staff can access information all the time.
• An interior design firm: while they've standardized on BlackBerry, they are trying MaxMobile for executives first before rolling out to sales staff.

2009 is going to be a banner year for applications on smartphones! If small/medium manufacturers in the Midwest are getting it, it's here!