CRM (customer relationship management) has evolved a lot over the years — from a basic contact management tool into sophisticated, data-driven platforms that empower businesses to forge meaningful relationships with their customers.
At every stage, CRM has taken advantage of new technologies, incorporating them into their toolsets and adapting them to facilitate better sales and marketing processes.
First came automation. CRM systems used automation technology to create features that assisted sales and marketing teams in managing leads, opportunities, and pipeline.
Next came the mobile revolution. The rapid growth in the popularity of smartphones and mobile devices changed the way people did business, and CRM adapted accordingly.
What can the continued advancements in mobility bring that we have not yet taken full advantage of?
We will explore that question and more in this article.
What is CRM?
CRM is a software toolset that assists businesses with the day-to-day management of their people (customers and employees), work processes, products, and projects.
Once thought of primarily as a sales tool, CRM has evolved to address the needs of many different business aspects, including marketing, customer service, and HR.
Through the use of advanced automations tools and data centralization, CRM software can help businesses improve communication (both internal and external), work more efficiently, and track performance.
A CRM system also keeps teams connected in real-time from anywhere, improving collaboration and increasing reach while allowing businesses to take advantage of top talent no matter where they are found.
The Mobile CRM revolution
The past two decades have seen mobility revolutionize CRM technology in a number of ways.
- Data accessibility- The most obvious advantage that mobile CRM provides is data accessibility. Sales reps and marketing professionals can access customer data from anywhere on their smartphones and tablets.
This enables them to provide timely and personalized assistance and ensures that they have the most up-to-date information available when engaging with customers, leading to more informed interactions and higher customer satisfaction.
- Field sales optimization- Sales reps working in the field can generate quotes, process orders, and obtain electronic signatures directly from their mobile devices.
This can help sales reps strike while the iron is hot, leading to more closed deals. This can also lead to shorter sales cycles due to reduced administrative delays.
- Location-based services- Mobile devices can use location-based services to help sales teams identify nearby prospects or clients and plan more efficient routes for visits.
For service teams, GPS functionality can provide up-to-date location data for field agents, helping them coordinate service calls more efficiently.
The future of mobile CRM
For all the amazing ways mobility has revolutionized CRM software (and business as a whole), the best is yet to come.
- Text messaging and SMS- While text and SMS messaging capabilities in CRM are not new, the true potential of these features is only now starting to be unlocked.
These popular communication channels boast higher interaction rates and improved engagement potential when compared to traditional communication channels (email, phone) and can help organizations reach their customers wherever they are instantly.
For more information on the ways a CRM system with text and SMS messaging capabilities can help your business, check out our article, CRM Features Highlight: Text Messaging and SMS.
- Omnichannel engagement- CRM mobile apps enable customer engagement across a variety of communication channels, including social media, email, text, chat, and phone.
Employees can engage with customers from a single platform on any device, ensuring timely and personalized communication.
FreeAgent is the future of CRM
FreeAgent CRM is designed for today’s world of work and our robust toolset is ideally suited to supporting the varied work processes of modern businesses. FreeAgent is:
- Easy to use: FreeAgent works like you expect modern apps to work, providing a user experience that feels fresh and familiar. Teams love working in FreeAgent, leading to high adoption and greater ROI.
- User-configurable: FreeAgent can be configured by you to work the way you do. This means you don’t need outside support to add a form field, adjust a CRM automated workflow, or try out a new process.
- Customizable: With FreeAgent, apps, forms, and configurations are all completely customizable, allowing you to capture and connect your data in any way you like.
To see FreeAgent in action, get a demo, and discover for yourself how FreeAgent can help you have workdays full of impact.
