What Restricts Mobile CRM Adoption?

According to a report published by International Data Corporation (IDC), vendors shipped a total of 1,004.2 million smartphones worldwide in 2013, a whopping 38.4% rise from the 725.3 million in 2012. However, the adoption of mobile CRM among enterprises remained lackluster during the same period. So, what really stops the mobile CRM adoption? Many people believe that mobile CRM is just using CRM software via a smartphone. But that’s the half-truth. Mobile CRM is not viewing an application on a different device such as smartphone and tablet. The users accustomed to a PC find it difficult to use the same application on a smartphone.

While CRM application involves a number of complex features, transforming those into a usable format on a different device like smartphone depends upon the capability of CRM vendors. The user experience plays a larger role in adopting mobile CRM. Many users complain that usability is the major problem in mobile CRM. The application design for web and mobile platform are altogether different. Simply resizing or resolution adjustment is not the only solution. In a complex form usage, the user finds it difficult to key in data because the use case for smartphone is different from a web form design.

Today, most of the smart app developers use responsive design using HTML 5. This only supports the viewing of data in various resolutions, but the key issue is different. The same web architecture can’t be replicated for a smartphone. Understanding the fact that a smartphone device has less screen space in comparison to a PC, the usability should be totally different. For example, if a web form carries a dozen of fields to capture data, the mobile app should have fewer fields to key in. Thus, the use case is different for a mobile application.

Depending upon the business processes, the use cases vary. For example, what’s essential for a sales function may be different from production perspectives. The role-based features in CRM compel a vendor to analyze the exact use case and design a form that can accommodate the device limitations of a smartphone. While it’s easier for a sales person to capture as many data points on a web form on a PC, the same sales person complains to key in the same data points on a mobile form due to device limitation.

Pushing legacy CRM application to smartphone won’t serve the purpose. The CRM vendors should innovate designs to capture as many data points automatically available on a mobile device. For example, contact details, locations, and other social information associated with a client can be captured automatically and the user doesn’t need to key in these data points manually. This will certainly improve the user adoption significantly.

Similarly, the CRM vendors should consider integrating ERP application with mobile CRM database. Since important information pieces like purchase orders, invoices, inventory data, and payments are available in an ERP system. When a CRM is integrated with the ERP database, the user will be able to access important information without hassles and even can transport those datasets to a form quite easily.

Sorting CRM records is an essential feature for the end user; however, the limitations of smartphones pose problems for the user. Instead of displaying the whole records, the application should have the option to view data alphabetically. To ensure superior user experience, the mobile CRM developers should focus on usability.