Wireless Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
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Introduction

CRM has become an integral part of any successful business strategy. Nowadays businesses are also becoming increasingly mobile. Also it is anticipated that majority of global workforce is to use wireless devices by 2005. Thus it has become mandatory for CRM solution providers to extend and expand CRM functionalities and capabilities to keep pace with the developments happening in the highly wireless world. Wireless holds the key to improving CRM. Wireless enables a host of new exciting applications to the mobile sales force and customers that are not possible with the existing CRM implementations. Mobile access to sales information, customer data, and online transactions like reservations and stock trading is an essential part of a wireless CRM system. Almost all the leading CRM solution providers have started to supply wireless solutions to survive in this highly competitive global market.

Mobile CRM Solutions

A variety of CRM solutions are available in the market today. Synchronization-based CRM solutions offer limited mobility for a relatively low cost, and Web-based applications are idea for connecting remote offices. But still wireless Web-based CRM systems hold the greatest promise as they provide total mobility along with a unique competitive advantage. Such kind of systems either come with an integrated wireless capability or offer wireless as an add-on.

Wireless connectivity is being provided either by real-time wireless browser or through client/server methodology that provides near-real-time wireless access using periodic synchronization. Though synchronization is not a good solution for applications such as online trading as it won't give perfect real-time access but synchronization is very good for applications that need low data rates and intermittent connectivity. Some CRM systems allow them to be configured for either browser-based real-time access or synchronized data access.

Wireless CRM Systems for Industries

At the beginning, an enterprise can go for wireless e-mail and messaging applications and it can go for one-way push notifications and gradually extend to the access of enterprise data, two-way notification services and finally a comprehensive mobile solution that integrates with the business processes.

Wireless CRM is most significant in vertical industry segments such as financial services, banking, insurance, healthcare, retail, manufacturing, logistics, warehousing etc. The key benefits for going wireless connectivity in these industries are possible productivity gains, the availability of new, powerful and smart wireless devices, enterprise collaboration and improved customer service. Third generation (3G) multimedia and high-speed wireless devices providing data communication will go a long way in making CRM solutions more attractive and beneficial. 

Industries should consider the following points when going for wireless CRM systems. 

  1. There are different wireless networks  that have to work with the proposed CRM system
  2. There are a suite of different wireless devices such as smart phones, PDAs, pagers, and portable devices such as laptops being used mainly by mobile sales force in the enterprise. These devices can be controlled by the industry CRM solution but the enterprise's customers and partners may not have such a facility. 
  3. There are also wireless technologies such as Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) and services such as i-mode, SMS and also client/server applications based on Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME). Voice synthesis technologies have also come to provide a fine wireless user interface. There are applications that support text-to-voice and voice-to-text conversions.
Conclusion

Wireless CRM solutions should be presumed to be the wireless extension of existing CRM solutions. Wireless CRM systems altogether provide a new set of exciting and innovative applications and functionalities. Industries have come to the stage of embracing wireless CRM solutions having realized its high potential for not only enhancing the level of customer satisfaction and customer retention but also the revenue it can generate for enterprises.