Mobile customer service moves to the fore

Businesses are demanding faster sales decisions. Customers are looking for faster responses to their inquiries, in hours not days, and location can no longer be used as an excuse for lack of responsiveness. The need for mobile SFA solutions has never been greater writes Akhtar Pasha

As consumers increasingly embrace mobile handheld devices, delivering customer care is now more than just a metaphor. Businesses must quickly provide a highly satisfying mobile customer experience, or risk losing customers to competitors who can. Best-in-Class (BIC) companies are addressing this pressure by re-aligning their sales forces to meet customer demand and arming them with the necessary technologies to gain access to data in the global marketplace. The World Wide Web has provided information access to customers who at one time had no access at all. Today customers are demanding faster resolution of their queries—be it for pre-sales or after sales service. Can SFA/CRM empowered by mobile devices fulfill the gap that exists between customers and CRM systems?

TVS Motor is empowering its sales force and service engineers with mobile customer service to increase sales efficiency with a faster sales cycle and to attend customers’ complaints better. The company is equipping its service engineers to capture data (complaints, forms and pictures of faulty spares etc) using mobile devices and send the same to its product R&D team so that corrective action can be taken to bring trouble free, safe bikes to market.

A leading brokerage house has empowered its sales team to reduce the sales cycle time with a simple mobile customer service. Asianet and Dorset have rolled out CRM solutions in Phase I and would be leveraging mobile CRM shortly. Some leading FMCG companies and insurance houses are closely watching the development of mobile SFA/CRM. Although, this handful of examples does not hint at substantial traction in the mobile SFA/CRM segment, what's important is that this technology has made a humble beginning and that this effort needs to be appreciated as it improves the customer experience while dealing with large enterprises as well helps the industry grow.

T G Dhandapani, Group CIO, SCL-TVS Motor, said, “Mobile customer service is all about how fast you can reach out to your customers, attend to their complaints, fulfill their requirements and how clearly you communicate to them. Here speed matters. Otherwise it is easy for a dissatisfied customer to walk out and go to the competition.”

He added, “We expect our sales efficiency, revenue forecasting as well as materials and service management to improve significantly with the implementation of a mobile customer service. We wanted the ability to look up contact information in our CRM system through a Web enabled device such as a BlackBerry smartphone to give direction to our sales, service, product development and customer satisfaction.”

Many vendors and customers are saying that m-SFA/CRM is a natural progression and extension of CRM. This is because the real value of m-SFA/CRM will come about only when businesses standardize their processes with regard to customer data (integration of sales & marketing departments).

Mohammed A Ali, President, CRM24X7, said, “The market for mobile customer service is evolving and has emerged as a sub-set of CRM. It’s an extended part of your CRM system that reaches out to the field force and helps in customer fulfillment. It’s all about the speed at which you can attend to a customer's request—enquires, sales and after sales service.”

He continued, “If a customer needs a product/service today, you should be able to give it to them on the spot otherwise a competitor will show up and try to fulfill that customer request.”

Jeremy Cooper, Vice President - Marketing, APAC, Salesforce.com, said, “CRM is coming of age in India and mobile technologies have drastically changed the way that businesses operate and customers interact and transact.” The convergence of the Internet and mobile wireless communication has opened up a new range of possibilities for organizations to conduct mobile business. m-SFA/CRM involves using the Internet for voice and data transmission through wireless devices. It has the potential to significantly enhance the customer experience by providing a customer with the ability to interact and transact anytime and at anyplace.

There are three interconnected components, which are driving the adoption of m-SFA/CRM. Firstly, enterprises don't want to leave a stone unturned in their attempt to increase sales revenues and hence want to track and monitor every sales lead. Secondly, since they have already integrated customer data, they can unlock its value by deploying m-SFA/CRM. It’s not just limited to conducting transactions but also allows communication, collaboration and co-ordination through mobile devices, which in turn generates new revenue streams and improves customer relationships. Thirdly, it increases the productivity of employees and accountability while servicing customers.

Vinay Iyer, Vice President Global Marketing, SAP CRM, SAP Global Marketing Inc, added, “With the proliferation of smartphones such as the BlackBerry, iPhone, Windows Mobile and now Android, enterprises that make a preemptive, early move to invest in mobile customer service will have a generous business advantage if they extend their current m-SFA/CRM strategies.” He added that mobility enabled SFA/CRM is a natural evolution. A lot of large enterprises that have already put CRM systems in place are reaping the benefits of automating sales & marketing processes and standardizing customer databases. Mobile customer service is an extension or additional touch point, which consumer companies can make use of to rapidly fulfill customer needs.

As businesses try to hold steady in this time of economic uncertainty, companies investing in CRM will have a leg-up on the competition with the ability to tap into their existing customer base and increase their share of a customer’s wallet.

“Top performing organizations of all maturity levels plan to invest in mobile sales productivity tools to drive topline growth,” Ali noted. They believe that providing their sales professionals with a competitive advantage through timely access to key information such as recent account activity, supervisor's notes or revised proposals is vital to the successful attainment of corporate revenue goals. For example, sales reps can access real-time information pertaining to a customer's account, rental history, and outstanding invoices as well as quote product/service rates without having to first make a phone call. The system also helps them respond more quickly to leads and conduct follow-up activities in a timely manner.

Customer interactions today are multi-channel—on a smartphone, Web site, through a new social media channel (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc.) or via a phone call to a contact center. In every instance, customer satisfaction is put to the test. Ensuring a high quality and consistent customer experience across all channels is good for business, not just for its impact on customer satisfaction, but also in terms of the resulting savings. A company with a comprehensive multi-channel service strategy can more easily and seamlessly move customers to the most cost-effective channel for efficient resolution.

Thomas Abraham, Managing Director, Sage Software India Pvt Ltd., said, “We will definitely not leap into m-SFA/CRM but the adoption will largely circle around process automation, affordability of smartphones, and improvements in mobile connectivity across India. What is important is that we have made a beginning.”

Having said that let’s take a closer look on how and where m-SFA/CRM are getting or is expected to be deployed and its true value.

Business case for mobile customer service

There are four key areas that are expected to drive the mobile customer service market in India—boosting sales force efficiency; using real-time customer data to innovate and develop new products and service management; improving the overall customer experience as well as simultaneously 'pushing' business critical data such as sales in pipeline, sales revenues against actual, stocks to the smartphones of business managers and top management so that they can take necessary action.

Since all four areas are interrelated and cannot be explained in isolation, we are presenting you case-by-case scenarios of how mobile customer service is being deployed in India.

m-SFA/CRM at TVS Motor

TVS Motor has embarked on a pilot project wherein 50 sales managers have been given BlackBerry devices in order to connect to the back-end system and increase sale as well as improve service and order fulfillment. Dhandapani explained, “Earlier we had provided sales folks with laptops and Internet data cards to access our back-end SAP CRM system and get the relevant [dealer] data before visiting a dealer outlet for sales calls, replenishment of stocks and checking the credit exposure of the dealer. We found that it was difficult to handle the laptop at a dealer’s premises. Since SAP had the gateway to connect to BlackBerry using the Sybase platform, we thought of piloting a project and the results were quite satisfying.”

Here are some key insights into how TVS Motor’s m-SFA/CRM system works. When the sales rep walks into a dealer outlet, he or she can do the order booking sitting in front of the dealer and check the visibility of stocks at the nearest godown for replenishment of stocks at the dealer’s end. A query via the BlackBerry can retrieve the dealer’s credit exposure and accordingly help extend fresh credit. Additionally since these dealers do bike servicing also, that brings more revenue (including aftermarkets) than merely selling vehicles, customer complaints need to be examined carefully.

Similarly the service rep can record customer voice complaints, download complaint forms and fill the same, take a picture of the bike/spare parts that need replacement or are faulty and send this information to the R&D center to get to the root cause of the problem and take corrective and preventive action. The R&D center then gets into action and checks the records right from the shop floor to the manufacturing stage and looks for any changes that took place and identifies the problem. Dhandapani said, “It has become an important tool in manufacturing trouble-free bikes. The m-SFA/CRM system would help in resolving problems or complaints at lightning speed and prevent them from resurfacing.”

The third area where mobile customer service is being tested at TVS Motor is to push reports to the top management. Key statistics, reports pertaining to sales, forecasts, and targets achieved, number of complaints closed/pending etc. can be pushed to the BlackBerry devices carried by the top management and sales managers to enable them to take spot business decisions.

Dhandapani is planning to roll out the pilot project to 200 employees (sales/managers/service engineers) who will, in turn, cater to a 600 dealer network through mobile customer service. The BlackBerry interface that talks to the back-end SAP system has been developed using the Sybase platform.

Other deployments

Abraham said, “We are seeing some basic traction for mobile customer service primarily for lead management, which traditional brokerage houses struggled with because the sales cycle was very short. Any customer enquiry generated needs to be fulfilled in the shortest possible time. We have seen two such instances in brokerage firms that are using our SalesLogic solution with mobile functionality to track leads. This trend is unique to the Indian market."

He explained that one such customer is a leading equity and securities firm in India. When a prospect contacts the call center to open a new account, the tele-caller passes on the lead, via SMS, to the sales executive. The executive in turn calls the prospect to fulfill the requirement. "The key is to close the sale in the shortest possible time before the prospect turns to a competitor. This has increased the sales efficiency as well as accountability of leads generated for the brokerage firm.”

Asianet, Dorset and Progressive are all customers of CRM24X7 that are currently using its CRM solution but will eventually move to m-SFA/CRM to derive greater value from their CRM systems. According to Ali, the management (CEO and VPs) of Asianet could use m-CRM to access the dashboard to get a quick glimpse of the sales and service metrics within the organization. The sales executives can use it to access the dashboard to know their target vs. actuals, sales pipeline and follow-up calls scheduled for the day; they can also search and create new accounts and contacts. Field Service Reps can use it to access their workspace to get the list of trouble tickets that have been scheduled for the day, resolve each ticket, log notes and close the tickets; they can create repair part requests, log time and expense information, etc.

The same is the case of Progressive Infotech, an IT services company. Ali mentioned that another company Dorset would try out m-CRM. Dorset’s management can use mobile CRM to access the dashboard to get a quick glimpse of the sales metrics (target vs actuals of the entire organization: by territory, by region, by department, by agent or distributor, etc). The sales executives can use it to check orders from agents or distributors, stock availability, status of the order in the order fulfillment process, etc.

We are also seeing instances of m-SFA/CRM where it can be used for service management. For example, after attending a customer and fixing a problem, a service agent can send the closure report via SMS instead of calling up the call center to do the same. The senior manager gets updated information on the number of complaints attended and closed vis-a-vis pending ones and can take further action on pending cases to reduce the customer’s inconvenience and enhance the service rendered.

Iyer said, “m-SFA/CRM has opened a new window for servicing customers—lead management, tracking promotions and capturing demand signals such as fast moving/slow moving products and bringing the data into demand forecasting and product planning etc. Large enterprises are demanding real-time information about market signals, efficiency of products/promotions as well as stocks at the warehouse or distribution centers so that they can take decisions faster than their competitions.”

New vertical adopters

Abraham saw new avenues for m-SFA/CRM adoption where large enterprises have already set-up the basic CRM solution such as at IT and professional services companies, where sales cycles are longer but the deal sizes are bigger. m-SFA/CRM acts as an additional access point for these mobile professionals (in additional to laptops) to get up-to-date real-time information on sales, forecasts, pending customer cases and more.

Iyer explained that m-SFA/CRM would be useful in dealer management systems where manufacturers want to know through their sales force about the customer inventories, sales, stocks, loyalty programs etc. “I feel that the requirement for m-SFA/CRM will emerge from automotive dealers as a fat margin comes from serving bikes/cars. The dealer can inform the customer via a simple SMS when his bike/car is due for servicing, remind him of important jobs that need to be done as it can lead to potential problems etc,” he added.

Smartphone prices have to drop

According to Cooper, with the exponential growth in smartphone sales—both to consumers and professionals—and workforces relying on their mobile phones for more than just e-mail and voice calls, m-SFA/CRM reached a turning point in 2009 as the most sought-after CRM application. Mobile CRM will rise beyond being a useful technology for sophisticated users to a pervasive application that is offered to all field and service workers. He referred to Canalys Research report that said that India is the third largest smartphone (enterprise and high end multimedia devices combined) market in the Asia Pacific region, after Japan and China with over 3.5 million devices shipped over the past one year. 19 million smartphones are expected to ship in India over the next three years, the report said.

Abraham said, “Standard Java-based phones are not suitable for running CRM applications. One of the key hindrances in deploying m-SFA/CRM is the high cost of smartphones such as BlackBerry, iPhone and Windows Mobile phones which start at Rs 12,000 and poor connectivity in rural areas. Most vendors have m-SFA/CRM solutions that work with high-end phones such as BlackBerry and iPhone and a few Nokia phones and are watching developments in the smartphone market rather closely.

Ali opined, "Once smartphone usage becomes common within the business world in India, then m-CRM will take off in a big way.” In the case of Asianet, each and every trouble ticket is printed out and given to the field service team. The field service, upon resolving each incident, informs the call center via mobile phone to close the ticket. By using Mobile CRM, field service agents will be able to login, review the  tickets scheduled to them and resolve them, add notes to these tickets and close them from their PDA. If they are in need of a replacement part, they can create a Product Request on the Mobile CRM system from the customer site.

The pressing need to improve sales and the quality of customer service would drive the m-SFA/CRM segment in 2010 and with a little help from vendors it would give businesses the impetus to try out more pilot projects.

akhtar.pasha@expressindia.com