Handheld Computing Optimizes Customer Relationship Management
Customers today expect rapid, personalized service in all interactions with a company. Handhelds enable sales, service and other frontline staff to meet these expectations even when they are mobile. Handhelds provide instant access from any location to the corporation's backbone of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) applications. They enable e-business transactions to be performed on the spot at the customer's location. They are an essential link that allow corporations to meet growing customer demands for consistent treatment whether contact takes place on the phone, at a self-service website, or face to face.
Maximize Profitability, Retain Customers
The new world of e-business has companies competing ferociously to keep customers. Buyers of products and services have more choices than ever and, while not completely lacking in loyalty, are certainly demanding that their loyalty be earned. Marketplaces abound with fresh examples of the benefits of earning that loyalty and the wallet share it brings - whether it's the top-line boost from getting a book buyer to impulse shop for records, videos and toys; or the improved margins in getting corporate telephony customers to add Internet, wireless, and paging to their service bundle. Customer Relationship Management, long viewed as a cost of sales, has moved to the core of revenue generation and business growth strategies. It's not just that it costs 10 times less to sell to an existing customer than to attract a new one, it's that you can probably sell 10 times more to the customer you keep - and much of that revenue will fall to the bottom line.
As a result of this new emphasis on keeping customers, corporations are focusing IT spending (see Figure 1) on frontline applications- sales force automation, customer support, professional services, marketing and business development - as well as internal functions such as fulfillment that impact the customer's experience.
Figure 1 - Worldwide CRM spending (Source: International Data Corp., 1999)
CRM Gets Real
This surge of frontline spending partly reflects the fact that CRM, previously viewed as an ideal to be aimed for, has suddenly gotten real. In the past couple of years, new tools have made fundamental Customer Relationship Management principles - such as knowing who your most valuable customers are and treating each customer as an individual - achievable. Web technologies, for example, enable call center staff to access any number of corporate databases from a single browser interface, giving them a complete view of a customer's value to the enterprise. Self-service websites automatically consult customer profiles before selectively displaying ads or making product recommendations. At the same time, with the rise of e-business, the importance of Customer Relationship Management has become ever more apparent. A study by BizRate.com (reported in the Wall Street Journal, July 12, 1999) showed that the number one reason customers return to consumer websites is due to quality of service. Expectations for service at business-to-business (B2B) sites are equally high. The Internet is also dramatically increasing demand for choice and personalization while compressing service delivery norms. It is common today to have two to three delivery days, while a handful of startup companies offer 24-hour and even one-hour delivery service.
When customers have face-to-face interactions with representatives of a company, they bring with them this heightened set of expectations. They expect to receive at least the same level of service from a live person as they receive at a website or over the phone. However, those working closest with customers - sales reps, support technicians, professional services consultants, field project coordinators, and marketing staff - are sometimes least prepared to deliver on these expectations. Away from their desks, they may not have access to the latest customer data or corporate information. For increasingly mobile frontline workers, accessing corporate CRM and ERP applications has generally meant lugging around a laptop, plugging in, and dialing up. That's cumbersome and often impossible when on the road. As a result, mobile workers are not only ill-equipped to provide immediate and excellent customer care, but are unable to share important information they gather from customers during onsite visits in a timely way with colleagues in the rest of the organization. Submitting an order, completing a trouble ticket, or distributing work assignments may mean spending hours on the phone or waiting until evening when there's finally a chance to get online.
Extending the Power of CRM to Mobile Workers
Handheld computing solutions help companies deliver excellent service across all interactions by extending Customer Relationship Management data and processes literally into the hands of frontline staff. With the ability to synchronize handhelds to both desktop PCs and network servers, over wireless as well as wireline connections, mobile users can interact with CRM and other enterprise applications anytime, anywhere. Whether they're in a restaurant having a meeting with a prospect or under a desk diagnosing a faulty hard drive, handheld users have two-way communications with enterprise applications and databases and also have the ability to pull information from websites. They can access customer historical data, decision support aids, and company policies with a few simple taps, just as if they were in an office.
The small size and true mobility of handhelds allow them to fit not only into palms and pockets, but also into work processes. Handheld Customer Relationship Management solutions don't get in the way of interpersonal interactions, and they can be taken into places - up on a roof during a building inspection, into a crowded restaurant line of customers waiting to order - where laptops cannot easily go.
Because people use handhelds while they're doing their work, not just afterward to report about it, handhelds can improve the accuracy of data capture; guide decision making; and enforce corporate policies, standards and best practices. They also increase productivity by enabling mobile workers to recapture time previously wasted on paperwork and by eliminating redundant or inefficient data entry.
Behind the scenes, handhelds enhance customer service by improving organizational communication and collaboration. They enable field staff and travelers of all kinds to maintain uninterrupted access to email, instant messaging and Web-based resources. They increase the effectiveness of marketing staff and business development executives who shape customer experiences by defining product and service offerings. For example, marketing people using handhelds can input ideas while walking a trade show floor. They can put their "feet on the street" to check out how merchandise is moving, what competitors are up to and whether customers are successfully using what they buy.
CRM: Where Work Gets Done
Field Sales
Handheld computing solutions enable account managers and sales representatives to arrive at meetings better prepared, perform more effectively and close business faster. Access to timely, accurate information from any location - including retail sales floors and other environments where laptops are cumbersome - allows sales reps to immediately answer questions as they come up, tailor deals to customer needs, compute totals, capture customer approvals and confirm orders and delivery schedules on the spot (see Figure 2). The ability to input orders and point-of-sale data in near-real time eliminates manual data entry and re-keying, reduces opportunities for errors and makes information available sooner to the entire organization. Handheld users can exchange information with a large, growing range of applications, including sales automation systems such as Siebel Systems' Siebel Handheld 2001 for the Palm OS Platform and Oracle Corp.'s Mobile Field Sales; CRM software such as Remedy Sales Continuum for Palm Powered handhelds, SalesLogix from Interact Commerce Corporation, Goldmine Software, Janna Systems, Applix and Pivotal Corporation; groupware such as Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange; and personal productivity applications such as the Franklin Covey Planner and TrekWare's StreetSigns. Through these and other applications, handhelds can provide access to leads, sales and commission tracking; contact management, customer databases, electronic product catalogs, quote generation, order entry and status checking; decision support and call and expense reporting; and templates for letters, mass mailings, and contracts.
Figure 2 - Extending CRM into the field
Field Service and Customer Support
Handheld computing solutions improve relationships with customers by accelerating the delivery of support services and decreasing time to problem resolution. You can create mobile help desks that extend the entire knowledge base of the support organization out to the customer location, enabling a higher percentage of problems to be solved immediately, on the spot (see Figure 3). Support personnel - whether a computer technician working under a desk on a PC chassis or a construction project manager up on a roof searching for the cause of a leak - can access customer and product information where they stand and even query colleagues for help via email or instant messaging as they perform support tasks.
Figure 3 - The Mobile Workplace
By creating an all-digital help desk system that extends to the customer site, your organization can eliminate the distribution of printed work assignments, which can be misplaced, and remove the need for support personnel to manually input field data from paper forms into central tracking systems. Data entry takes place as a natural, almost invisible part of doing the job, rather than as a separate, onerous follow-up task. The ability to create tickets on the go and input ad-hoc requests also decreases the chances of something "slipping through the cracks" between the moment of problem occurrence and data entry.
Information can be exchanged between handhelds and a growing range of applications, including Peregrine Systems' Service Center, Oracle's MobileField Service, TechExcel's ServiceWise, Remedy's Remedy Link for Palm Powered handhelds, and GWI Help! software. Through these and other applications, handheld users can download trouble tickets and case forms; access customer purchase records, product configurations and problem histories; submit tickets; perform routing and escalation; upload new and modified records; and perform asset management, change tasking, measurement and reporting.
Professional Services
Handheld computing solutions improve the productivity and performance of professional services staff, such as consultants, systems integrators and project managers. They enable employees who spend the majority of their time on the road or at client sites to stay in touch with the rest of the organization. They also speed service delivery by enabling users to transmit project information back to the office and distribute assignments to team members and subcontractors immediately while still in client meetings. The ability to input project details as well as time and expenses as events occur provides the rest of the organization with near-real time project status while eliminating the need for field staff to spend hours each day doing paperwork and reporting. Input from handhelds can be directed automatically to managers for approval, then routed to the organization's accounting application, speeding the process of getting invoices out to clients and improving cash flow.
Handheld users can exchange information with a growing range of applications, including Changepoint, Strata Systems' Punch List, Interteam Software's Enterprise Link software and Chronos' Consultant. Through these and other applications, they can communicate through email, faxes and paging; enter and manage work orders; match resources with commitments; track tasks; report errors; apply best practices; monitor progress; update project schedules; capture time and billing information; and generate custom reports. Some handhelds even let users access websites, including online services such as USA Today, UPS, and The Weather Channel.
Marketing and Business Development
Handheld computing solutions enable executives who are responsible for creating new products and services to spend more time in today's fast-moving marketplaces. Corporations can disperse intelligence gathering teams to the far corners of the globe while keeping everyone project-focused and tightly coordinated. The ability to capture data, observations and ideas on the go prevents even small bits of information from "slipping through the fingers." At the end of a business trip, users can download information into Microsoft Excel spreadsheets or Word documents or other applications. Traveling executives work more productively with the ability to download up-to-date appointment calendars and contact lists from the office at any moment of the day. They can input their own changes, which can be automatically synchronized with those of administrative assistants and colleagues in multiple locations.
Handheld users can exchange information with a growing range of applications, including communications tools such as email and paging; groupware such as Lotus Notes; and personal productivity tools such as iambic Software's Action Names, Franklin Covey's Ascend Day Planner, and DataViz's Desktop to Go. Through these and other applications, handheld users can enter and manage work orders, match resources with commitments, track tasks, report errors, drive best practices, monitor progress, update project schedules, and capture time and billing information.
Handhelds with Web access capability also provide access to online business resources and traveling aids, including the Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, and Travelocity flight information. Anyday.com, acquired by Palm, Inc., provides handheld users with Internet-based calendar and task management services, including the ability to share schedules with colleagues, coordinate group schedules and events and automatically email meeting confirmations and reminders.
Putting Together a Customer Relationship Management Solution for Your Mobile Workforce
In today's competitive landscape, enabling your mobile workforce with the ability to move quickly and effectively is the key to the success of your organization. Mobilizing your enterprise handheld application can be your advantage. To effectively bring CRM into a mobile work environment, your organization will need a solution that combines a handheld platform with applications, peripherals, and infrastructure that suit your organization and business processes. Here are the key features to look for. At the end of this section we've also included a discussion of the types of support services that can help your organization move beyond out-of-box benefits to unique competitive advantage.
A Platform as Versatile and Dependable as Your Workforce
True mobility.
Handhelds need to be small enough to go everywhere work goes, including places where so-called "mobile" laptops become a hindrance.
Simplicity.
To be effective, handhelds must be used. Handhelds, with instant "on" touch access and intuitive graphical interfaces, are simple to operate during work processes.
On-demand information exchange.
Handheld users should be able to interact with enterprise applications at any time, and anywhere. In addition, some users need access to the Web. Handhelds should let users access enterprise applications on the go via two-way wireless communications or data synchronization between the handheld and application all at once either through a physically connected PC or over TCP/IP to a network server.
Centralized management and integration.
To be truly effective, handhelds must be part of the company's mainstream information management services. The handheld's software should offer a comprehensive solution for IT to deliver CRM applications and data to handheld users.
Multiple communications choices.
Handheld users need to have at their fingertips the most convenient mode of communication at any moment in time. The handheld should offer email, paging, and instant messaging capabilities.
Efficient modes of delivering information to handhelds.
There's a big difference between looking at information on a 20-inch display and on a 3-inch display. Handhelds need to be "efficiency experts" at retrieving and presenting information. They should incorporate application partitioning and Web Clipping, two innovative ways of adapting large amounts of information to small handhelds.
Strong security.
The prospect of using handhelds for CRM and other mission-critical enterprise applications raises security issues. Handhelds should support robust security, including the Password Authentication Protocol (PAP), Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol (CHAP), Microsoft Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol (MS-CHAP), token-based user authentication (such as SecurID and MicroToken), Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption, and RSA BSAFE applications to protect privacy and data integrity.
Broad hardware selection.
Companies often need to match hand-held characteristics to the type of users. Look for a platform that offers a range of handheld designs and a choice of features.
Standards-based architecture.
Because the primary purpose of handhelds is to provide access to other systems and applications, it's important to choose a platform that is based on industry standards. Choose a handheld that works with standard data communications protocols, and work seamlessly with desktop and enterprise applications across Windows, Java, and Macintosh computing environments.
Market leadership and popularity.
Choose a platform that has the market pull to attract the ideas and resources of lots of other companies, and your organization will reap increasing value from your investment.
Protect Your Investment in a Fast-Moving Market
Handheld computing technology is mobile in more ways than one. New developments are emerging rapidly. To maintain a competitive edge and protect your investment, choose the vendor you believe is most likely to consistently deliver innovation.
Conclusion
Just as the introduction of the Palm OS® platform in 1997 launched a new era in personal communications and productivity, the introduction in 1999 of new infrastructure products that link handhelds with corporate servers over networks has launched a new era in enterprise computing. If your organization has not yet deployed handhelds among your mobile workforce, there has never been a better time to start. The investments your organization makes now will increase in value as you take advantage of the flood of new handheld enterprise applications beginning to appear in the market. Highly competitive companies are now building handheld platforms into their IT infra-structures and their strategic thinking about Customer Relationship Management and e-business.
Customer Relationship Management is becoming indivisible from e-business. Leading competitors understand that to prosper in a world in which customers demand immediate and personalized service, CRM must be agile. It must be as effective on the road as it is in the customer care center. Handheld computing solutions untether people from their desks and put backbone applications and other powerful resources in the hands of those who work in the front lines of e-business.
