Alltel (NYSE: AT) 
has joined the ranks of service providers offering
mobile customer relationship management functionality to their business customers. The wireless
company has introduced SalesNOW, a contact,
activity and deal management Web app designed for the BlackBerry mobile device.
Most of the application's features relate to contact management or productivity functionality. Users can track and manage deals from their BlackBerry handhelds, build detailed customer profiles, capture activities such as tasks or memos to the device, or link e-mails to a particular deal.
Users can access their data through the Web -- via their BlackBerry device or
through an individual SalesNOW account. Other features include a
calender application, e-mail 
tools and contact-tracking functionality.
Synching data -- always an issue in a mobile environment -- can be done either when a mobile user makes a change online or when a change is made to the SalesNOW database in-house.
Limited Success
SalesNOW is hardly the first application tailored for the BlackBerry
environment. One competing product, for example, is Mobile
Edge, a mobile CRM application that allows any organization to extend
its applications wirelessly to BlackBerry devices. Mobile Edge for
NetSuite , for SugarCRM, for Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) and for Lotus Notes have all
been released.
Despite these pockets of success with certain applications, the CRM industry has yet to see a wholesale adoption of this technology as it once was envisioned. Field service apps, yes. Mobile sales functionality that requires little effort on the part of a rep to stay in touch and up to date? Not so much.
The culprits behind this disappointing lack of momentum over the years have been CRM applications cut to fit a mobile environment instead of being developed for it from the beginning, poor user adoption (a problem for any type of new project, to be fair) and a lack of leadership among vendors, wireless carriers, telcos and system integrators. All, in other words, have been taking their own approach to mobile CRM.
Tipping Point
The result is a rather cynical potential user base. Still, mobile CRM may finally be at the tipping point, according to Sheryl Kingtone, an analyst with Yankee Group.
Over the past year, there have been several large pilot projects at firms that are
now moving to wider adoption, she told CRM
Buyer. Also, many of the wireless carriers now
automatically offer all-you-can-eat data-pricing plans, which makes an
enterprise rollout of these applications more attractive.
Furthermore, more companies are realizing the value a mobile add-on can bring to an earlier investment -- especially for huge projects like Siebel implementations.
"With most of the latest mobile
CRM applications, no rip and replace is required," Kingstone said. "They
overlay onto the existing CRM application very nicely."
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