Social and MobileCRM Boost Productivity by 26.4 Percent

A Nucleus Research survey of CRM decision makers found that organizations can significantly increase returns on their CRM investments by adding mobile and social capabilities, particularly for salespeople.

Nucleus recently surveyed 223 CRM decision makers and found an average productivity gain of 14.6 percent from mobile capabilities and 11.8 percent from social CRM.

"Given the relatively low price point of many mobile CRM applications, and the fact that most social capabilities are bundled into CRM at no additional per-user price, organizations that do not explore mobile and social strategies are likely to lose competitive advantage in 2012 to those competitors that do embrace these technologies," said Rebecca Wettemann, vice president of research at Nucleus Research, in a statement.

While salespeople have used mobile devices for some time, the 14.6 percent productivity increase seen in this report is driven by the development of custom, device-specific applications that take advantage of the form factors of individual devices. Vendors and consultants are increasingly delivering task-specific, role- and vertical-based views of mobile CRM data that make it easier for salespeople to go beyond updating their pipelines via their smartphones, the research found.

Nucleus has found that early adopters of social CRM have recognized clear benefits, such as increased visibility and productivity. The 11.8 percent productivity gain is high, and Nucleus expects adoption of social CRM, particularly by salespeople, to grow not just in real numbers, but also in frequency of activity as users become more aware of the technology's capabilities and as vendors' offerings mature.

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