Alltel Tailors CRM Mobile App for BlackBerry

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."