In Part 2 of our series Branden Lisi discusses how Enterprise Mobility offers those same kinds of tools to connect customers with relevant information in ways that build and maintain affinity.

Building a Mobile Strategy: Part 2

In our first part of this series we discussed how Enterprise Mobility offers many advantages to companies looking to enable their workforce with mobile tools and data. Now we’ll consider how Enterprise Mobility offers those same kinds of tools to connect customers with relevant information in ways that build and maintain affinity.

LOYALTY IS NOW IN THE CUSTOMERS HANDS

Getting your mobile app on the phone or tablet of your ideal consumer is only the first step. Most people will try an app once or twice, but if it doesn’t deliver value, then they ditch it. Viola—more storage space!

Engaging consumers on an ongoing basis with loyalty offers, new products, sales, events, even job notices, provides recurring opportunities to connect and remain engaged with consumers in ways that email tools simply don’t (we’ll get into the technology difference between email and apps in the next article).

Right now, consider how the versatility of mobile apps and their ability to use tools like voice recognition, camera, GIS software PLUS the web; provides marketers with virtually endless ways to build and maintain customer loyalty (hey, you can even keep them updated on their points totals so they know how many more cups of coffee they have to buy before they win a free trip to Columbia to pick beans).

CAN YOU PLEASE PUT ME ON HOLD?

You don’t have to be a very savvy marketing person to know that customers hate to be put on hold. The reality for most companies however, is that staffing and managing customer relationships through call centers is a drain on lean organizations and a barrier to customer satisfaction. A recent study conducted by our team revealed that between 4-11% of a CSRs time is wasted simply searching through internal software systems and providing updates on topics as mundane as account balances and order status. Think about the productivity gains you can realize if you could reduce the time your people spend shuffling information from a database into the heads (or hands) of your customers.

One of our utility clients is offering an app that allows customers to quickly report when services are down. Instead of flooding their call centers with outage information, they’re seeing a significant percentage of their customers use mobile apps to report an outage. Why? Well, consumers have found it is both faster and easier than looking up a phone number and waiting on hold. In this case, using mobile apps enhances the customer experience AND makes life easier for the company. And yes, it’s a bit cheesy to use the cliche, but this a classic ‘win-win.’

ARE YOU WHERE YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE GOING?

In a time where every competitive company must do more with less, enabling your customers to access their own information via mobile apps can shift your teams focus from ‘information sharing’ to ‘relationship building.’ It’s time every owner and manager considers how they’re going to complete in the next phase of the digital ‘evolution.’

Next time for our last issue of this three part series on building a mobile strategy we’ll discuss understanding your options for Enterprise Mobility.