Category: Mobile2CRM

Gamechanger: Cellular Business Profiles Enhance Insurance Sales
Insurance firms are facing a multitude of sales and retention roadblocks as mobile phone calls and texts become an integral part of the pipeline. Unrecorded or undocumented mobile calls, lack of call-record integration with CRM tools, technical issues with globalization trends, and compliance risks are just a few of the pain points. But what if you could have virtual business mobile profiles that are active 24/7 with automated CRM integration? Let’s take a closer look at this innovative concept and the growth potential it is unleashing worldwide.

Simply put, Insurance agency sales are not really optimized today. More and more cellular phone calls are slipping through the cracks due to a wide range of technical and operational reasons, causing regulatory loopholes and ineffective Sales pipelines. There is also a risk of brand damage and customer churn. The Insurance industry needs to address these issues proactively.

A Day in the Life of the Insurance Sales Team

Before elaborating on the solution, we must cover the five biggest pain points Insurance sales teams are facing in today’s dynamic global markets.

1 – “Your Number is Currently Unavailable..”

The Insurance sales process starts getting bumpy with mobile phone communication (or lack thereof), which is the most commonly used method being used by today. Firstly, there is the problem with sales reps being unreachable due to meetings, working remotely due to COVID-19, or being in-transit (think air travel). This is also a problem with offshored sales teams.

The Result – This directly impacts customer satisfaction levels and makes work hard for sales agents, who also can’t really track/record missed calls.

2 – “Are You Recording Me?”

Many companies face issues with extracting business-relevant data from their agents’ cell phones, which are also used for private calls that should never be recorded. The Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend has intensified in recent years, but is now creating many privacy risks. Just imagine a sales agent losing his phone at a train station – corporate and customer data is at risk!

The Result – Regulatory and privacy laws are everywhere. You need to make sure only business-related calls are recorded – without violating user privacy. The same applies of course to Call transcripts.

3 – “VoIP What?”

You have probably automated the recording of your landline calls, Web chat communications, and email threads to make everything work seamlessly with your CRM solution. The same also applies to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls, which require good internet connection and ideal network conditions on both sides to work well. More often than not, this isn’t the case.

The Result – Digitalization is great, but with so many technical variables in play, it’s not going to replace cellular phone communication anytime soon.

4 – “I’m Lost! These Mobile Calls Are Not Making Any Sense.”

Unfortunately, not documenting and recording mobile calls is leading to more and more broken sales cycles. Besides the obvious frustration and confusion this causes within teams (think new agents selling to old customers), client service ratings, and customer retention metrics are impacted directly. Also, integration with CRM solutions using third-party tools is a challenge in itself.

The Result – “Connecting the dots” is probably the biggest difference between closing deals and not striking when the iron is hot. A huge pain point.

5 – “What Did You Say?”

Communication with clients is no longer based on trust. Price quotes and proposals need to be documented to avoid unintentional confusion or malicious disputes. But with things getting done via mobile phone calls, more and more disputes are being created. This is a big headache for Insurance companies, which now have to dedicate resources to solve these issues.

The Result – Disputes and complaints are harming brand growth and increasing customer attrition. They probably can’t be nullified, but need to be minimized.

Mobile2CRM: Separating Business and Private Calls

Mobile2CRM is revolutionizing the world of Insurance sales and retention by seamlessly integrating automated employee cellular call recordings into your CRM system (business calls only!). This innovative cloud-based technology is flexible and has plug-and-play functionality. It can work smoothly with multiple CRM platforms like Salesforce, Microsoft, HubSpot, ServiceNow, and more.

Integration is just the tip of the iceberg. This tech is helping automate the capturing and documenting of meta-data, call recordings (including transcription), and text messages. Everything is automatically blended into your sales pipeline for optimal results. Needless to mention, this also allows sales managers to improve their training and onboarding procedures, especially with teams working remotely today.

So how does this work?

The principle is as mentioned earlier – Separating business and private calls without requiring SIM-card switching or buying additional handsets. The secret sauce lies in the proprietary Mobile2CRM software, tech that adds a virtual business profile to your agents’ phones. This profile’s mobile number can be reached for calls, texts, and WhatsApp chats – regardless of the geolocation.

These virtual business profiles are completely operator-agnostic and provide a 24/7 solution for Insurance sales teams. With Mobile2CRM, you can have multiple international or local cellular numbers working simultaneously on one handset without requiring unreliable and unstable VoIP technology support, while being compliant at all times due to the siloed approach.

Related: Unleash the Power of Cellular Business Calls

This enhanced reachability and integration capability is helping Insurance companies enhance relationships with customers, while also maximizing Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) metrics across the board. With so many online reviews and social media emerging as a decision factor, you must maximize customer satisfaction at all times to achieve sustainable growth.

Call recording, documentation, and analysis is the key to scaling up today:
- Fixing Broken Sales Cycles – Mobile2CRM’s technology is helping Insurance companies steer clear of VoIP and operator-dependent solutions that can’t provide complete reachability, nor can they patch up the missing link – cellular phone recording, documentation, and integration into the Sales and Retention pipeline.
- Customer Satisfaction – Clients can now reach sales representatives and executives (when needed) at any time and get answers to their questions. They can also get faster service when they call to close deals. This availability and reachability is a key factor in getting a high client service rating, something that is also boosted when there are fewer disputes.
- Optimal Security and Compliance – With privacy regulations like General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in full effect, you need separate private and business calls to record only the latter. Collecting private information without prior consent is a huge no-no today. Compliance is no longer an option.
Mobile2CRM’s unique solution helps create metrics and benchmarks to optimize sales performance. Data can also be used for AI-based BI systems.

Streamlining the Insurance Sales Pipeline with Mobile2CRM

Virtual business profiles, powered by Mobile2CRM’s tech, are helping eliminate blind spots in the Insurance sales process by recording everything automatically and creating actionable insights based on client behavior. Even out-of-office hours calls are documented to improve engagement and meet regulatory obligations. Simply put, this cloud-based tool is the future of sales.

SUCCESS STORY

A leading Insurance agency recently used Mobile2CRM to boost sales and enhance employee efficiency.

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March 24, 2021
The key to Customer Retention and Increased Upselling – B2B and B2C

Relationship between customers and businesses starts and ends with Reachability. Once the sale is made, the next obvious challenge is to retain the customer and maximize the CLV (Customer Lifetime Value) – for the subscription length, the reputation, the potential likelihood of upselling, for the reviews, etc.

Businesses need to take care of that customer (well, Duh…), and being a part of a relationship he or she has with the business means that first and foremost the business needs to be accessible and reachable. This makes excellent business sense for various reasons of course, yet it’s not the “business” that needs to be reachable and accessible, it’s the people – sales, support, customer care etc. – who need to be reachable and accessible.

Accepting that retaining a customer is roughly 10%-20% of the acquisition cost of a new customer dictates that keeping customers happy is an integral part of protecting the customer base and the brand reputation of the business. It takes years to build a strong brand, but only minutes to destroy it. Especially at a time where the relationship between brand and customer is mainly virtual/online/over cell phones, having a good relationship with customers has become even more important, and more challenging.

In addition, it is a lot easier to sell new products or services to existing customers. Upselling not only saves substantial time and effort in the sales cycle but also shows that you care about your customers. Just think about it – for example, sales/support/customer care reps know the pain points of your customers. They already bought a product or service from your business that solved a major problem they had. Once that product or service has a new cool feature or functionality that will make their life even easier, they will be quick to order it from you, their trusted provider/business.

Overall, selling to an existing customer is also only around 10%-20 of the cost it takes to onboard a new one, since no lead generation and prospecting is needed. If you have a good relationship with your customer, it will take less effort to convince him or her (addressing objections) that the new feature or product is really cool and worthwhile investing in. In other words, since the customer already bought from you before, that customer trusts you, your company, and its products and services.

However, there is one major caveat – you need your employees to be available to your customers, accessible and reachable. They are not going to waste time chasing them to find out more, ask for details, or request a free demo or trial. They easily get upset if they cannot reach their sales rep, since this is perceived at not caring. It only takes a few missed calls for them to lose trust in your company and turn to competitors never to return. To put it in simple words – losing touch equals losing trust equals losing the customer. To illustrate, let’s have a look at the following two scenarios.

Scenario 1

You work for an insurance company and sell building insurance, car insurance, and health care insurance to a fast-growing startup. The purchasing manager tries to contact you to know if the current insurance policies also cover corona-related issues and what additional insurances or premium payments might be needed to cover all employees and contingencies. She calls you at work, but the switchboard tells her that you are now working from home. She sends you an email telling you that she will call you on your cellphone that you use privately and for work. You miss the call since you are on the phone with your healthcare provider to set up an appointment for your mother to get vaccinated against COVID-19. You hear that someone is trying to call you, but since you do not know if it’s private or not, you decide to call whoever it is back at a later time. Obviously the call isn’t registered in the CRM and eventually you do not remember to return the call. The purchasing manager gets upset since you could not be reached at work and did not answer after she called your mobile. She concludes that you obviously don’t care enough or simply unresponsive, and decides to check out other insurance companies where the insurance agent is far more approachable. You lost this customer, quite likely forever.

Scenario 2

A customer bought a top-notch treadmill of $3,000 to keep fit during the COVID19 lockdown. That customer discussed with the sales rep his plans to create a fitness room at home with more equipment. The sales rep advised him what kind of equipment to add, such as a press bench, weights, a stationary bike, and a rowing machine. Once the first purchase, the treadmill, was delivered and set up, it did not work properly after only one week. Understandably upset, the customer tries to contact his sales rep to ask what to do about it. However, the sales rep is on a long personal call so he’s unavailable, and here as well – does not recognize the number and to add to the confusion the call isn’t logged in the CRM so there’s no record of it anywhere. The customer cannot get hold for the sales rep even after contacting the helpdesk, and sadly decides that the sports company is unreliable, returns the treadmill, and cancels the planned orders for the other fitness equipment. The frustrated customer also voices his opinion on several online fitness forums.

In both scenarios, we see that it does not take much to lose a customer and kill any chance of upselling. Especially in a contactless environment, a sales rep must act like the customer’s best buddy – being available and reachable to show he cares. This requires that cell phones are used for both private and business calls. This can be problematic. The best way to solve this, is using a solution such as the one of Mobile2CRM, which enables having multiple cellular profiles on one cellphone – a profile and number for business purposes and a private one. That eliminates the need for separate devices or SIM cards to separate private from business calls; just one elegant solution to keep your customers close to you – and always available to them, without compromising on privacy of your personal number. Your business profile ensures that all your business communications (calls, text massages, chats, etc.) are strictly separated from your private communications, respecting your privacy.

Best of all, your business communications on your mobile device will be captured automatically and logged into your company’s CRM. That logged information is always up to date since the logging is done in real-time when you are making or receiving a business call or sending or receiving a business-related text message. Having such a cellular-grade solution on their cell phones, it would have enabled the insurance agent in scenario 1 to immediately respond to the purchasing manager and the sales rep in scenario 2 to do the same regarding his fitness equipment customer. The solution even allows for adding notes and comments to the already existing call log and recording, which makes follow-up (like sending a technician to the treadmill customer) easy. It’s the ultimate way to keep being close to your customers and give them the support and care they need and deserve.

Just to emphasize, your business and private profiles use the SIM number on the same device, but only calls and text messages performed to/from the business profiles are logged in the CRM. This means that your company will be able to review and analyze the content of your business calls, but not that of your private conversations. So you can keep on using your private device, being sure that there is a complete separation between your personal and business activities. This makes switching between sending a private text message to your mother and answering a business call from a distraught customer a breeze.

February 22, 2021
Deals Keep Disappearing Into the Wind? Here’s a Simple Trick That Can Boost Your Closure Rate By 30% Or More.

When prospects say that they “need time think it over”, this can mean two things: (1) they are not interested at all and want to brush the sales rep off (this happens a lot if that prospect does not match the Ideal Customer Profile), or (2) the potential customer is interested, but has reservations about the product or service. If the latter applies, the sales rep needs to further encourage and nurture that potential customer. That prospect might have concerns about the usefulness of the product or service, think that it is the same as competitive offerings that are cheaper, or worry that it will not meet his or her specific needs. A potential customer might raise several objections, which means that the sales rep has to follow up each and every time to convert this potential prospect into a paying customer. If the prospect cannot be convinced, the sale will be lost.

So what does the sales rep need to do to prevent the sale from falling through? Well, the sales rep needs to “cuddle” the potential customer. In other words, communicate frequently with the prospect to keep the conversation going. The sales rep must answer any questions that the potential customer has in near real-time, keeping the prospect from getting cold, providing more information as quickly as possible, sending relevant presentations or use cases to show how the product or service can benefit the prospect, etc. Since the potential customer needs to be convinced, time is of the essence. The “you snooze, you lose” principle applies!

This puts a strain on the salespeople, since they must be reachable at all times. Needless to say, this is not really possible when telephone calls take place via the corporate switchboard or the company’s call center. To demonstrate this, here’s a common scenario that can put a deal-in-process to death – a prospect who previously asked to “think about it” comes up with a few more questions, or simply wants to close the deal. They call the salesperson’s landline and get no answer since he’s out of office. Next, they call the corporate hotline who refers them to another salesperson or to the call center. By the time they reach someone who can help them they need to go through everything they already went through with their previous rep, get annoyed or lose interest. In both cases, the prospect will not turn into a paying customer.

As mentioned above, the sales reps must be the prospect’s “buddy”, and always be available, giving that prospect the feeling that they really care, which mandates that they give their cellphone number to prospects with the magic words “call me anytime, I am here for you”. This keeps the communication channels open to answer any questions and address any concerns to overcome objections and close the deal.

To be reachable at all times (or at least have the missed calls logged, documented and flagged) and to keep the communication channels open, the salespeople must be able to use their mobile phones to respond to any call, chat, and text messages. To keep track of the sales process and trace its progress, all these mobile communications must be logged, documented and recorded in the company’s CRM and other systems. This is mandatory regardless of whether the sales reps use their company-issued or BYOD smartphones for these sales calls, text messages, and chats.

But this raises another question: how can the company separate business from private calls on their reps’ smartphones? After all, even if recording business communications is a must, recording private conversation by corporate means is an absolute no-no. That’s where a mobile to CRM type of a solution comes into play. For example, this Mobile2CRM^TM solution solves this problem, since it enables adding an additional business-related cellular number on the sales rep’s own cell phone and connects it to the relevant corporate resources such as the CRM and call recording system. This provides a premium cellular relationship with the potential customer, while the sales rep’s personal cellular communications remains private. This solution only captures business-related communications and interactions conducted on the cellphone keeping the personal conversations private, which also complies with the applicable privacy laws.

January 25, 2021
Work-life balance comes at a price. That’s why we need smart work-life integration

For decades, employees have been struggling to balance their work and private lives. Factors that contributed to a bad work-life balance were more responsibilities at work and / or at home, longer work hours, and having children, to name a few. Having a good work-life balance results in less stress, lower burnout rates, and an increased sense of well-being. During the last decade, employers have come to realize that providing environments that support work-life balance for their employees not only benefits the well-being of their workforce, but also results in lower absence and churn rates since employees would be more loyal and productive. Employers and HR departments implemented various strategies to promote the work-life balance concept, including telecommuting and flexible work hours (flex working).

At first glance, this approach seems to make sense and worked well in some cases. For instance, the Australian Telework Advisory Committee (ATAC) found in 2012 that telework reduced OPEX (rent, maintenance, parking, travel, etc.), increased efficiency, made the workforce more inclusive (adding rural areas-based and disabled workers), and made employees happier with their work. However, in many cases, it also had a reverse effect. To enable employees to work from home or flexible hours, the line between private and work life became blurry. Work and non-work activities started to overlap, especially with the use of digital tools such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops. As a result, it became hard for employees to set boundaries, stick to work hours, and prioritize activities.

Employers, on the other hand, found out that not all employees have the same work-life balance goals. HR departments were tasked with finding out what the objectives of each employee were and how the company could help to determine them, such as working remotely a couple of days per week or changing their daily work schedule. Overall, companies struggled to combine policy, support for the individual employee, and cultural change (David Clutterbuck, April 2003).

Fast-forwarding to 2020, the work-life balance changed almost overnight when the COVID-19 pandemic made its presence felt around the world. Suddenly, all non-essential workers started to work from home (WFH) during consecutive lockdowns. The availability of information and communication technologies made it possible for them to perform the tasks normally done in the workplace. Although some employees preferred WFH to keep a better work-life balance, some employers were concerned that productivity would decline in a time when many companies are struggling to survive.

In the time of Covid-19, coordinating work and family demands by setting boundaries to maintain a physical, temporal and psychological equilibrium has become even more difficult. This conflict between work and personal life demands has magnified emotional exhaustion. It has become possible to keep these domains separate from each other. That’s why we have seen a shift from work-life balance to work-life integration. By integrating work and non-work activities, spending time and energy to conduct these activities in parallel has become manageable. But to integrate these different domains, employees must be able to manage the time, location, and quantity of work. A flexible work arrangement will integrate work and life and enable the balance between them.

Technology has a positive impact on work-life integration, making it easier to manage work and private life by creating an in-office culture while working from home to boost productivity.

Technology helps employees work smarter by connecting them with their team across borders and collaborating on projects. The right digital tools do not only have a positive impact on the work itself, but also increase output and boosts revenues for the company. These digital tools must therefore be smartly deployed to make the work environment seamless across spaces. This must also enable employees to find new ways to separate their business from their private life and communications. This means that the company must support phone communications as well as corporate resources by deploying digital tools to automate operations and adapt to the current situation, including access to the corporate CRM, call recording, and other systems.

With no time to prepare or plan (hardly any organization had factored a global pandemic into its business continuity planning), organizations had to provide these digital tools almost overnight in March 2020, putting technology interfaces in place to support working from home while deploying policies, practices, and processes to ensure work-life integration. Companies had to deploy a different set of IT capabilities for collaboration (chat, voice, virtual meetings, screen-sharing, teleconferencing, etc.) and for access to the corporate network using remote access services. More importantly, the digital tools must also allow for establishing a work schedule/routine had to that avoids blending home time and work time.

However, with remote workers using their own or company-issued laptops and smartphones, separating private and business calls and messaging interactions has become an issue, not in the least due to the stringent privacy laws. For example, recording business communications and entering them into the CRM or call recording system is a challenge since the employees use their devices – including their cell phones – outside of the corporate network and telephone system. To address this issue, a solution such as mobile2CRM is called for. Such a solution only captures – records and stores – business-related or service/support-related conversations in the CRM and call recording systems for later references and more analysis using more sophisticated AI-based BI systems for example without any privacy violation issues regardless of whether the employee uses a company-issued or they use their own BYOD phone. It is a powerful digital tool for solidifying work-life integration, benefitting both employers and employees.

For example, a major financing firm was faced with its support center staff working from home. Calls still needed to be recorded, even on BYOD cell phones and tablets, while complying with employee privacy regulations. The firm used Mobile2CRM to protect its staff’s privacy by introducing a virtual business profile that included a virtual number, messaging app, and SMS on the cellphones of the support staff. This enabled them to record and later access the customer call recordings using their own cellphone. In addition, this functionality provided analysis and performance improvement tools, such as reports and call recording data. Apart from optimizing performance and increasing effectiveness, it also gave peace of mind that no personal information would be captured and recorded by the firm.

To make working from home, on the road, or any other out-of-office location effective and to support work-life integration, a solution that keeps business and private cellular communication completely separate is a must. The solution allows employees to better integrate their work and private lives while resting assured that their privacy is protected.

December 17, 2020
CRM is Not the Enemy – This is How to Boost CRM Adoption by Salespeople

When you talk to sales reps about CRM, you will often hear: “Yeah, it’s great for management, but I don’t see how it can benefit me.” Some will even go further and point out that recording everything related to their job in the CRM system is time-consuming and comes at the expense of valuable prospecting time. Coming from the “trenches”, we understand their perspective very well and would like to offer some new view points

Selling is not just a numbers game; there is a need for constative follow-up and on-going learning from the most successful salespeople. Let’s first have a closer look at what sales reps do to close deals. For one, they interact with potential and existing customers to follow up on leads and close new deals. This involves sending and receiving emails, making and receiving phone calls, setting up appointments, and making notes for follow-up. They also send out information, price quotes, and contracts. They are keeping track of meeting their KPIs and sales targets, and staying on budget. They also need to report on potential and closed deals, and their pipeline progress. That’s enough to make anyone’s head spin.

That’s where CRM comes in. A CRM system reduces the time they need to spend on mundane tasks, so that they can concentrate on what they truly like to do (and are good at!) – making sales. A CRM makes it easy for a sales rep to retrieve prospect and customer data and to create, classify, organize, and optimize sales collateral at a central place that can be accessed in the office, but also remotely when WFH.

A hurdle in making CRM sales rep-friendly is the use of a smartphone when being on the road or working from home. When sales reps are using their own (BYOD) or a company cellphone, the business-related calls and phone messages are normally not recorded and documented in the CRM system, which forces them to rely on their memory, scribbled notes, and time-consuming reports. To make their lives (and that of their managers) easier, a mobile-to-CRM solution is called for. Such a solution only records and stores sales-related conversations in the CRM for analysis without any privacy issues regardless if you, as a sales rep, use a company-issued or your own BYOD phone. Recording calls empowers the sales rep with growth opportunities as the data can be analyzed, and valuable lessons can be learned.

With the pandemic reaching a second and even third wave forcing governments to take lockdown measures, working from home (WFH) remains the new normal. Sales reps are now using their smartphones to make remote sales, since face-to-face meetings and business trips are much less common. During such calls, a lot of sales information is exchanged that should be recorded for follow-up. That’s also where a mobile-to-CRM solution makes a difference by automatically recording, tracking, documenting, and integrating business-related cellular calls, SMS records, and other forms of business communications, while respecting the privacy of the sales reps (and whoever else in their household is borrowing their cell phone to make a quick call).

So, if you are a sales rep, it’s good to know that CRM is your friend and that can indeed make your life easier!

Want to know more about how Mobile2CRM can help your sales reps too?

Contact us at [email protected]

November 18, 2020
Want to keep your sales up? Make every sales call count!
Picture this: your sales figures are lower than they should be, the measures you take to increase numbers are not working – and you have no idea why. To make this even more painful, this has been going on for quite some time now. Strange, because your salespeople are good; you made sure that they got comprehensive sales training, attended the annual sales kick-off, and you even arranged podcast sessions for them.

So you’re beginning to feel the need to dig deeper and get to the bottom of this conundrum. Naturally, you decide to go right to the source – customer and prospect interactions. That should tell you where the problems are. Your CRM and call recording system are, of course, excellent resources for this, since all customer conversations are recorded and filed for analysis and follow-up. Sounds good – right? Not really…here is the problem – most of your salespeople are on-the-go and use cellphones to talk, send messages (SMS, text, etc.) to customers, prospects, partners etc. These interactions, and the valuable data they contain, are NOT recorded and NOT stored in your CRM, regardless of whether they use company-issued or personal smartphones.

There are two complex issues to examine here (and then some…):
1. Technical – Peer-to-peer cellphone call recording and CRM integration aren’t trivial, especially across operator networks and carriers, over multiple geographic regions, etc.
2. Compliance – The need to separate private and business calls in order to only log and record business calls to respect the various privacy laws
Once you use a mobile-to-CRM solution, you can overcome both of these challenges and only record and store business-related conversations in your CRM for analysis without any privacy issues regardless of whether your sales reps use company-issued or BYOD phones. This treasure trove of data lets you listen to the unfiltered voice of customers and prospects. You can now check, grade, and review all sales conversations, which enables you to identify areas for improvement.

It’s important to emphasize that you really need to make every call count. Only by listening to your reps will you be able to focus on what support they need to be successful. The insights gained from the mobile-to-CRM solution enables the successful coaching of your sales team instead of just (re)training them. Don’t get me wrong – sales training can be useful for teaching standard sales practices. But only continuous coaching based on real-world performance will empower each and every one of your sales reps to live up to his or her full potential. Since the recorded conversations between your sales reps and their customers or prospect reveal the real cause of your sliding sales, the sales coach will know exactly what to address to improve sales performance.

Want to know more about how Mobile2CRM can help with coaching sales reps?

Contact us at [email protected]
November 4, 2020
Are you really making the best-informed decisions? Or….. (Part 2 of 2)

In our previous blog post, we mentioned that more and more business communications are taking place using cellphones over the cellular network and therefore remain unrecorded and undocumented by the organization’s systems.

For this valuable business data to become a resource for your decision-making processes, a new type of solution is necessary that will give you access to all business-related call recordings, CRM, and other analytics and BI data. Only then will you be able to make fully informed business decisions about allocating resources, providing better CX, preventing customer churn, improving your competitive edge, and improving corporate performance.

Let’s have a closer look at the features and capabilities a solution should have to provide in order for businesses to get a truly 360˚ view. To state the obvious, we are talking here about a near real-time solution that allows the recording and documenting of all business-related mobile calls into the organization’s systems regardless if your employees are using their own (BYOD) or a company cellphone. Needless to say, the tricky part is separating private from business calls for practical reasons (having one’s mother-in-law over for dinner is not exactly relevant BI) and, more importantly, for complying with the various privacy laws.

Let’s have a look at how the Mobile2CRM solution works.

Once your company has subscribed to the Mobile2CRM solution, each employee will be assigned a mobile business profile. The employees then download the mobile app to their cellphones from either the Google Play Store or the Apple AppStore. Alternatively, your company can allow employees to download the app via its own MDM system.

After employees install the app on their mobile devices, they can start using their new (and real) business mobile number while keeping all the functionality that they are used to and love. From that moment on, all incoming and outgoing business calls and SMS messages via the assigned mobile number will be recorded and documented in your company’s CRM and call recording systems. If employees use IM services such as WhatsApp for business purposes, the solution can add an IM business profile for that IM service. Needless to say, only business-related messages and calls will be recorded. It is important to note that the recording is effective and dependable since it uses native cellular networks, as opposed to VoIP services that are known to have issues (e.g., dropped calls, VOIP coverage, audio quality, etc.).

The Mobile2CRM solution logs metadata as well as the content of calls and text messages, dates, times, duration, and content of each call is recorded as well as the calling/called numbers, and also if the call was answered or not. No more valuable business info flying under the radar; it’s documented in the CRM.

Let’s recap – with a solution as described above, you will have all the recorded calls and documented data you need for your decision-making when accessing your company’s CRM and other (e.g., Analytics, BI) systems. Yes, it really is as simple as that…

August 19, 2020
Are you really making the best-informed decisions? Or….. (Part 1 of 2)

As any director, VP, and C-suite manager can tell you – making informed decisions is crucial for the company, but it is also easier said than done. It all stands and falls by having relevant data available that can provide a 360˚ view to get the whole picture.

As any manager can tell you, making informed decisions requires a systematic approach to reduce the likelihood of overlooking important factors and data for analyzing the situation, having relevant data available, looking at the various alternatives, exploring multiple options, and choosing (fingers crossed) the best one.

To make things complicated, success depends on the resources and tools used to come to that decision. SWOT analysis, applying a decision matrix, or a Pareto analysis are all great tools, but mid-and senior level managers just don’t have the time for such an academic approach. Also, for these approaches to work, the decision-maker must depend on the completeness and accuracy of the available data. In other words, what you as a director, VP or C-level manager need first and foremost is a 360˚view of your department and organization including all the data that you can get to support making informed decisions. This will give you the insight to make informed decisions with a low risk level.

Important tools in this context are, of course, your company’s CRM, call recording, and other Analytics and BI systems that contain valuable data for your analysis. Regardless if you are responsible for sales, CX, finance, or corporate – you need to get insight into all recorded and documented data, including business-related mobile calls and text messages that are often missing, but are essential for meta-data analysis.

So why is such a solution crucial for your decision-making process? Well, as the saying goes, “knowledge is power” – and using all your business-related call recording, CRM, and other analytics and BI data available for analysis is priceless. With it, you can quickly and efficiently make informed business decisions about allocating resources, providing better CX, preventing customer churn, improving your competitive edge, and improving corporate performance.

In our next blog post (Are you really making the best-informed decisions? Or….. Part 2), we will look into the features and capabilities that such a solution should have to provide the treasure trove of data for a truly 360˚ view for informed decision making. (Hint: using business profiles, managing business numbers, inbound/outbound calls, CRM integration, managing company-owned mobile devices…..) – Stay tuned!

July 30, 2020
Going into Crisis Mode – Your Workforce and the New Normal

While we are facing the 2nd wave of COVID-19 (or a spiking first – depending on the expert you listen to), enterprises need to go into crisis mode quickly and efficiently. In addition to adapting their business models, looking for additional revenue streams, or alternative supply chains, many companies are now deciding to let almost all their employees work remotely. With the current work visa and travel restrictions, this only makes sense.

We have witnessed the following scenario taking place quite a few times already – It is Thursday, 3PM, an unscheduled management call has just ended, and the action item is this:

“Effective Monday morning, the company is transitioning to off-premise working mode. This is due to the global health situation and pandemic risks…..”

The first thought that crosses your mind (especially if you are in operations, IT, cyber security, etc.) is “there goes the weekend…” and the second thought is “how on earth are we going to make sure everybody can do their job – they need to have the resources that they are used to, at least phone communications, secure access to the ERP, CRM, call recording systems, analytics, and some other essentials.”

So, let’s look at the big picture for a moment – obviously this is a major challenge. Management can opt for providing each employee with a laptop, but that means ordering extra ones. That is expensive and tricky, since they are in short supply as everyone and their mother in law in many companies need to start working from home, and every kid and student attending class from home needs his/her own laptop to videoconference and do homework.

Another option is to provide each employee working from home or remotely with a software-based phone (aka softphones) and a headset. The main drawback? It requires a desktop computer, a stable internet connection, VPN, etc. so this is not an optimal solution. Furthermore – this is good only for VOIP communications and does not cover employees who’re on-the-road.

So….letting them use their own devices (laptops, cellphones) is the answer, right? Well, the IT and CISO department will wholeheartedly disagree. They would be living in a nightmare of not only changing the corporate access permissions (e.g., CRM, recording systems), but also beefing up cybersecurity. As we have seen in previous months, the corona crisis, combined with the working from home (WFH) trend, has been a bonanza for hackers and cybercrooks. To top it off, the company has to bank on the fact that their employees have sufficient bandwidth at home to work remotely, while their kids are gaming and their spouses may also need the same resources to do their own job.

Quite a challenge! So, is there a faster and easier solution to address the problem? One that will make management, employees, the IT department, and the CISO happy?

Indeed there is! The answer is adding a business line within minutes to the cellphone of each and every remote worker that will only be used for business calls , allow secure and trackable access to corporate resources, allow recording, and – adhere to privacy regulations. To make sure that the quality is high, and it also does not gobble up a lot of bandwidth, the solution uses the cellular network (and not VoIP).

Sound good? Want to learn more? Contact us now or request a demo.

July 9, 2020
How to listen to the silent voice of your customers

Did you know that the majority of business calls between your organization and the outside world are now mobile-based? Just think about your employees in the field (your “road warriors”), who spend a lot of time on the road, at airports, in hotels, etc. Recent estimates are that they spend up to 60% of their workday on their cellphones talking to customers.

In itself, using cellphones to interact with customers is great for CX, is highly efficient, and gives your employees the flexibility they need to do their job. That’s the good news. The bad news? These conversations are not recorded and entered in your CRM, which means that you have a huge information gap in your organization. While customer communications via email, chat, and office landlines are recorded without any problems, the mobile conversations of your field staff (technicians, sales reps, real estate brokers, etc.) remain off the radar.

The answer to monitoring these “silent” conversations seems to be obvious, right? It’s called call recording. That’s easier said than done though. For one, as your employees are working from home (WFH) or remotely, they use their mobile phones for both private and business communications, especially if you have a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy in place. Moreover, native mobile (peer-to-peer) communications are hard to monitor, and many IOS and Android apps block call recording software on cell phones. Last but not least, privacy regulations also come into play. That’s why companies rarely capture the critical mobile customer communications of their field staff.

So now what? Is there a way to record only the business calls that your employees make using cellphones without the need to provide them with a separate device? A way that allows for those calls to be recorded and entered into your CRM for analysis and follow-up? And that fully complies with all privacy laws and regulations?

Yes, there is such a way! The first step is separating business calls from private calls. This is accomplished by adding a virtual business profile to each of your employee’s mobile phones. Next you need to have the proper software solution that is integrated with your call recording system and your CRM, and can differentiate between calls made using the private profile and those made using the business one. Last but not least, such a solution needs to have quite a few standard features such as out of office / working rules, call forwarding, multi-numbers etc.

There actually is a solution that already does that. It lets you listen to the silent voice of your customers, and record all your mobile business conversations, without invading privacy or breaching any privacy laws or regulations. Especially “in the new normal”, you can have the complete 360^o customer view that you need.

Click here to learn more about this innovative approach!

June 23, 2020