2 page Case Study - Posted 7/17/2008
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Mobile Web Access Boosts Solution Provider’s Productivity, Customer Responsiveness
IT infrastructure provider BMS Digital Solutions needed a way to help its field staff stay in better communication with customers while on the road, as well as receive and respond to critical information faster. Now equipped with Windows Mobile® 6 phones, BMS staff are more responsive to customers, arriving at site visits armed with the very latest information.
Business Needs
BMS Digital Solutions has been providing IT infrastructure sales and technical services in the Midlands of England since 1991. The company’s three sales staff and four technical staff often spend four or five days at a time out of the office on client visits.
Being on the road so much was causing communication challenges. It was difficult for staff to receive and quickly answer critical time-sensitive e-mail messages, such as a technical query or a quote request. “We might get sales leads coming in, but they were landing in the mailboxes of people who weren’t able to read them until they got back into the office the day after,” says Steve Wright, CEO of BMS.
It was tough for technical staff to arrive at a client visit with up-to-the-minute information. “Server situations can change in minutes. They’d leave the office with current information, but quite often by the time they got to the site, the client might have new information about a particular problem, or maybe even a new issue had arisen,” Wright says. “It was making our staff look less knowledgeable.”
What’s more, staff had to wait until they returned to the office to manually update client information using their customer relationship management (CRM) software, further delaying response time. “The client might well start trying to solve a problem on their own—by buying another laptop, for instance—because they didn’t want to wait for information to be fed back to us and then for us to react,” says Wright. “This occurred in about 3 out of every 20 visits.”
The field staff’s inability to receive and respond to messages quickly, or get up-to-date information in a timely fashion, was leading to loss of business. The situation had to change.
Solution
BMS decided that it needed a better way for its field teams to be informed and respond to clients while they were on the road: mobile Internet access.
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We’re solving customer problems much more quickly. It makes us look more professional |
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Steve Wright
CEO, BMS Digital Solutions |
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In early 2007, BMS gave its seven field employees HTC S710 smartphones running Windows Mobile® 6 software. Now, when the teams are visiting a client, they can use their smartphones’ Web browser to log in to HoundDog Technology’s MiniDash™, a Web-based program for remotely viewing customers’ IT infrastructure status. “It gives them an overview of how that customer’s servers are running in real time and whether there are any problems,” says Wright.
The company also thought it would be better able to streamline its communication and more quickly update critical data if its CRM software was integrated directly into the mobile solution. It decided to implement Microsoft Dynamics® CRM 4.0 on the Windows Mobile phones.
“We chose Microsoft for our solution because any messaging and collaboration we can do with a Windows Mobile phone is immediately reflected in Microsoft Dynamics CRM and via our Microsoft® Exchange Server software,” says Wright. “We can set appointments for the field teams from the office, and those changes and appointments are immediately available to them on their Windows Mobile phones.”
Benefits
Using their Windows Mobile phones, BMS field staff have improved their responsiveness to customers and their productivity on the road. Management has increased its internal visibility.
Improved Customer Responsiveness
Employees are finding that Windows Mobile greatly speeds up their ability to respond to customers. “We’re more in touch with what our customers want and need,” Wright says. “For instance, our team can get sales leads on their Windows Mobile phones and follow up with a potential client immediately, while the opportunity is still hot.”
In addition, immediate access to the latest information helps the technical team provide better customer service. “They’re filled in on what’s happening before they get to the client site,” Wright says. “We’re solving customer problems much more quickly. It makes us look more professional.”
More Productive
The Windows Mobile phones have helped BMS staff become much more productive when out of the office. “I think initially they thought the device would just allow them to read their email and access the Internet while they’re out and about,” says Wright. “But they found they can do much more than that. With Microsoft Office Mobile they can do calendaring, edit Microsoft Office files, read PDF files, and so on. They get much more done, without being tied to a desk-bound PC.”
Better Visibility
The integration of Microsoft CRM 4.0 with Windows Mobile 6.0 has given BMS management greater company visibility on top of more up-to-date information. “Now, mobile staff can feed client information back to the office straight-away via their Windows Mobile phones,” Wright says. “It gives us an immediate view of exactly what is going on with everybody within the organization.”
