If your boss asks you what is holding up Salesforce adoption, you can tell him that a new survey points to mobile device integration. More specifically, the lack of mobile email integration is the greatest source of user dissatisfaction. Unhappy users don’t adopt; they resist.
We all know that the business world is changing. More and more people rely on mobile devices and different computers in the office (IBM-compatible) and at home (Macbook). These professionals need cross platform / mobile device email integration to do their job. Device-independent email syncing and logging has become mission critical.
It is no longer acceptable to only offer manual email syncing and logging to Salesforce that only works in the office and on a PC like Salesforce for Outlook. Adding emails to Salesforce needs to work beyond the narrow confines of Outlook or Gmail and encompass all the devices and platforms on the market: iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Lenovo, IBM – Lotus, Google Apps and LG.
Curiously, there is already a good solution for mobile Salesforce email integration on the AppExchange and it is called Match My Email. Match My Email is a cloud technology that takes both the human and the mobile device out of the email syncing and logging equation. By working in the cloud, machine-to-machine, the service automatically adds all inbound and outgoing emails to the right Salesforce.com record or records regardless of where the email has been sent or received.
Automated email integration in the cloud has many advantages over manual tools. Cloud-based email syncing and logging is always on, 24/7/365, regardless of what the end-user is doing – working, traveling, out sick, on vacation or just plain too busy to click an ‘Add to Salesforce” button. Automated email integration is particularly helpful with older professionals. Often times it is difficult to get Baby Boomers to adopt new mobile technologies. Cloud-based email integration creates an email system of record in Salesforce.com, whereas the manual tools create an email log “as full of holes as Swiss cheese”. Spotty data is never a recipe for success. If the email record in SFDC is full of gaps, then the sales rep can’t trust the information in SFDC and they fall back on rely on their email account. The whole idea is to get the sales rep to work in Salesforce, not less.
A canonical email log in Salesforce can be used to create useful reports and dashboards. By on comprehensive email tracking, the sales process can be better managed by measuring email activity by sales rep, monitoring real time email traffic and/or tracking Leads and/or Opportunities that have gone “cold”. Cloud-based email integration also works with custom objects, custom fields and custom workflows. Customization is one of the strengths of force.com. Cloud-based technologies like Match My Email can leverage the power of force.com and get email information into SFDC exactly where the sales rep needs it, in real time. In order to bind to custom objects or fields, the SFDC Enterprise or Unlimited Editions are required.
If you are looking to increase Salesforce adoption and user satisfaction, it is recommended that your take a look at Match My Email. It offers a world-class solution to adding emails to Salesforce from mobile phones right now.
