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With cloud and mobile adoption growing by the day, users are accustomed to having the ability to adjust technology to their liking. Not surprisingly, those expectations have begun to carry over from people’s personal lives and into their working lives. 

Users have come to expect a certain amount of flexibility from their devices and applications, and CRM systems are no exception. Increasingly, people want the systems they log in to and live in for eight hours a day to fulfill their needs just as their consumer products do. This means that they’d like to get the tools they need at a moment’s notice, without having to jump through too many hoops in the process. And if they can’t get such tools straight out of the box, at the very least they expect to be able to easily readjust their core systems with the right functionality. 

It’s not just functionality that is in high demand. Having a broad selection is vital as well. 

As more employees use their own portable devices for work, mobile apps are becoming an essential component. It’s no secret by now that professionals often wish to work directly from their smartphones. Field sales reps, for example, are frequently miles away from their computers, closing deals in person, and marketers can’t always anticipate when inspiration will hit regarding their latest creative campaign. These professionals need malleable tools at their disposal to aid these efforts—tools that they’re comfortable using.  

But it’s almost impossible for a CRM vendor to provide every client with exactly what it’s looking for. Many companies encounter problems getting a solution that addresses the particulars of their circumstances. A company’s industry, size, and location are all factors that can determine its specific CRM needs, says Ray Wang, founder of Constellation Research.

“CRM itself is a transactional app,” Wang says. “It allows companies to look at an opportunity, run a marketing campaign, or handle a customer service request.” The tricky part, however, is doing more with those transactions. “A lot of vendors don’t have the bandwidth, nor do they have the expertise to take that and expand upon it, or apply it to different verticals,” Wang says.

That’s where third-party apps come in. 

Roughly 10 years ago, Salesforce.com introduced its AppExchange, a network of partners that design their applications specifically for Salesforce.com’s platform. This model took the company’s traditional CRM platform, for which many independent software vendors (ISVs) were already making add-ons, and made it more accessible to developers and more convenient for ISVs to work with. These integrated third-party apps enabled users to supplement core CRM functionality with extra components that went beyond the out-of-package offerings. 

The idea of building a third-party ecosystem has caught on, and many companies have followed suit with similar models. Now, many core vendors that cater to companies of all sizes have created their own partner networks for add-on applications. Infusionsoft, a CRM vendor that typically caters to smaller businesses with 100 or fewer employees, offers its own version of an app store. Netsuite, whose solutions are best suited for medium-size companies, calls its marketplace SuiteApp; it is equipped with a directory that gives customers the opportunity to browse reviews, test various solutions, and purchase apps that integrate with and bolster their configurations. And key players such as Salesforce.com, Oracle, SAP, SugarCRM, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM all feature add-on apps from partners as part of their standard offerings.

This is to say that many major CRM vendors have begun to incorporate third-party apps into their plans, and “those that haven’t are going to have to in order to stay competitive,” says Michael Fauscette, group vice president of software business solutions at IDC. 

CLIENT BENEFITS

In the absence of a third-party ecosystem, it can be hard for ISVs to find an audience. An ISV could create the perfect app, but organizations might be reluctant to purchase it anyway, especially one built by a small, unknown software company. However, participating in a trusted vendor’s partner network serves to legitimize these ISVs. According to Neeracha Taychakhoonavudh, senior vice president of partner programs at Salesforce.com, every app that makes it onto the AppExchange is vetted by Salesforce.com’s trust organization. This is significant because it reassures client organizations that they are investing in products that are safe, reliable, and have been approved by experts who deemed them worthy of showcasing in an esteemed ecosystem. 

The partnerships also help to ensure that third-party applications remain relevant to platform customers. Taychakhoonavudh says that Salesforce.com is vigilant about checking up on customer requests for upgrades. It seeks feedback from customers regularly and distribute the results to partner companies in the ecosystem. “We run a biannual customer survey and ask customers what kinds of tools they are looking for,” Taychakhoonavudh says. “We share it with our partner base; it’s an ongoing process.” 

Additionally, clients can be assured that a company that develops primarily on one platform is in a position to always stay up to date on that platform, and remain compatible with it. This way, the company knows how to design its product so that it integrates with the central technology most of its customers are using. 

A partnership network also allows customers to test out various solutions before making long-term investments. Apttus, for instance, provides salespeople mobile access to configure, price, and quote (CPQ) tools that are designed to help speed up processes encountered at the end of a sale, and after a sale has been completed. Apttus charges for its services, but it also allows users to try out products in advance to see whether the tools are a good fit for them. “The vast majority of our app exchanges have a trial capability, ” Elliott Yama, associate vice president and business leader at Apttus, says. “Trialability is particularly important [to clients], especially when they want to understand the value of the product.”

Access to updates is another appeal of these environments. Since many products are offered by subscription, companies often choose to give them frequent makeovers. This can be an effective attention getter. Danny Estrada, CRM practice director at Net@Work, pointed out in a presentation on mobile at this year’s CRM Evolution conference that one way to get people interested in a mobile app is to update it, as people are attracted to “new toys.”  

WHICH APPS ARE HOT? 

Every year, Bluewolf, a global Salesforce.com consulting firm, and the MIT Sloan School of Management release their State of Salesforce annual report. The newest survey, conducted in the second and third quarters of 2015, analyzed the activity of more than 1,500 customers using the AppExchange, which boasts 2,400 apps in total. 

For salespeople, popular add-ons focus on document preparation, according to Corinne Sklar, chief marketing officer at Bluewolf, a global Salesforce.com consulting firm. Often, Sklar recommends that clients add functionality in the area of contract finalization and e-signatures with applications from the likes of Docusign and eSign.

There has also been a recent surge in demand for sales intelligence and methodologies tools, Sklar says. CPQ tools, from companies such as Apttus and CallidusCloud, can provide enhancements to a CRM system to help salespeople find the information they need as they are closing deals. 

Third-party vendors can also provide outside data and data cleansing tools that help companies stay up to date on their customers’ contact information and other relevant details. Sklar singles out InsightSquared and Informatica as vendors that do a great job of filling data gaps and ensuring that companies work with high-quality data. This kind of information is important to marketers as they try to figure out what customers they should be messaging, how, and when. It is also invaluable to service representatives, as modern customers have high standards and expect companies to keep excellent track of their past interactions with a brand.

Sales managers have benefited from gamification and incentive management add-ons, which give them a way of monitoring team performance while keeping individual members engaged. Tools from Xactly and Badgeville  enable managers to incentivize sales reps to meet their quotas. And vendors such as QStream aim to make the process of learning sales techniques more enjoyable; every day, users get short, bite-size questions sent to their phones, which they can answer in just minutes. The questions can be tailored to align with the methodologies companies wish to emphasize, and can be customized by sales managers. These tools link to a CRM system and give managers more information to work with to understand their teams, to see which areas need improvement and who is standing out. 

FOCUS ON OUTCOMES

Suffice it to say that there’s a lot of compelling and cutting-edge technology out there, but experts recommend that organizations figure out exactly what they need and avoid getting distracted by the bells and whistles. It’s certainly true that what works for one company will not necessarily work for another. 

Sklar advises companies to work on defining a solid game plan that focuses on fulfilling the desired business outcomes. “It’s not about just going in and saying, ‘Hey, we want to implement Salesforce.’ It’s about the business outcomes. Where’s the focus in your organization? Is it around increasing upsell and cross sell? Is it about cost reduction? Are you trying to retain customers?”

It can be easy to lose sight of this, but just as organizations expect user-friendly experiences with technology, so do the customers doing business with them. Leslie Ament, senior vice president and principal analyst at Hypatia Research, points out that businesses need to focus on choosing technologies that will make it as easy as possible for customers to complete their intended actions. 

Ament maintains that for the app store model to be successful, companies must have their customers in mind first. “Most companies tend to create processes around what’s easiest for the company to do,” Ament says. “When you put your processes and workflows and journeys together, think about how to reduce the friction for your customers,” she recommends. “Make it easier to do business with your company.”  

Associate Editor Oren Smilansky can be reached at osmilansky@infotoday.com.