How Mobile Devices Are Changing Business

A Gallup poll recently reported that 88 percent of millenials age 18 to 29 own a smartphone. Now that smartphones are a part of our everyday life, the rise in mobile use is changing the face of business. From the way a company uses mobile to attract customers to how it runs its business, mobile devices are the latest tool in the evolution of business.

Business Becoming More Social

More than 60 percent of people use their mobile devices to stay connected with social media, says Business Insider. To tap into this market, 81 percent of small businesses are now using social media, according to a LinkedIn study. Brand placement in lifestyle photos on Pinterest boards, “how to” videos on YouTube or Vimeo channels and eye-catching tweets are ways businesses are engaging their customers. This list of favorite company tweets from Mashable shows examples of simple messages from companies such as Taco Bell and Charmin that capture the consumer’s attention.

Mobile and Operations

The combination of cloud-computing and mobile devices has created new tools for running a business. Internal processes that once relied on large computing centers full of servers and disk dives can now be run remotely in the cloud with a tablet or smartphone.

Customer information can be managed with tools such as Zoho CRM. Accounting can be done with Quickbooks by Intuit completely in the cloud. Tracking social media campaigns on every platform can be done with Hootsuite on your tablet or smartphone. Employees are no longer tied to their desks. Mobile opens up the possibility of reducing physical office space with virtual teams and outsourced roles.

Apps Versus Website

More companies are developing their own mobile apps for both internal use by employees and external use by customers. This is becoming a way for businesses to support mobile without massive changes to their websites.

Businesses are spending money updating their websites to the latest responsive design techniques so they can easily be accessed by any device. This becomes a big budget item for very old or complicated web sites. For those companies with the capacity, mobile apps serve the same purpose more efficiently. Apps make use of the native functionality of the smartphone or tablet. The consumer doesn’t have to learn any new navigation techniques.

Consider Walgreen’s mobile app. Part of the functionality was in response to customers wanting an easy way to refill prescriptions and submit photos for printing.

Mobile and Service Delivery

Mobile chat products, such as LivePerson, allow companies to support customers through their smartphones and tablets. This lets the consumer deal with product questions and issues without waiting until they are home on their computer. Real-time mobile chat customer service keeps business engaged with their customers which opens up additional sales opportunities. According to eDigital’s Customer Service Benchmark, live chat received the highest customer satisfaction rating of all customer service options.

All Business is Affected by Mobile

Even the healthcare field is getting a facelift with the use of mobile devices. Doctors and nurses access medical and pharmaceutical databases from their mobile devices. The Electronic Health Record regulations went into effect in 2014 requiring patient information to be available electronically. This means healthcare providers can use mobile devices to get to your information quickly to help you.

Medical services are becoming available through mobile devices. A startup named Plushcare will provide face-to-face contact with a doctor over a mobile device. Their goal is to reduce the expense of going to a doctor or emergency clinic for routine medical issues that could be addressed in a video chat.