Splashnet.com is diving into the wireless world with its Web-based customer relationship management solution.
Like its recent wireless launch on Palm III handhelds in the United States, the Fairfield, N.J.-based company is preparing to begin enabling Canadian customers to access the Splashnet Web site via Waterloo, Ont.’s Research in Motion’s Blackberry pager. The company did not specify which of RIM’s pagers it would operate on, but both the Blackberry 950 and 957 as well as the Palm III PDA use browsers supplied by GoAmerica, Inc.
Customers of Splashnet.com will also be able to access its application from WAP-enabled cellular phones. As of press time, the company had not yet announced a partnership with any cellular providers.
Splashnet.com provides CRM solutions to enterprises and/or individuals on a subscription basis. The company says its ASP-type model allows its customers to install a CRM strategy immediately and with no capital costs.
Other companies with ASP CRM offerings include Mountain View, Calif.’s Upshot.com, Austin, Tex.-based Agillion.com and San Francisco’s Salesforce.com. Upshot.com already offers its customers the ability to access the application from a wireless device, and it costs US$20 less per month per user than Splashnet.com.
Splashnet.com, a member of the Redi-Direct Marketing, Inc. family, plans to target its new wireless feature to enterprises employing a mobile workforce.
Caven Boggess, an account manager for North Star Print Group in Milwaukee and a Splashnet.com subscriber for the past year, said he is looking forward to being able to access Splashnet.com from a wireless device.
“The only time I ever have problems (accessing Splashnet.com) is when I’m sitting in an airport,” said Boggess, adding that he travels three weeks out of every month. “Business centres are in some of the metropolitan airports at this stage, other times they are not. So being able to use it in a wireless technique would be very advantageous.”
Boggess said he uses Splashnet.com’s on a frequent basis to log sales information.
“Every time I go make a call, or have a meeting face-to-face, or write a letter, I go into the database for my customers and fill in the tasks that I performed, or the activity I performed. And that automatically updates everything that’s in there,” he said.
“And if there’s any type of tasks that need to be done by anyone within our organization that is tied in to Splashnet, I can send them the results of my meeting, with a question or a task assigned to that individual.”
Although North Star Print Group as a whole does not use Splashnet.com to compile and maintain customer information, Boggess said he uses the database to track his company’s seasonal sales.
“You can obviously do that through your order history with a company’s accounting system,” Boggess admitted. “But from a sales perspective, if I’m sitting in a hotel in Cornwall, Ont. at 8 p.m., my office isn’t open so I can access the information (through Splashnet).”
Splashnet.com is available for US$49.95 a month. For more information, visit www.splashnet.com.