Tracking contacts with customers and managing conference-call invitations is never going to be fun, but it could be less of a chore, especially for the increasing number of people whose smartphones are their lifeline to clients and the home office.
The goal of MobileDay is to build the tools smartphone users need to take some of the pain out of the process.
MobileDay, a Boulder, CO-based startup, is rolling out a new upgrade to its mobile app that integrates with Salesforce. The app automatically updates data in users’ contact and meeting logs, sparing them the hassle of re-entering whom they’ve met or called and what they’ve discussed into Salesforce.
The ideal user of the app, named MobileDay Sales, is the salesperson who is constantly out of the office and is dependent on his or her mobile phone, said Brad Dupee, MobileDay’s co-founder and vice president for business development. One of its selling points is that users will no longer have to log in from a computer and re-enter information about calls.
The new capabilities build on MobileDay’s existing app, which streamlines dialing into conference calls into a one-touch process. The app pulls data such as the time, the hosting service’s number, and login information from calendar invites, and it works with almost any conference-call provider.
While the one-touch dialer for conference calls was the starting point, MobileDay’s ambitions have always been bigger. It wants to offer a number of features and move beyond the app store and begin selling to enterprise customers who would pay a license fee, Dupee said. One feature MobileDay is working on would allow those companies to automatically find the cheapest conference-calling options for their needs.
MobileDay Sales is a new step for the company, Dupee said. It is the first app the company is offering for sale, at $5.99 per month. As of now, MobileDay Sales is only available for the iPhone, but Android and iPad versions are coming soon. The original MobileDay app can still be downloaded for free and works on those three platforms.
MobileDay declined to disclose how many users it has, but “tens of thousands” of people have downloaded its free app, Dupee said. The number of downloads over the past few months has increased by 50 percent each month, he said. Usage data also shows that a much higher percentage of people who download the app continue to use it after testing it out, as compared to the typical rate for business-related apps, according to Dupee.
MobileDay originally was named Skedul.me and was formed in 2011. The company has raised about $2.5 million in seed money since December 2011. Its investors include Foundry Group and Bullet Time Ventures, which are both Boulder-based, and Google Ventures, SoftTech VC, and SoftBank Capital.
