September 10, 2012
By Kelly Liyakasa,

DoubleDutch Debuts Hive Mobile CRM Application

Mobile application developer DoubleDutch today launched Hive, a mobile workforce collaboration app with two-way integration to Salesforce.com.

Available for free on iPhone and Android devices for up to three users, it is also available in a corporate edition, which costs $20 per seat per month for up to 25 seats; and an enterprise edition, with deeper support features including a dedicated account rep available for $40 per seat per month for teams of more than 25 individuals.

"We wanted to build software for the user [rather than] end management," Lawrence Coburn, founder and CEO of DoubleDutch, told CRM. "We did a 16-week development cycle that really made us make hard decisions about what functionality to include in the app."

In Coburn's words, the crux of Hive is to "increase the flow of data into your [CRM] system," answering one seemingly age-old question—how to get salespeople to update the contact record. Hive draws on contextual triggers to surface the right screen at the right time for the salesperson.

Some of the main features and functionalities include:

Behaviors: Log actions seamlessly in Salesforce.com opportunity contact records, such as when a phone call or email is sent, allowing sales reps to model sales behaviors;
Social engagement: Sales teams can collaborate and access customer records as core activity feeds, as well as a leaderboard and points system for completing tasks like achieving a certain percentage of quota;
Time: Mobile push notifications deliver relevant information to a sales rep's' mobile device 15 minutes before a client meeting.
Context: Sort lists by parameters such as "most recently updated" or by the hottest or coldest leads.
Location: Drawing on geofenced customer sites and a location-based foundation, Hive can prompt a salesperson when they're onsite with a customer to remind them to log a visit.

Coburn says DoubleDutch is eyeing future integrations with Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Netsuite for its Hive application. "The end goal here is to take the time it takes to update the CRM from 10 minutes to under 10 seconds...we wanted to create a rocket-fast app [that included]social, the game mechanics...and a really simple interface."