Those days are gone when people would exchange business cards to grow their professional relations. In this digitalized era where everything is upgraded then why not the way of business relations and managing contacts.
As the name itself says Contact Management is a digitalised process of storing records of customer data. It is a means to quick and easy access in a well organised form, editing and tracking of customer data.
In today’s business world you need to do more than just a sales email in order to make a sale. People like when their preferences are valued and remembered. Making a sale based on one’s preference creates a different impression on a customer.
What is Contact Management Software?
As your business grows, it will be difficult to collect data and determine which information is important for you and your company’s growth. For this only purpose, Contact Management is present as it has potential to diversify your customers.
But in this running world, who has time to input all this data? Quite a boring and time consuming process, right? Fortunately, Contact Management Software has got your back. It automatically collects, analyses and differentiates data based on your previous engagement history.
Basically it is a virtual address book that keeps the records of basic data like names, email address, phone numbers, important dates, etc.
Contact Management vs Customer Relationship Management:
Often people get confused with both these terms and consider them as the same but there is a difference. A contact management system provides the basic features whereas CRM software offers advanced tools for sales, marketing and reporting tasks.
Contact Management system uses a few contact details and organises them for easy access and customer interactions while a CRM uses that data to gather leads and provide you reports that helps in improving relationships with customers.
CRM gives you access to real time updated data, helps in maintaining sales and marketing teams to collaborate, handles investments and returns.
Now the question arises whether you need a CRM or Contact Management! So for this query you need to clarify what you actually want. If your business is at the initial stage, CRM might prove a little expensive. Also before purchasing a software clear some doubts which would clarify your needs regarding your business.
For example the number of loyal customers you have, the number of employees you have to collect and enter the data, importance of specific preferences of customers- is it necessary to have or not, what growth or a target you are expecting in the near future.
Think of these questions and weigh the pros and cons before making your purchase. For example a small number of customers can be easily managed by a Contact Management system and CRM might cost more than it’s worth. Make a wise decision that could profit you only.
Benefits of Contact Management
- By digitizing contact management, one can easily access the valuable customer data anytime anywhere.
- All departments of your workplace can view the data at the same time which in result will pace up your work giving quick results.
- Customers have a different impression for those who remember their specific preferences and here too Contact Management is your saviour. Going beyond your customers expectations will not only open doors for repeat orders but also encourages referrals which will benefit you only.
- Let’s not forget that communication is the first step for building any relationship. It’s a helping hand to call centre software too where communication plays a vital role for businesses. It helps in managing contacts by prioritising the qualified leads who need to get notification earlier giving easy access to important calls. You don’t need to repeat yourself for various customers when a software can do it for you.
How to choose the best suited Contact Management Software for your business?
After considering your business goals, it’s time to choose the right software. There is so much competition nowadays which makes it difficult to choose the best one suited for your business.
Here are a few simple things you can consider during your research for the best one.
- Recommendation from colleagues: Your trustable colleagues working in the same industry, reach out to them for feedback on contact management or CRM softwares. Ask them which system has better plans like customer services, payment plans and integration. Consulting them will help you better understand which software suits you as well as it saves your time rather than trying it out on your own.
- Online reviews: Read various online reviews from other users which are easily available on Google. Look out for reviews important to your business plan. Complaining reviews might help you lookout for features you wanna avoid. Try to reach out current reviews which will better make you understand if there is any updated version of software or is it facing some issues.
- Free trials: Free trials gives you the opportunity to try out the software on your own. You can experience the dashboard, customer service and navigation system before actually paying for it. So look for software that provides you this option.
- Onboarding: If you are using the software for the first time, you need someone to guide you from starting. Having someone who can help you understand the features of the software will save your valuable time and the kind of mental hectic or frustration you might be feeling understanding it. Try to initially look for a company that offers you an onboarding guide in order to let you have a good grasp on features so you could also train other users.
- One to one Customer service: Choose a software that provides you one to one service if you are facing any issue with the software. One which has responsive customer care. A service for 24/7 is ideal but if not at least one which provides online FAQ tutorials for simple issues that may arise.
Features of Contact Management Software
- Create contacts: It is a key to customer data which enables one to collect and organize data efficiently in addition with necessary details like names, phone numbers, email addresses with any specific detail of a customer. It manages contacts like an address book. Users can view contact details using various keywords while this software allows them to convert those contacts into qualified leads which eventually helps to grow business.
- Tracks Engagement History: It helps in tracking the previous engagement history of the customer allowing one for effective contact management in a nearby future. It edits and manages to update the records of customers. Apart from tracking of contacts, their interaction as well as their preferences or any service issue, it creates a view of the entire customer journey.
- Improves service: It allows businesses to improve service related issues leveraging a broad range of customers. Within the software, two categories are available, People and Companies, each having specific information effectively diversifying customers.
- Improves customer interaction: It can be used by anybody instead of using spreadsheets manually which is equally time consuming and one can focus more on improving customer interaction by tracking and working on their preferences.
- Import and export feature: Data can be imported or exported easily in a CSV format.
- Document Management: Viewing geographical reports of customers based on daily/ weekly or monthly basis, one can get a complete picture of customers from call records to their engagement history in the form of a document. Apart from this one can go paperless with the help of this feature by creating documents in various formats like pdfs, word- processing files, digital images of content.