Posted on Wed, Jan 11, 2012 @ 09:49 AM
At BigContacts it
has always been our goal to deliver dependable and timely support to our customers. We feel that a great support experience can never be commoditized and we are committed to delivering the best support in our industry and are driven to do more than our peers.
To deliver on a great support experience… We include email support, live chat, and an extensive knowledge base library to all of our free trials and customers. For most of you this is not news. This is not the "new level of support" that we are offering for our web-based CRM software platform. But what we have done is roll out an entirely new support suite to better deliver our support services.
This new support suite includes all of the services that have grown accustomed to and they are delivered in a much easier to use format.
Some new services we've added...
In addition to this new, easier to use and more modern interface… We have added:
- User forum
- Support satisfaction surveys
- Integrated knowledge base articles with text, screenshots and videos
- Robust keyword search tool
3 ways to access the BigContacts support suite…
- The BigContacts website
From virtually any page on the BigContacts website you will find a live chat button that will allow you to start a live chat with one of our agents Monday through Friday 8 AM to 5 PM EST.
- Your BigContacts CRM account
While logged into your BigContacts CRM account, you can select the "support" tab to access our full library of knowledge base articles, the user forum or start a live chat.
- Your Email
You may have a quick question for us about your account and you are not in front of a computer or log into your account. From any Internet connection (including your mobile phone) simply email us at support@bigcontacts.com and this will instantly create a ticket for you. This ticket will be assigned to a support associate and responded to as soon as possible.
Attention: Registered Support Users...
If you are already a registered user in our old system...we will be sending you an email invitation to establish a password on the new support system.
Some good news for Internet explorer users…
Our new support tab in your BigContacts CRM account is now also fully encrypted just as your BigContacts account has always been. You will no longer see a pop-up asking you if you wish to open the support tab. Simply click on the tab and start searching for your support answers.
Posted on Fri, Jan 06, 2012 @ 09:40 AM
At BigContacts, we are always exploring great ideas in an effort to improve and enhance our web-based CRM software. We are constantly learning from our customers as this is truly where our application meets real-world practice.
We have recently been informed that one of our power users has taken one of their great ideas and actually spent the time and money to put the idea into practice in their business.
If you are a WordPress user and are looking for an easy way to capture leads from your website, then this may be just the plug-in for you.
This new plug-in will allow you to easily create custom Web forms and set them up to automatically load leads into your BigContacts account.Once the lead is loaded into the account...BigContacts then takes over and can manage anything from assigning tasks to users to follow up, creating a sales opportunity for the lead, and can even queue up an automated email marketing campaign.
All of this is designed to help you capture and manage more leads from your website and ensure that nothing falls through the cracks. I encourage you to give this new plug-in a look as it is sure to be a tremendous timesaver and ultimately a moneymaker for your business.
Posted on Wed, Jan 04, 2012 @ 02:15 PM
BigContacts has always offered our customers the ability to store an unlimited number of contacts within your account. We have just added a new element to our unlimited capacity.
Not only can you upload an
unlimited number of contacts but you can now
store an unlimited amount of data/files/history for your contacts. It is our goal to make it as easy as possible for you to store as much information as needed about all of your contacts.
So, feel free to start loading all the notes, files and history that you need for your contacts.
Just think...how nice will it be to have access to all of your important contact information from any Internet connection?
Here's to a Happy and Prosperous New Year!
Posted on Wed, Dec 07, 2011 @ 02:57 PM
As many of you may already know, BigContacts has invested a great deal of time over the past 2 years gathering in-depth feedback and ideas from our customers.
Our research has been focused on better understanding how our customers currently use BigContacts to help you improve your day-to-day operations, and what we can improve with our software to help you even further.
At BigContacts, it has always been our mission to give small businesses an easy-to-use tool that will help you get more organized so that you have more time to focus on:
i) Finding more prospects (marketing)
ii) Converting more prospects to customers (sales management)
iii) Keeping more of the customers you already have (customer retention, operations)
We have recently completed our research, and have begun the development of a revolutionary new platform! We are confident that “BigContacts 2.0” will help small businesses to level the competitive playing field when it comes to attracting and retaining more customers.
It is our goal to complete and release this new platform in the June–July timeframe in 2012. Please note that this is a “target” that we are aiming for and we will keep you updated with more specific dates, as we get closer to this new release.
Over the next several months I will share with you highlights of each of the major modules within this new system. Stay tuned for more information on what we think will become the easiest to use, most powerful and effective small business CRM software on the market today!
Posted on Tue, Nov 29, 2011 @ 09:20 AM
BigContacts has just rolled out a unique opportunity for you to spread the word about our service and get paid for doing so!
As you may already know, BigContacts is a Web-Based Contact Management (CRM) Software designed for small businesses that have outgrown basic solutions like Outlook, Goldmine or ACT but don't want the cost or complexity of CRM solutions like Salesforce.
Our software is helping many thousands of small businesses all over the world to:
-
Organize their business
-
Track More Prospects
-
Close More Sales
-
Retain More Customers
About the BigContacts Affiliate Program
Unlike many affiliate programs we don't require a "sale" in order for you to get paid. All we require is that you refer leads to BigContacts and we will pay you for every lead that starts a verified* 30 day FREE Trial of our software.
You can promote our site with text or banner ads on your site, or spread the word on social network sites like Facebook, and earn a commission for every verified FREE Trial you refer. Access your Affiliate Control Panel to see your results, and get paid monthly...it's that simple!
BigContacts offers a very simple commission structure. You earn $5 for every verified* FREE Trial that you refer. As long as the referral signs up for a FREE Trial within 90 days you get credit for it!
A check will be issued to you at the end of the calendar month following the month your commission account reaches or exceeds this $50 level . For example, if you generate $50 or more in commissions this month, and we will send a check in the mail at the end of the very next month!
* A verified FREE Trial is one that we are able verify/ validate both the phone number and email address on the free trial signup form.
Bonus Offer
Signup today and
post your first Affiliate links on your site within 7 days of your application approval...and instead
, earn $7 for every verified* FREE Trial that you refer to BigContacts. In order to qualify, you will need to email us (within 7 days of being approved) at
affiliate@bigcontacts.com with a link to the page where the text or banners ads have been placed. If you have questions about our program and how to get started, I would be happy to speak with you.
Questions?
If you have questions about our program and how to get started, our Affiliate Program Manager, Matthew Smith, would be happy to speak with you.
Matthew SmithAffiliate Program Manager 
1.888.286.6578 Ext. 709
Become a BigContacts Affiliate
Start Making Money today!
Posted on Fri, Nov 18, 2011 @ 12:53 PM
You may not know this, but every maker of websites, web applications and web browsers has to comply with particular design and usage standards. Its these standards that make the Internet function as a consistent unit.
You may also not know that these standards are constantly ignored by Microsoft for the sake of proprietary.
For this reason, many web-designers find that Internet Explorer is perhaps the hardest browser to work with when it comes to developing a website or web application.
BUT, we realize that many of our users still prefer to use Internet Explorer, and we want you to know that we will never let these difficulties stop us when it comes to delivering a great experience for you when using our Web Based CRM Software.
What's our latest Internet Explorer (IE) fix?We have just fixed the IE display issue when using the "Admin" tab in our application. We support 4 different browsers in our application - Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Mozilla's Firefox, Google Chrome, and Apple's Safari.
The other 3 browsers (outside of IE) have all worked just fine, but IE users were required to press the "CTRL" and "+" keys simultaneously to get a normal view when in this tab.
This issue with Internet Explorer has now been fixed. If you are using IE currently, pleae give this a try and let us know if you are still experiencing any issues.
For technical assistance with your account, please feel free to reach out to one of our Customer Support Associates. They will be happy to help you.
Want to learn more about BigContacts and how it might help you in your business? Fee Free to contact one of our very knowledgable Small Business Advisers. They will be happy to discuss your particular needs and share with you how BigContacts can work for you in your business.
Posted on Fri, Nov 18, 2011 @ 09:29 AM
BigContacts iPhone AppWe wanted to let our iPhone users know that we have just released our latest iPhone App. This has been updated to work properly with Apple’s new iOS5 operating system and is now available in the App Store.
If you already have the BigContacts iPhone app loaded on your phone, you can simply click the App icon on your phone to retrieve the update. If you have yet to download our iPhone App, you will want to go to the App Store and search for “Big Contacts”. (notice the space between the two words) Here you will find the latest download.BigContacts "Mobile Edition"We often get asked if we are going to release other apps for all the great smartphones on the market - like the Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile Devices, etc. We want you to know that we have NOT forgotten about you. After a great deal of research and planning, we have realized that we can deliver much greater value to ALL smartphone users by thinking beyond Apps. 
At BigContacts, we have decided to develop a full “Mobile Edition”.The BigContacts Mobile Edition will do things that an App cannot deliver:
- You will be able to access to ALL the features and functionality of the main application without any restrictions – limitations you may find in a lightweight App.
- You can handle and access more information than your phone will ever handle if the data were all to be downloaded – synced directly to your phone.
We have all experienced times when our Smartphone can seem slow. It may be the App you are currently using, the total amount of storage currently taken up on the phone, or it may even be a poor connection through your mobile provider.The point is that a Smartphone has limits as to the data it can house directly on the device and still perform up to the standards you may demand for speed and efficiency.With the BigContacts “Mobile Edition”, we can give you access to ALL of your contact information without any capacity issues that your Smartphone may have. We do all the heavy lifting on our end and deliver ONLY the data you need, WHEN you need it - directly to your mobile interface.The Mobile Edition will work on any web enabled phone (over a 3G or better network) and will always give you access to the latest features & functionality. No updates or upgrades needed!Stay tuned for more information on this great new addition to the BigContacts family. This new Edition will be avilable when we roll out our new platform - "BigContacts 2.0". We hope to complete this in mid-2012.
Posted on Thu, Nov 17, 2011 @ 07:10 AM
BigContacts has just released a new API that will make it even easier to integration other applications with our core Contact Management features and functionality.
By using our new API to integrate with other applications, you will now be able to perform a number of key tasks.
Below are some of the highlights of the what you can do with our new API.
- Create an individual contact
- Create a business contact
- Update individual and business contact records
- Link an individual contact record to a business contact record
- Retrieve a list of your contacts
- Search for a specific contact
This release is just the beginning of what we plan to offer regarding API capabilites.
We have begun development on our "next generation" Small Business CRM platform. This new platform will not only deliver a completely new set of features, but will also offer an even more robust API.
We have
complete documentation on how to use this API in our Support Suite. You can access the API documentation by clicking the button below.
If you have not had a chance to explore the BigContacts Support Suite, we encourage you to do so. Here you will find all sorts of great information on how to get more out of BigContacts.
Below is a link to our Support Suite, where you will find all sorts of how-to articles, videos and user guides.
If you don't find what you are looking for here, look to the right hand side of the support screen and here you will see a live chat button. Feel free to use this anytime you have a question and one of our Advisers will be happy to assist you.
Posted on Mon, Nov 07, 2011 @ 09:57 AM
As you may already know, BigContacts takes great measures to ensure the safety and security of your important customer data.
To protect your data, we perform a system-wide backup every day from 1:00am - 1:45am EDT.
Daily data backups are performed and placed onto tape media instead of a separate drive. This tape media is then stored in a separate data center to add to another layer of safety and redundancy to the backup process.
In the past you had very limited access to your BigContacts account during this backup window. We realize that this caused a great inconvenience for some of our customers in certain parts of the world as this was the middle of your business day.
We have recently implemented some changes to our main data center that has eliminated this downtime during our daily backup window!
Say goodbye to the daily 45 minute window of limited to no access. BigContacts is now available to you 24 hours per day – 7 days per week! If you are in an area of the world that was affected by this daily backup window, we would like to hear from you. Let us know how the system performs for you during this backup window. We think you will be pleased with the new results.
Questions or comments? Feel free to drop us a note at
support@bigcontacts.com
Posted on Tue, Nov 01, 2011 @ 01:35 PM
The goal of any business is to convert as many of the right prospects as possible into paying customers. The more organized and efficient you are in the “CONVERT” phase of the customer lifecycle, the more prospects you can effectively move through your sales process so they become customers.
Every time I look at a broad set of sales statistics, I am reminded that winning in this stage of the customer lifecycle is not possible without a heavy dose of persistence. You could have the best product and a great value proposition and message, but unless you generate enough “touches” with your prospects, you won’t reach the conversion rates you need to succeed. These touches include actually asking for the order.
It’s estimated that only 19% of sales close in the first 4 contacts or touches. The remaining 81% close on or after the fifth one. Many businesses I speak to know this, yet few have a plan in place to ensure they are “showing up to the party” often enough to give themselves a chance to break out of the 19% bracket.
According to Dartnell Corp., 90% of businesses follow up with their prospects 4 times or fewer and only 10% follow up 5 times or more. It doesn’t take a math wizard to figure out who is getting most of the business. Don’t waste all that time and effort on the front end and stop short of the finish line.
Be sure to get in those 5 or more touches and contacts with your prospects.
The only way to ensure success in this area is to have a centralized database that can automate some of these required touches, track the notes and history of interactions with the prospect, and assign tasks at the appropriate time to ensure the sales rep can be visible at the right times to help move the sales process forward to closure.
The more prospects a sales rep must juggle to reach goals, the more precious this commodity of time becomes.
With the estimated average cost of an onsite sales call at nearly $400, a good Web Based CRM system is well worth the investment. It will help to increase the productivity of your sales team, while containing or even decreasing your overall cost of sales.
Want to learn more about Web Based CRM Software and how it might help you in your business? Give us a call. One of our CRM Advisors will be happy to assist you.
1.888.286.6578