Big Contacts

Taking it to the next level!

We want to apologize to the thousands of loyal Big Contacts subscribers for such a long period of radio silence.  We have had our heads down and working very hard to deliver on a number of very exciting enhancements to our service.

Just a few of the highlights:

We have completely revamped our Customer and Technical Support Centers. 

We added more staff and have implemented a more advanced ticketing system that tracks your questions and our resolutions much more efficiently. This will virtually eliminate any errors-oversight, and will mean faster service and fewer headaches.   

We have added more resources in our Technology Development Group

Please continue use our feedback section so we can continue to improve this application to better meet your business needs.

We are rolling out an Enhanced Customer Support Service.

Beginning 8/1/08,  we will offer an option to subscribe to live phone support through an 800 number.  This service will be available during our normal business hours!  (M-F 8-5 EST).  You can learn more about this new service by contacting us at 1-888-286-6578 Ext. 703 or by watching for new information on our pricing page after 8/1/08.

We will be offering Live Training Sessions

Beginning 8/1/08 are rolling out live training sessions. These sessions are designed to highlight the major components of the system and to share best practices for implementing some of our key features and  functionality into your business. This will all be delivered using a webinar format. You can learn more about this new service by contacting us at 1-888-286-6578 Ext. 703 or by watching for new information on our pricing page after 8/1/08.

There are many more great things coming down the pipe, so please stay tuned and check back with us often!

Full text search

The newest feature of Big Contacts is full text search. There are two options for the main search box, 'name' and status/history'. If you select 'status/history', all of your history, notes, tasks, opportunities and meetings will be searched, looking for the search word. The contact and the context where the search word was found is returned. Unlike the name search, this only works for complete words. Partial words won't work.  For example, if searching for a note you wrote about Verizon, you cannot just type in Veri.   

This has been one of the most often requested features for Big Contacts. We listen to our users and add to Big Contacts based on what we hear. So, use the Send Feedback box, and keep those awesome ideas coming!

Tags are now even easier to use with Big Contacts

Tags can be used to help you to organize and classify your contacts. With some recent updates to Big Contacts, it is now even easier to 'tag' a contact. On the Edit Tags popup and on the Add a New Contact popup, there is a box for typing tags. But, below that is also a tag cloud showing all of your existing tags. Simply click on a tag in the cloud, and it will be added to your tag list for that contact. This is so easy, there is no excuse not to be using tags.

Some fields in Big Contacts only allow one select per contact. A contact can only be in one Category, one Group and have one Contact Type. However, there are many examples where a contact might be in more than one classification. Maybe CubScouts and Tennis and KiwanisClub. These are great examples of tags. You can 'tag' a contact with one, two or all three.

It is easy to do a search for contacts with one or more tags. Say you want to send an email to everyone that you have tagged either Retired OR  Student. Go to 'Advanced Search' and in the box next to 'Tags', type in 'Retired,Student'. The comma means search for either tag. Then click 'group email'. Type in your email, or use a template. Then click send. Each contact gets their own email with only them in the TO: box. By the way, if you wanted both Retired AND Student, you would put this in the box next to Tags - 'Retired Student'. Use a 'space' instead of a comma for AND.

After working with Tags for a while, you will wonder how you lived without it.

Personalize your email and letter templates with 'Merge Fields'

One way to make yourself more efficient using Big Contacts is to use email templates and letter templates. If you find yourself sending the same email over and over again, you can save it as a template and avoid having to retype it each time.

And now, you can add contact-specific data to personalize your email and letter templates. To do this,  go to the Admin tab and either the Email Templates section or the Letter templates section. Then create a new template or edit an existing one. To add a merge field, add the desired field-name surrounded by curly braces. For example, to add a contact's first name, add this to your template:

{{first}}

You can add as many fields as you wish in this way. If the data is missing, it will just be blank. Another example might be {{first}} {{last}}

Here is a list of available fields you can merge into your templates:

first, last, middle, spouse_first, address, city, state, zip, country, phone, mobile, email, website, salutation, salutation_dear, nickname, company, co_title, co_address, co_city, co_state, co_zip, co_phone, co_email, contact_category, contact_group, contact_type, lead_type, lead_source, ABCD


Use this to save time and get more done!

Why there is no user manual for Big Contacts

Big Contacts is a powerful application. And yet, it is designed to be simple to learn and use. Kathy Sierra writes about the problem of Featuritis in her blog Creating Passionate Users. There is a point at which an application becomes difficult to use and starts to frustrate users. Here is the graph Kathy uses to perfectly illustrate the point:

I think that software can be complex and still easy to use. To achieve that, we focus on a few things. One, don't require users to have to remember anything. Instead of cute icons to represent some feature, just spell it out. Our 'Actions' section is just a list of things you can do. It would take less space and might look better to replace that list with a set of icons, but then you'd have to remember what each of those icons does. Another thing we do is to put most everything right in front of you. You don't have to go searching for something. If you want to add a photo, just click on the 'Add a Photo' link right on the page. No need to remember where that feature is. Another thing you will find in Big Contacts is that there are no modes. There are no buttons that change meaning depending on what mode you are in. Other contact managers have a 'view' mode and an 'edit' mode and you have to not only remember which mode you are in, but what buttons and links do when you are in each mode.

The hard part of picking up a new software tool is learning and then retaining all that useless knowledge about modes and where things are hidden and what all those icons mean. It is very frustrating and makes you feel stupid and nobody wants that.

With Big Contacts there is no user manual. Because once you create a user manual, you are admitting your application is too difficult and that people need a book to use it. We will do our best to never have to resort to that.

Capture all your Email in Big Contacts

Introducing the Big Contacts Email Dropbox

Did you know you can see all of your email traffic with a contact, even if you don't use Big Contacts to send email? Simply configure your email client to auto-bcc and auto-forward your email to your Big Contacts email dropbox. Let's say you have a few emails back and forth with a supplier about a new ship date. All this email back-and-forth takes place in Outlook. As long as you have a contact with that email address, it will be saved for you. Log into Big Contacts, pull up the contact and you can see all of the emails! Any email attachments are saved in the files table, for easy download any time you need to find it. No more searching through your inbox looking for an attachment.

Go to the Admin tab and the Users section. Click on 'request a email dropbox' next to a user's name and a dropbox will be created. We are working on detailed instructions for configuring different email clients. Stay tuned.

Managing Sales Leads in Big Contacts

+ Collecting Sales Leads

Did you know that Big Contacts has support for webforms? Do you have a form on your website for people to request a whitepaper or maybe sign up for your newsletter? You can forward this form first to Big Contacts where the person who filled out the form's info will be used to create a new contact in the system. When this new contact is added, you can assign a task (follow up sales call?) and/or create a sales opportunity to track the lead. After the contact is added and the task and opportunity are added, the form data is passed on to your site so you can collect the data if needed or simple display a thank you page. If you created an opportunity, you can then tie this lead into your ...

+ Marketing Automation

Big Contacts has a module called Autopilot which allows you to create marketing campaigns. It is keyed off of the sales opportunity pipeline. You select a pipeline stage, the number of days in that stage, and then an action. Maybe you are collecting sales leads form a form on your website. Use Big Contacts webforms to add the contact and create a sales opportunity. Then configure Autopilot to send out an email every few days to tell the prospect about some great features of your product. By 'dripping' on your prospects on a regular basis this way you are sure to see more business.

Big Contacts and Managing Workflow

Does your office have complex processes that must be followed? With Big Contacts, you can create multi-step tasks. Each step can be assigned to a different person on your team to complete. When one step is completed, the next step is assigned to the next person in line. Let's say you have a multistep task for setting up a new customer. When you land the new customer, assign the task. Step one is assigned to a sales administrator to contact the new customer to collect detailed account information and fill out forms. When they complete this step, it is then assigned to your office clerk to fax in the forms and get confirmation back. Then step three might be for you to call the new client and tell them everything is set up. This is a simple example, but you can extrapolate to similar processes in your business.

Post to your custom data fields with webforms

You can now post webform data to your custom data fields. Simply add another text field or hidden variable and use your custom field name as the name of the field or hidden variable.

For example, if you have a custom field called 'Favorite Food', you can add a text field:

<input type="text" name="Favorite Food" />

or you can do the same thing with a hidden variable:

<input type="hidden" name="Favorite Food" value="Cheeseburger" />

Send cards and gift cards with Big Contacts

The newest feature of Big Contacts is the ability to send cards to any of your contacts. Just pick a card and a message and we do the rest for you. There is a wide selection of cards available - Birthday cards, Thank You cards, Sympathy cards, and more. You can also send a gift with your card. We have Starbucks, AMC Theatres, Blockbuster and many more gift card options.

This is a great way to stay in touch with your family and friends and business contacts without having to go to the store and pick out a card and mail it yourself.

To send cards, you must first preload your 'card account' with money. Click on the link on the upper right part of the Big Contacts page: 'Renew/Add Users/Card Account'. From here you can add money to your card account using a credit card or paypal. Then after you have selected a contact, click on the 'Send a Card' link. Pick a card, enter a message, and select the card format. If you want to include a Gift Card, select that option and choose the gift you wish to include. It is that easy! We take care of sending the card for you. Postage is included and the return address is your address you used to create your account - go to Admin/Company to verfiy that it is correct.

Cards are only available for Professional users, we have not extended this to Free users yet. Also, we can currently only mail to addresses in the US.

Send a card. Stay in touch!