BigContacts Product News

Compare BigContacts to salesforce.com and ACT!

Before investing in Contact Management Software or Small Business CRM, you need to have all the facts. Most systems today come full of "bells and whistles" that are touted as essential to helping you in your business.

The reality is that many of these features may rarely get used if at all. On the other hand there may be certain features that are critical to your business. This investment requires a methodical approach to ensure that you make the right choice. Don't make your decision based solely on price or on features.

Consider what's important to you before making a quick decision.

• What are the minimum requirements for you business today?
  
  
• What are your growth plans and will this system allow you to grow without a significant $ investment?
  
  
• Is it easy-to-use; allowing you to get off to a quick start with all of your employees using it?

If you experience any trouble viewing this example of research, Click Here for a full size image of these tables.

If you would like a comparison to any other Small Business CRM or Contact Management Software, Contact Us at 1-888-286-6578. We will do the detailed research and provide you with an objective and detailed report.

Enhanced Email for Web Based CRM Software

At Big Contacts we offer a number of options for sending emails to your clients and prospects.

1) You can send and receive emails directly from our system without changing email providers.
2) You can easily filter a list of your contacts to send a group email.
3) You can create email templates complete with standard AND custom merge fields.
4) You can create automated email campaigns to deliver a message to clients and prospects.

Our system will store all of these methods/ modes of email directly in each contact record to make it very easy to track the entire history for each client or prospect.

That's the good news. The challenge, in the past, has been that (being a web based application) it was difficult for our users to simply copy and paste text into an email or email template and properly format all the text to the same font, etc. With this new text editor, you now have the option of pasting in plain text or pasting directly from a Word document.

We have just released one of the latest Email Text Editors on the market today and we hope you will like it.

Here is a preview of that the new toolbar looks like and how you can use it. We encourage you to get in there and click around to discover all of its great new functionality. The editor is so new, that we have yet to create the user guide. This will be coming in the near future, but we hope you will find this new toolbar and its functionality so intuitive that the user guide is not needed.

The Toolbar is the area in email editor where you can activate most of the editor features. Each button in the toolbar access a different function. There are simple functions for basic text formatting and more advanced features like creation of links and tables.

To use the buttons in the toolbar you must move your mouse pointer over the button. The button will highlight and a message with the information about the button function will appear. Click on the button to execute its function. With more experience you will have full control over all email editor features and you won't have to read the description of the buttons. You will just use them intuitively.

Besides the toolbars buttons there are also toolbar combos (drop down boxes). The combos are the white areas with a little arrow on its side. They can be easily accessed by clicking on the white area or the little arrow. Once clicked the menu will expand so you can choose from one of its available options. To execute one of them, simply click on it.

Special Note: We have had many requests from our users to improve the spell checking capability for emails. You asked for it, so here it is. Note above in the toolbar we have highlighted two functions.

The spell check button highlighted in green will allow you to spell check on your command.

The spell check button highlighted in light blue will allow you to enable "SCAYT" (Spell Check As You Type). This is a great feature as you will get instant feedback as you are creating your email document.

There are so many new features available to you now. We encourage you to look around, try it out, and send us emails with any questions or feedback you might have to support@bigcontacts.com

Easily Import Contacts to your Contact Manager

Over the years too many software applications have been written from an engineer's perspective and fail to adequately take into account what the end-user wants or needs.  This approach to designing things in the "lab" can result in applications that are difficult to learn and manage.

At BigContacts we have a singular focus on developing leading edge technologies that are easy to use and provide meaningful solutions for our end-users.  We work hard to make this attention to detail very evident in everything we offer. One thing we don't always do well is to properly highlight features and functionality that we have built into our Contact Management System that make your life a little easier to manage. 

If you're looking for new Contact Management Software but aren't quite sure how to get your contacts out of your current system and import them into a new platform, we have offer a very effective solution for you.  Our Import Wizard provides step-by-step instructions for exporting your contacts from some of the most common Contact Management, Small Business CRM and Sales Force Automation Platforms in the industry. 

Once the data is safely exported from your current application, you will then utilize our mapping tool to ensure that you contact data fields find their rightful home in the new system. Big Contacts goes beyond the standard data import. In addition to mapping all of the "standard" data fields, you can now import any "custom" fields that you may have created within your current system. You won't have to worry about a loss of any Contact data when importing to our system.

For those of you that currently use ACT!, we now have a solution for you too!

ACT! is one of those programs that makes is very difficult for you to get your history out of their application and into a new contact management system.  We can help you with this as this is part of what we offer in our Custom Data Import service.

Finally, if you wish to import your entire contact history from any of these applications, (notes, meetings, email) our Custom Data Import service will ensure that you capture and properly organize this data as well.

For more information on this, or any other questions you might have, give us a call at 1-888-286-6578.  We're here to help!

Delivering on the promise of Web Based CRM

The CRM industry has historically been focused on managing customer data. But how can we better use these systems to focus on our clients in an effort to generate more profit and growth? We must further leverage the technology to manage our customer/ business processes.  Doing so will allow you to deliver a consistent and reliable experience to your clients.  This client experience often is the only real way to differentiate yourself in a very competitive market. 

There is a growing movement in the CRM industry focused on the concept of Business Process Management

The Wikipedia definition of a Business Process reads like this:

A business process is a collection of related, structured activities that produce a service or product that meet the needs of a client. These processes are critical to any organization as they generate revenue and often represent a significant proportion of costs.

Big Contacts has addressed this need and delivers two easy-to-use process management functions.

1. Sales Force Automation (SFA) - The "Autopilot" module of our system can literally put most of the activities in your sales cycle on autopilot.  With the click of a few buttons you can quickly and easily define multiple tasks that will automatically trigger as a prospect or client moves through each stage your sales pipeline.  You may want to generate an email to thank someone for a meeting. Maybe you want your assistant to send a personalized letter and you want to ensure that you are reminded to make a follow up call a few days later.  You can create automated functions that will be performed without fail and stored within the contacts record to ensure a complete history of activity.  All of this is managed from a single dashboard within the system.
2. Client Relationship Management (CRM) -  Within every business there is certain set of tasks that must be carried out on an on-going basis to ensure that your business operates smoothly and that you have satisfied clients.  The challenge is to effectively manage all of these tasks and to monitor them to ensure they get done correctly and in a timely fashion.  Our system allows you to easily create a library of all the tasks that are performed within your company.  Most tasks involve multiple steps and often times can involve multiple people within your organization.  You simply create a task, designate all the steps involved within the task, and assign each step to the correct person within your organization.  It doesn't matter whether each step within the task needs to worked on at the same time by multiple people of whether each step must be completed by a person and then handed off to the person responsible for the next step within that task, the system will reliably coordinate and hand off tasks as you have designed them to work.

Finally, you can establish service standards by defining the time each task and each step within that task should take to complete.  The reporting capabilities within our system allow you to monitor all activity and determine where things may be breaking down and where the service standards within your company are not being met.

For more information on how these very powerful modules can work for you in your business, you can visit us at Big Contacts and click on "view a fully populated demo" on the home page or feel free to call us at 1-888-286-6578 Ext. 701

No CRM User Manual needed for BigContacts

BigContacts 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 BigContacts 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 BigContacts 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.

Contact Management Software - Captures Letters in History of contacts

One of our users asked if the letters that they send to contacts can show up in history. A great idea! I'm surprised we didn't think of that when we set up the letters section. Anyway, it is now added. When you send a letter, it appears in the contact's history.

 

Going forward, please don't forget to use the feedback box and keep those terrific ideas coming so that we can make this the best Contact Management Software on the market!

Track Sales with your Sales Contact Manager

You can now enter a sales budget or quota for each user and track progress using the "Sales Manager" through BigContacts - a Sales Contact Manager. Set a monthly quota for each user that you want to have one on the 'admin' page in the 'Sales Opportunities' section. Then look at the Sales Manager. In the sales projection area, you will see the projection, along with the quota for the period and the percent to plan.

Another improvement to the Sales Manager is that you can now look at the sales opportunities and sales projection for any member of your team. Just click the circle next to the team member and the data will be updated to reflect only their oportunities and their quota/budget.

One more change that may be helpful. When you configure your 'Products', you can enter a 'Price'. Then when creating a new opportunity, you can enter a quantity and the size of the opportunity is calculated for you.

Let us know what you think of the changes and how we can continue to make the Sales Manager work better for you.

Contact Table - New Feature for Web Based CRM Software

This week we released BigContacts Contact Table. With the contacts table view, you can edit a group of contacts, delete multiple contacts, or merge several contacts into one. You can also assign a task to several contacts at the same time. This is not something you will use all of the time, but is a great way to maintain your contact data.

Update: We now have a flash video you can watch to demonstrate how the Contact Table works. Click here to see the demo

We get asked all the time how to handle duplicates. Let's say you have three identical John Smith contacts. Pull up the contact table, type Smith into the last name filter and John into the first name filter. You will then see all the contacts named John Smith. Click the checkbox next to each of the contacts that you want to merge and click the Merge button. They will be combined into a single contact preserving any meetings, notes, history or sales opportunities that you have created for each of them.

Maybe you want to delete a bunch of contacts at a company that you no longer do business with. Open the contact table and type the company name into the company name filter. You will then see all the contacts for that company. Click on select all. Maybe you want to keep a few, click to uncheck the box next to their names. Then click on the Delete button.

Here's another common problem. You wish to change the contact type of a group of contacts. After opening the table view, select the contacts that you which to change the contact type for and click the checkbox next to their name. Next, below the contact type header, select the new contact type from the dropdown. Then click replace. All of the selected contacts should now show the new contact type in their contact type field. Finally, click save and all of the selected contacts will have the new contact type.

One more great use for the Contact Table. Maybe you want your assistant to call each of your clients and thank them for their business. Click on Display:All and sort by Contact Type. Then next to each contact with Contact Type equal to Client, check the box next to their name. Then click the link Assign a Task to Selected Contacts. Enter the details of the task, making sure to assign the task to your assistant, and then click assign task to selected contacts. Each contact that you selected will now have this new task assigned.

We hope this new feature will help you to better manage your contacts and make Big Contacts even easier to use.