Contact Management Products Having Trouble Making Customer Contacts?
from the spam-isn't-working dept
In this day and age of electronic communications, it turns out that lots of people still use decidedly non-electronic methods of managing their contacts. In an article that reads more like an ad, the folks at Plaxo (self-serving survey alert) say that 37 percent of respondents use Post-It notes or Rolodexes instead of contact management software. Their conclusion is that contact management is “at the beginning of the adoption curve” and people need to understand the “benefits” like saving time and avoiding lost paper. But maybe the current adoption rate (can they really argue it’s at the “beginning”?) is as good as it gets, if in fact everyone who has the software actually uses it. Rather, lots of people might find alternative methods more convenient and time-saving. Little black books don’t have to be booted up, email programs and cell phones have their own address books, and the internet is one big phone book anyway. The concept of a bloated contact management system that sometimes can be annoyingly inconvenient might be a tough sell to the unconverted and disillusioned who are dragging down those “adoption” numbers. Those are issues that no amount of Plaxo spam will fix.
Comments on “Contact Management Products Having Trouble Making Customer Contacts?”
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The claim: Content management software will help you keep track of your contacts and save you time.
The truth: Content management software lets your boss get into your planner.
The claim: Bookmarks help you keep track of internet sites that are important to you.
The truth: Bookmarks made it painful to switch browsers (til Mozilla).
It goes on from there.
No Subject Given
Outlook at work (CompanyWare, big $) and KOrganizer at home (Mine, open source, minimal $)
do a good job of maintaining and finding contacts from a variety of perspectives.
The card files are still there, as a backup, containing the original data.
( Sorry, Plaxo, using a better brand. )
Just have to make sure the MicroSoft .pst files are backed up for when another
Blue Screen Of Death intervenes and corrupts some random bit of data.
Oh, yeah… I have to get the program disks from company IT if it turns out a Windows reinstall is required.
Don’t seem to have those problems with the Linuxware.
Otherwise, works great for a few hundred contacts, mostly suppliers and services, all nicely categorized and searchable.
My time spent on initial data entry is paid back many times over for my 8 crewmembers and myself.
Small business firms can manage using CRM however as the business expands the need for contact management software becomes inevitable.