Every contact is an opportunity. Still, many struggle with its effective management. Whether it’s a lead you met at a conference. Or a long-time client, managing these relationships can decide your company's health. Make sure you manage your business contacts right.
Contact management is one of the first things a business owner should take care of. And set up a system for all the people in the company. Especially for the sales reps, so communication with clients is as smooth as possible. How to work with this?
Table of contents:
Why Is It Essential to Manage Your Contacts
Contact Management Pain Points
How to Keep Track of Your Contacts
The Pros and Cons of Different Solutions
Tips for Maintaining a High-Quality Contact List
Tools to Explore
The Answer to the Question How to Organize Customer Information?
Why Is It Essential to Manage Your Contacts
Why is it essential to have a great system of management for your company contacts? Because it affects your:
- Efficiency – Long searches for suppliers and customer contacts affect your productivity.
- Relationships – Personalizing interactions with clients and leads fosters trust and loyalty. And in general, strengthens your relationships.
- Opportunities – New opportunities might come when expanding your network. At the same time, you must take care of and track valuable business contact information. Only then will new opportunities come your way.
Nothing works smoothly without a thought-through system. And the same applies to the system of business contact management.
Contact Management Pain Points
Before diving into solutions, let’s look at the most common pain points professionals face. No matter whether you're in the sales team or you're a member of other teams, can you relate?
- Issues with organization - They arise because you spread contacts across different platforms, making it difficult for you to get oriented. Including emails, spreadsheets, business cards, and apps.
- Lack of updates – Outdated information leads to issues with communication and project management.
- Inefficiency – Manual organization of contacts and keeping them updated can be exhausting.
- Security – Without a contact management system, your data might be in security danger.
- Unpleasant feelings - If you don’t give your team a solution, they may think they are missing important information. They can’t provide the right information. And they might struggle to contact your ideal clients and what's important, contact them at the right time.
All these pain points lead to missed connections. And therefore, opportunities. But you can easily deal with them using trusted strategies and contact management tools.
How to Keep Track of Your Contacts
- Choose a System That Works for You
The best way to organize business contacts is with a smart system. You can have your business contact database well-organized and easily accessible in the CRM system. That is the best option available, which saves time and helps you to be fast in your sales pipeline.
But in practice, some people use:
- Spreadsheets - These are a simple, sometimes cost-effective way to have your contact records in the basic form.
- Mobile business contact apps - Such as Google Contacts, Contacts+, or cloud-based FullContact. These are specialized apps for business networking which usually offer lists of phone numbers and email addresses.
- Define Key Fields
Decide what information is critical for your needs in your business contact list, such as:
- Name or company
- Email and phone number
- Job title and industry
- Notes on past interactions
Each of you will have your own primary key fields. This will help you to make sure you have all the information about your clients. Or when starting a new customer interaction.
- Make Regular Updates
Make it a habit to update your contact list regularly. Add new contacts and data and review existing ones for accuracy.
Only then you be able to always find business contact information that is accurate and up to date.
- Segment Your Contacts
Group contacts by categories to better organize clients, such as:
- Clients
- Leads
- Partners
- Suppliers
- Leverage Automation
Automation is only available with smart tools. Tools that are able to manage certain tasks by themselves. And offer the next steps. Favorite business contact management software of 2024 is eWay-CRM.
It integrates with platforms like Outlook to automate data entry and keep everything synced. But there is more on the list. The list of integrations in eWay-CRM is long, see yourself here.
The Pros and Cons of Different Solutions
Spreadsheets
Pros: Free and quite flexible considering its format. You can style them as you want and need. Even though creating good looking and working spreadsheets might take quite a lot of time since you have to do everything manually.
Cons: It's difficult to organize them effectively. It is difficult to search in for information quickly. They aren't safe and without a back-up platform, so you can easily lose them.
Mobile apps
Pros: You can carry them in your pocket. And access easy on the go. Often simple to use. They have nice designs so it's pleasant to work with them.
Cons: Limited scalability for large networks. It might not be compatible with other apps; therefore, integration is out of the question.
CRM Software
Pros: Comprehensive and scalable solution. Offers insights into client interactions and all the important information about your them. And for manufacturers, you can track your suppliers there as well.
Cons: Requires an initial investment and sometimes even a learning curve.
Tips for Maintaining a High-Quality Contact List
- Standardize your data entry: Ensure all contacts are in the same format.
- Merge duplicates: Use tools to identify and merge duplicate entries.
- Back-up data: Regularly back up your contact list to avoid data loss. We're not in the times when address books are the only option. Use the newest technologies to keep your data safe.
- Set permissions: Control who can access and edit the contact database to maintain data integrity.
Tools to Explore
Here are some contact management tools to consider:
- eWay-CRM - Ideal for businesses looking for seamless integration with Outlook. Offers custom fields, thanks to which you can tailor your contact management to your specific needs. Also, it has mobile access, so you can work anytime and literally anywhere. Let's focus on the important things with eWay-CRM thanks to automation and AI features.
- Google Contacts - Great for basic contact management synced with Gmail.
- Excel - Best for simple and small-scale needs.
- Numbers - For those using Apple products.
The Answer to the Question How to Organize Customer Information?
Effective contact management is not just about making databases with names and numbers. It’s about building a system that helps you nurture relationships and seize opportunities.
Whether you’re using a simple spreadsheet or advanced CRM software, the key is consistency and flexibility. And also, you have to use what really suits your business. A factory shouldn't rely on Excel, it should work with a professional CRM system. On the other hand, while smaller companies can use CRM, individuals can manage with just basic documents.
Explore your options, try different tools, and find the system that aligns with your workflow.
For those seeking a comprehensive and user-friendly solution, eWay-CRM might just be the perfect fit.
