Contact Management

One of the key assets of a business is it's contact database. The value of a business is increased by 30% to 50% if it uses a centralized and integrated business management system to manage all customer touch points during the entire life cycle of a customer. The operative word is "centralized" as this one area where small/mid businesses falter. Customer data is stored in employee desktop and laptop PC's, stored in MS Outlook or Excel spreadsheets or even flatfile Goldmine or Act using sync to capture centralized data. Sometimes, the data is printed and stored in rolodexes or filing cabinets in the form of invoices and delivey notes. In most situations when the sale rep leaves the data goes with him perhaps even to a competitor.

A centralized and integrated Contact management system

Here are some reasons why a centralized and integrated Contact management is required:

• Speed of Search:
  Customer and prospect contact information are the lifeline of a business. Without an automated system, a lot of time and money is wasted in searching for information about a prospect or a customer
• 360 view of a customer in one view:
  In today's competitive world, it is not only required to know the name and telephone number - it may be necessary to know more demographics of a customer. In the B2B world, a contact's title, role, relationship (favorable, antagonist, technical influencer, sponsor etc), motivatons (personal and business) and other data is required before a call is even made to the contact. By knowing his background, intelligent, wellthought proposals can be made instead of giving it the old saleman's rush. If such data is documented in the contact management system, the next sales rep will be as productive as the previous rep.
• Marketing for gold:
  Contact management systems provide valuable data to the marketer - he can use this data to plan marketing strategies down to which advertising media to use - simply because the contact's original source is documented.

Now that the business process methods have been defined, the next step is to understand what are the elements of a business management system and how IT can help to fine tune the business process.