When you’re just starting out at your business, you can usually keep track of all your business contacts with nothing more than the contact list on your email program or your phone. Once business picks up, however, depending on generic tools can land you in trouble. You need bulletproof organizing. Fortunately, modern technology solutions have made it easier than ever to organize your contacts. Here are some tips and tools you can use to manage your business contacts as you grow your business.
Great Contact App
When you’re in charge of a business, you can’t have a messy list of contacts that is hard to look through. If this is what your list looks like, you need an app that can work on it and turn it into a perfectly organized address book. The idea, when you look for an app, should be to get something that’ll help you pay more attention to your clients than finding their contact information.
Sync.Me is good at signing into all your online accounts that may have lists of contacts such as LinkedIn, Facebook or Google plus, and organizing it all for you in one place. Even better, it pulls photos from every contact that these social networking sites may have, and uses them on your contact list.
Other great contact management apps to look at – Ready Contacts + (when a call comes up, it shows recent interactions with that contact in a bubble), and CircleBack (it constantly monitors social media to check for changes to contact details).
Use Client Folders
Whether you’re using an email program or simply looking at your contacts on a computer, each client should get their own folder, space that holds all information relevant to them. Everything to do with that client should appear neatly organized in the folder. You can even use a client tracking spreadsheet when you need to keep track of fast-changing information such as appointment schedules to do with each client.
Get CRM Software
While getting customer relationship management software may seem complicated, you can start your business out with a system that costs no more than $10 a user, a month. There are even free open source solutions worth considering. Even if CRM software does seem like overkill at the level that your business is in, it can help to start on unfamiliar software when things are simple. You have an easier learning curve. It can’t hurt to use the best possible approach, either. Nothing will ever go missing when it comes to client information.
Great Call Recorder App
Recording phone calls without the consent of all parties involved is illegal in 14 states across the country. Nevertheless, since it is legal everywhere else, many phones do come with a recorder app built in. If your phone doesn’t have such an app or if you’d like more functionality, you should consider downloading and installing third-party apps like Automatic Call Recorder for Me. Automatically recording every call is one of the smartest things you can do for your business. Never having to rely on fallible memory for something that your business depends on can be a smart move.
Clients are rarely understanding about mix-ups and slip-ups. Investing in thorough systems to keep your clients’ information clear and easy to access is the best investment that you can make.
