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Contact Management Software Buyer's Guide
Table of Contents
- » What is Contact Management?
- » What is Contact Management software?
- » What are The Features of Contact Management Software?
- » What Are The Benefits Of Contact Management Systems?
- » What Things To Consider When Choosing A Contact Management Software?
- » How Much Does Contact Management Software Cost?
- » Conclusion
Managing your contacts is an invaluable part of any business. After all, these contacts are the reason your business is running.
It's, therefore, critical to treat these rights as such. And to treat them right, you will need to communicate on a regular basis.
This might be easy for small businesses with few contacts. But as your business grows, keeping track of every customer's name and preferences can be challenging.
That's where contact management software can save you from. Literally.
Contact management software helps you store critical information about your prospect or existing clients along with tracking information to help you retain them.
If your business is growing and your employees are handling more clients throughout the day, then you need to start thinking about investing in contact management software.
In this guide, we will help you understand how a contact management system benefits you and how to choose the right one.
» What is Contact Management?
An organization's contact management system organizes and tracks information about customers, prospects, and sales leads.
Essentially, the concept of contact management refers to the method of storing contact information that helps users grow and diversify their customer base.
As a company grows, it becomes more challenging to collect data and determine what information is valuable and what information is not.
To overcome this problem, most companies use specialized contact management software.
» What is Contact Management software?
Contact management software allows you to keep information about your prospects and customers organized.
Besides tracking the interactions between the company and the contact, the software can also keep track of significant calendar events. It is capable of handling basic information, such as name, phone number, and e-mail address.
Businesses are increasingly using contact management software to manage their contacts.
Businesses can create an essential contact list using an address book or a Google or Excel spreadsheet containing entries for all the people they do business with. They use this feature to manage a lot of contacts or multiple people needing to access the information.
» What are The Features of Contact Management Software?
When contact management is not in place, customer communications become chaotic.
Maintaining an organized system for storing and tracking contacts can help you find accurate customer information and customize your communication.
A list of the key features of contact management software for small businesses is listed here.
1. Centralized Platform For Contact Management
As a business grows, there are more customers, and it can be a challenge to keep track of multiple contacts across different platforms. Software for managing contacts allows users to import contacts from various sources, such as email, landing pages, social media, and spreadsheets. In addition, it grants users the ability to export contacts from the contact management system to other sources. One of the best contact management software in the market lets customers scan business cards and save contact information into the database.
As a result of contact management systems, customer information is gathered from multiple sources and segmented according to shared characteristics. Due to the cloud-based nature of these systems, sales representatives and support agents can access customer information from anywhere with Wi-Fi at any time. In addition, cloud-based storage keeps customer information more secure than storing it locally.
2. Keeping Costs Low
With the rise of CRM, this product has been a big hit with small and medium-sized businesses. So what makes this product so appealing? Contact management software enables businesses to reduce operating costs by eliminating the need for manual labour. What makes this possible? Several business processes are now automated through the contact management system, eliminating the need for paying employees. It provides all-in-one automation, so users don't have to purchase multiple systems.
Moreover, you do not have to purchase separate systems for marketing, sales, and customer service if you use an all-in-one contact management system with built-in automation. Your business functions are managed from one system, so you don't have to invest in multiple systems.
Moreover, if your business uses an all-in-one contact management system that includes built-in automation, you won't have to purchase separate systems for marketing, sales, and customer service. All business functions are managed from one system, so you won't need to purchase multiple systems.
3. Improved Customer Satisfaction
A business's goal is to increase revenue by keeping its customers satisfied. Users of the contact management system can view the entire history of a customer with the user's business through contact management. The team will be able to perform better by automating business processes and correctly utilizing the free time to interact with customers and prospects. A contact management system helps users deliver a better customer experience, which would not be possible without one.
By utilizing contact management software and contact management system software, your customer experience gets enhanced. Having access to all customer information improves the customer experience, and it also enables you to build stronger customer relationships, which further enhances the customer experience.
4. Enhanced Data Management
With spreadsheets, the entry of contact information can be prone to human errors. With a contact management system, all contact information is stored in one place and easily accessible to everyone. A centralized platform allows all team members to access data stored on a centralized platform. Information from web forms is automatically updated to the contact database without human error.
Because of the central database, your teams all have a clear picture of each customer.
Whenever you use a CRM that has all your sales, marketing, and customer support data in one place, you save time and money.
5. Web Analytics for Customer Information Tracking
Users can learn more about their customers with contact management software. Contact management system software provides insight into your customers and prospects based on their web activity.
It allows users to analyze their customers' interests and receive in-depth reports and real-time alerts. The prospect may be interested in the product if they have spent more time on the website.
Users create a custom campaign to encourage these prospects to make a purchase. For example, users could offer a discount to encourage them to purchase.
In contact management, web analytics allows users to see which pages the customer has visited, how long they spent on each page, which page they left, their location, etc.
Using it, they are able to reach the right audience with the right content.
» What Are The Benefits Of Contact Management Systems?
Businesses can gain a great deal from contact management systems.
It is especially helpful in customer service and sales departments, where a lot of time is spent tracking down information needed to close deals or solve customer issues.
Employees who use contact management software can find a particular piece of information more quickly when they need it. This is true even if they are located halfway around the world from the person they are looking for.
1. Increase in Sales
You need to contact the right people at the right time if you want to grab the sale. And that's what contact management software allows you to do.
There are many contact management softwares for teams that help salespeople easily gather the right contact information at the right time. This increases the chances that they will convert a sale.
Moreover, centralized access to information provides flexibility to teams.
2. Social Media Integration
The cloud contact management system allows you to analyze their contacts' social interactions and conversations on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other platforms in real time.
Client management software can help an organization monitor all its customer interactions in real time. With social media interactions, users can learn what customers think about the product or service and participate in the conversation. Users can enhance their product features by integrating social media with contact management.
3. Boost In Return On Investment
Customers can create an effective sales strategy by using contact management system software that provides timely market information. Customer data management offers insight into customer behavior.
With the right messages, users can promote upselling and cross-selling strategies and maximize their return on investment in no time. Users also can tailor their marketing and sales campaigns to their target markets and maximize their ROI in no time.
4. Increased Team Productivity
Noting down every piece of information about a customer is time-consuming and can lead to frustration at times. This is especially true when the organizations have a large customer base and are in a complex industry like finance.
The lead management software automates the entire process of recording all contact information, saving time and effort.
For example, consider features like online appointment scheduling. It automates the entire scheduling process, thereby increasing productivity dramatically.
Automating so many processes by following the supplied guide allows users' teams to focus on higher-value tasks, such as one-on-one customer interaction.
5. Better, Longer-Lasting Relationships With Customers
The main perk of the contact management system is that you can store large amounts of customer information. Data can include anything from email addresses, names, postal addresses, locations, industries, age ranges, and genders.
In addition to storing customer data, it also tracks behavioral patterns. This includes information about when a customer opens an email, clicks on an email, visits a business website, downloads content, or subscribes to an email list.
Businesses can leverage this data to have a better understanding of their existing customers. They may be able to build a relationship with them by knowing them better. This will increase customer loyalty and build trust.
» What Things To Consider When Choosing A Contact Management Software?
1. Does Contact Management System Have A User-Friendly Interface?
Organizations that want to embrace a contact management system face one of the biggest challenges – user adoption. Users expect much more from CRM software today. In the workplace, the rise of millennials makes it necessary to choose a contact management system that caters to their needs.
The preferred CMS should be intuitive and straightforward to use, so salespeople can quickly adapt to it. Many solutions on the market are challenging to learn and more challenging to use. Most of them require IT support for setup. A CMS (Contact Management System) should speak a user's language and communicate the way the user does.
It should also be easy to set up, and any form of data should be easily exportable and importable. This is without the need for consulting firms and endless hours of training. Users should select a contact management system that is flexible enough to integrate with their current sales process.
2. Is The Contact Management System Easy To Customize?
The best contact management systems in the market help businesses customize the software that suits their business processes. Moreover, the contact management system should handle the sales process seamlessly.
For example, suppose you are using contact management software for real estate, then there must be options to customize the fields to suit the needs of the real estate industry. The same holds true for contact management software for small businesses and individuals with different needs.
User controls can include how information gets arranged, how to add new fields, configure sales pipeline, configure reports and automation, and who sees what information.
It is essential for the company to choose a solution that integrates seamlessly with its business applications and website. Some solutions cost a lot for customizations, but it is essential to find a solution that suits users' preferences.
When choosing a CRM, customizability is an essential feature to consider; however, it shouldn't be the only requirement.
3. How Does Contact Management System Security Work?
In CRM, customer data is the most critical data. So it is vital to select a solution that adheres to strict security standards and places security at its forefront.
These days, cloud-based contact management system platforms are highly valued, and service providers are doing their due diligence to protect user data while assessing risks and preventing cyberattacks.
A contact management system that provides scheduled data backups with strong encryption gives users confidence in the safety of their information.
4. Does A Contact Management System Provide Growth?
When a company grows, it must ensure its contact management system can evolve with it. A modular contact management system offers flexibility that is difficult to ignore in the medium term. If the original plan no longer meets the user's needs, the solution won't need to be changed.
In addition to this flexibility, make sure that the user's resources and their implementation partner can fully utilize this potential. If the user needs customized development and additional licenses are required for each new module, project costs could quickly spiral out of control.
5. The Support Team
When choosing a contact management system solution, it's critical to figure out what level of support the company offers and how much extra support is charged. While using a CRM for business, it's common to run into glitches.
In order to be sure of this, users should evaluate their support during the evaluation period. This is to see if their contact management system vendor has a reliable customer service team that quickly responds and provides help. Customers should not choose a contact management system solution that does not offer instant customer service and requires a long waiting time, and offers “better quality” support for additional money.
» How Much Does Contact Management Software Cost?
CRMs typically charge per user every month. Therefore, all you have to do to calculate your contact management system cost per month is to multiply your CRM's essential cost by the number of users in your company.
Most contact management system vendors offer basic packages that include the primary functions of CRM. In addition, they offer premium packages that combine the basics with advanced features like sales analytics and automation. There are various pricing options, but most fall into four basic categories: free, single-payment, fixed-monthly, and quote-based.
› Free: Many contact management software provide free plans with essential features and limitations. It's a convenient option for small businesses with new contacts to manage.
› Single Payment: Under this pricing option, users have to pay the cost in one go, and then they can use it forever without paying anything.
› Monthly subscriptions: This comes under the SaaS model and is one of the most popular options. Users and businesses can try out all the features of contact management software by paying on a month-to-month basis instead of committing for a lifetime.
› Quote-based: This is generally suitable for large enterprises with large teams. Companies can get personalized quotes for specific team sizes.
Depending on your specific requirements and the type of deployment you're interested in, you have two options. The cloud-hosted contact management system costs between $50 and $100 / user/month, whereas in-house CRMs usually cost between $250 and $1000 / user/month.
» Conclusion
Finding the ideal contact management software largely depends on how you intend to use it and what features you need.
Additionally, contact management systems come in different options, for example, contact management software for small businesses, contact management software for individuals, etc. Each of them comes with its own pros and cons, and thus it's necessary to consider the above-mentioned factors while looking for the right fit.
A well-designed contact management system performs its primary function, i.e., to keep your data safe and secure and provide useful services without costing a fortune.
Contact management software can help you stay in touch with your customers through email templates and auto-sending, calendar alarms and reminders, and the ability to provide them with a secure way to fill in their contact information on your website or mobile app.