What is Contact Management?

Contact management is the process of storing, organizing and tracking the contact information related to customers, vendors and suppliers.

When you deploy a software for contact management, the entire procedure becomes not just automated but also insightful enough to profit a business. How? First, all contacts get stored in a centralized database that is shareable and easily accessible. Second, you have access to all call insights, business reports, graphical timelines and many more functionalities for handling contacts.

Contact management efforts contribute towards higher customer satisfaction and retention rates. You can categorize your contacts into different segments and run loyalty programs. Based on the preferences and needs of your contacts, you can run targeted campaigns and win back their attention.

What is Contact Management Software?

Contact management is the process of storing, organizing and tracking the contact information related to customers, vendors and suppliers. The software further helps manage leads and customer interactions along with scheduling tasks and activities related to customer engagement and sales.

Contact management systems with multiple integrations and activity database let you create segments for customers and personalise all interactions. Customer contact software further gives access to multiple channels too like wizards, web forms, CRM APIs and meeting notes for managing the contacts database.

What's the Use of Contact Management Systems?

Contact management systems provide many important functionalities for business relationship management. The software streamlines the process related to storing, tracking and managing all customer contacts. Companies use contact management solutions for organizing details of vendors, suppliers, customers and employees.

• Versatile modules for checking past interactions, conversation history and call details
• Smart integrations for fetching customers’ information from emails, apps and social media
• Powerful contact storage and management capabilities based on different categories
• Organizing vendors and customers’ information in an easy to search format
• Collecting information digitally such as the client’s website activity and more
• Retrieve contact details from live chats and appointment scheduling tools
• Sales pipeline visibility for tracking the leads

Typical Features of Contact Management Software

• Interaction tracking: Contact management software helps track daily activities of a business such as task schedules, emails and contacts for better sales pipeline visibility.
• Contact export & import: Contact management systems helps with the quick transfer of contacts amongst multiple data sources with their easy export and import modules.
• Search and filter: CRM contact management software makes it easy to filter and search contacts from the entire database for information tracking.
• Activity database: Contact database software offers a powerful database for storing contacts, managing follow-ups and tracking previous interaction for better customer and vendor relationship.
• Automated reminders: Customer contact software gives access to a calendar system for scheduling follow-ups, setting reminders and adding notes regarding every contact. You can also sync the software with Google calendar or similar tools.
• Customizable fields: Online contact management software lets you segregate contact details based on the business campaign type. You can also rename, remove or add fields for the purpose.
• Email campaign integration: CRM contact management software supports email campaign integrations so that the right email addresses can be picked directly from the database for further communication.
• Graphical timelines: Customer contact software sums up the entire customer journey in a graphical timeline along with the contact history and conversation history.
• Task management: Manage tasks efficiently by creating new activities, setting reminders and viewing past interactions with a client by using contact management software.
• Smart insights: Contact management software offers smart insights and 360-degree view of your customer database along with the cross selling and up selling opportunities.

Benefits of Using Contact Management Software

• Powerful business intelligence: Contact management software offers robust business intelligence tools for contact tracking and managing sales & marketing efforts. The software provides valuable reports that can be utilized for strategic decision-making.
• Contact management for greater accuracy: Contact management systems store all contact information group-wise in an accessible database. You can use here grouping categories like employees, vendors and customers for higher business flexibility and operational accuracy.
• Higher customer retention: CRM contact management software provides interaction histories with every contact for managing all customer queries diligently and in real time.
• Managed interactions across multiple channels: Contact database software helps streamline business activities by supporting the integration with multiple channels such as note taking software, CRM APIs, wizards, web forms and VoIP phone systems.
• Easy contact tracking: Customer contact software provides a centralized and shareable database for tracking contacts and activities related to them.
• Higher productivity: As the software automates processes like data entry, appointment scheduling and contact management, businesses can achieve higher productivity in terms of sales conversions and customer service
• Increased business revenue: Contact management systems help segment contacts into hot deals, lost accounts, etc. Accordingly, you can plan your marketing and sales efforts and achieve higher conversion.
• Personalizing customer interactions: Online contact management software lets employers personalize their customer communications based on the demographic data and interaction history.

Contact Management Software Vs CRM Software

The two terms are quite often used interchangeably, however, CRM software offers broader functionalities compared to the contact database software. Contact management software provides the basic functions for managing the database of your existing vendors and customers. As an extension, CRM software includes advanced functionalities for managing the entire sales funnel by tracking potential clients and sales qualified leads.

To help you make the right decision, given here are key differences between the two for evaluating right the two solutions.

How to Find the Best Contact Management System

• Inbuilt CRM: An inbuilt CRM would help the employees manage contact details of customers and vendors from any app and from any location, thus ensuring smooth workflows.
• Information tracking: The module collects all customer data, queries, complaints, follow-up details and such so that your customers get timely service. Make sure that this feature is there with the software you buy.
• Easy data access: It should provide easy yet secure search functionalities to track the communication history with any customer quickly.
• Contact storage: This feature is critical with any contact management software as this would allow easy storage and retrieval of as many contacts information as you want.
• The right features: The features required of a contact management software would depend on your business size apart from the process requirements. Choose the software that is compatible with your business needs so that you do not have to change it later.
• Integrations: This again depends on your business type and requirement, whether you want integration with project management apps, reporting tools or sales force automation tools.