I teach people how to use their websites to attract new customers,
educate the customers that they have,
and drive more business.

Contact Management for Quality Relationships

By @Stephen • 3 September 2008 • Filed in: Conversations, Networking

How do you manage your Contacts?

I use HighRiseHQ from 37 Signals. (and I do not have an affiliate relationship, it’s just a great service!) It is easy to use, integrates well with e-mail, and it is free for a single user. That’s right - free. And what can we do with this free tool? Well:

You can use Highrise to…

  • Review a colleague’s notes before calling her contact at the printer
  • See all the follow-ups scheduled for this week
  • Set a reminder to write your client a thank-you note next Friday
  • Keep all important emails from a customer together on one page
  • Schedule a follow-up sales call with a lead in 30 days
  • Review all communications with your investors
  • Build a list of all the designers your company has hired in the past
  • Enter notes from a call with a potential client
  • Enter contact info for people you met at the conference this week
  • Generate a list of contractors you worked with last year
  • See all the people your company knows at The New York Times

Now your next question may be, “Why would I want to use this web-based service when I can do all of that with Outlook right on my computer at work?” Good question. In today’s world of mobile workers, digital nomads, and virtual offices we may not always be at our desks. Also, we may not always be with the company that we are with right now.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a list of all of your contacts and clients that is portable, no matter where you go? Consider this: if you are a small business in your own right, why keep all of that client info on your laptop? When you use a service like HighRiseHQ, everything is stored in the cloud and you can access it from anywhere.

In addition, you can purchase a larger plan for more users and share this information with everyone in your group/team/business. With HighRiseHQ you can share contact information and knowledge about vendors, clients, leads, and others with your co-workers. Now the next time you need to contact a customer you can find out who else talked with that customer, what was said, and what was done.

And that is productive work. For more on this service click here [link] for the tour. And remember, I am not a paid shill for HighRiseHQ.

 

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