My quick opinion is that this is not off-topic, as I think that you will have to develop your own and that it will need to be shared using a web, if not The Web.My apologies for the off-topic post, but does anyone have any experience with contact management software... like Act! I've been using Act!, but it sucks, very buggy. Suggestions would be appreciated.
I have been involved in reviewing and selecting contact management software, and the main problem is that it isn't like, say, finance systems. Every organization uses contact management for different purposes, and every individual in an organization needs to believe that the contact management system gives them value. This is difficult using packaged contact management, such as Act!, as the amount of tailoring that an organization can do on the look and feel is limited. There may be some fields on the 'standard' displays that an organization never uses, and there may be insufficient order to a 'custom' field, especially if this is just a field of text.
If the display does not look good and feel relevant, then people will be inclined to go back to their own paper diary systems. To make life harder, the people most inclined to give up with the shared contact management system are those who have most contact with customers and prospects. I have seen this happen: the only people actually using the software were the 'back-office' people, recording their calls to confirm despatch dates.
So, if I may present my two tips out of order:
2. Write your own; but
1. Before you do, make absolutely certain that everyone who will use the system will be sure of its value to them and that you will be able to keep this enthusiasm going.
I can recall a client who had installed an all-singing-all-dancing diary system across all its work for its customers. It is an electricity company, so it sent staff out in vans and trucks that had the correct equipment in them to deal with the situation. These vehicles and their equipment needed to be checked before and after each job; the vehicles also needed periodic maintenance. The big glossy Sasco chart and whiteboard in the maintenance bay had been taken down and replaced by a computer terminal. The terminal was not being used and the staff were making notes in little books that they each had. The problem: they could no longer draw coloured lines from one job to another to show how the equipment needed to move back into store or into another vehicle for another job; and they could no longer see immediately if a vehicle was unavailable because of its own maintenance. The result: as the computer system was not doing what they wanted, they were not using it, except to enter data about completed jobs. My solution: put the Sasco chart and the whiteboard back up. The resolution: everything is well-managed again; if anyone wants to find out what's going on they should go down to the maintenance section and look at the charts.
Regards,
David
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