Hatrack River Forum: Contacts management

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Posted by Zalmoxis (Member # 2327) on :

Anybody have any opinions on business contacts management programs?

I have a modest amount of contacts that I work with and don't have regular (not even weekly) contact with them. It's mainly journalists, vendors and people I have worked with (or met at conferences) whose opinion I sometimes like to get. I'm thinking that at most I'll probably end up with 150-200 contacts. And only 40-50 of those will see a decent amount of activity.

I really only need to capture contact info. and brief notes. The ability to tag/categorize/sort is good. The ability to view in list format with core contact info (e-mail and phone number) would be nice. I don't need to be able to generate e-mail or address lists. In my line of business (PR) all communications need to be personal. PR people who send out blast e-mails/faxes/mailings are not effective -- and I wouldn't want to operate that way even if it did work.

I'm testing out Highrise.

But I don't know that it will do absolutely everything I want without upgrading to a plan that my company is not going to want to pay for.

I'm also considering just building my own MS Access database (Filemaker is great but would be overkill). I suppose an Excel spreadsheet would be okay, but I really prefer a more customized fields-oriented interface.

Any suggestions? What do you use? What would you use if you could afford to? What features do you like?

Thanks!

Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :

You could try Salesforce.com. And I have no idea why you think Filemaker would be overkill compared to Access, since Access is considerably more powerful.

That said, Microsoft Outlook itself will do what you want.

Posted by Zalmoxis (Member # 2327) on :

Salesforce.com would be total overkill, but it looks very interesting for the right type of project.

I don't know where I got the Access vs. Filemaker perception. Of course, I last used Access in 1997 and haven't used Filemaker Pro since 2004.

The problem with Outlook is that I hate the interface. I think what this will come down to is whether my boss sees a value in being able to access this info. from outside of work. If so, then Highrise or Outlook would be best.

Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :

A lot of people use ACT!, although I have not used it personally myself.

We (our project management people) are currently looking into the contact management tools that come with the full version of Office 2007 (Business Contact Management). I haven't been exposed to it enough to give any opinion on it, however.

Linky

Posted by theamazeeaz (Member # 6970) on :

I had a lot of trouble with contacts, but then I realized that if you look up when you put them in, it works so much better.

Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Zalmoxis:
The problem with Outlook is that I hate the interface.

It's like I don't even KNOW you!

Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :

I used ACT! for a while when I was doing more freelancing. It worked pretty well for keeping contacts, but seemed to have a couple of bugs that I couldn't get around. One of them was inexplicably locking me out of my own database. Another was not showing me my list of contacts when I wanted it.

I second Outlook. I'll bet it does what you need it to do, interface or not. Outlook is more intuitive than ACT!.

Posted by Zalmoxis (Member # 2327) on :

Outlook is okay for mail and calendar (and much better than Lotus Notes, which is what we used at my lat job). The notes function sucks. And I really just don't like how it handles contacts. I'm not sure what it is -- just the overall look and feel, I think.

And I realize that the ability to directly generate an e-mail from your contacts is a must for pretty much everyone, but for me, I need that extra step to act as a filter. PR people with quick trigger fingers get themselves in trouble. They also tend to err on the side of flooding people. It's all too easy to send e-mails that you really shouldn't just because you think "eh, why not -- maybe I'll get a nibble." Not that that's an issue with me, but it's good to be absolutely sure about exactly who you want to e-mail and what level of personalization to use.

afr: those are some major bugs.

-----
theamazeeaz:

[Razz]

I haven't worn contacts for 14 years and yet I still have nightmares where they are stuck in my eyes or there are multiple sizes and I can't find the right size, etc.

Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Zalmoxis:
The notes function sucks.

Are you referring to the "post its" (called Notes) or Posts? Because if the first one doesn't work for you, the second might.

quote:
Originally posted by Zalmoxis:
And I really just don't like how it handles contacts. I'm not sure what it is -- just the overall look and feel, I think.

Are you talking about individual contacts, or the multi-contact view? Either way, it can be customized quite a bit.

Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :

They might not be ACT! bugs. Probably not, I suppose, or ACT! 2005 wouldn't have gone on the market. Probably my computer or some installation error. But they sure slowed me down and kind of soured me to the program.