gullbeard started this topic @ 16:12 on 04/05/2006
Hi
Can anyone recommend an easy to set up and use contact management app - I have been looking at Act 2006 seems to have everything that I will need. I am just worried that my wife may not be able to use this.
Has anybody any experience with this or maybe there is another product available.
Regards
Tony
RE: Contact Management Software
Comspec | 04/05/2006 06:05 PM
Tony
I used ACT a little while ago when Technical Sales Manager for an IT-Based firm. I found it 'did exactly what it said on the tin'.
Though i probably have more experience than your wife, i didn't think it was too complex to use. We had another salesman who was not too PC literate, yet he mastered the parts he needed quite easily.
As with all software of this sort, you can keep it simple if you want to - then build it up as you gain familiarity with it.
Not sure if this helps, but good luck anyway.
Mark
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www.ComspecComputers.co.uk">href="http://www.ComspecComputers.co.uk">www.ComspecComputers.co.uk - Home/Business Computer Services
RE: Contact Management Software
gullbeard | 04/05/2006 06:47 PM
Thanks for the reply Mark
One other question if I may. Are the fields customisable.
Regards
Tony
RE: RE: Contact Management Software
Comspec | 05/05/2006 04:06 PM
Tony
Yes - the fields are customisable. You have a set number of pre-defined fields to use, plus additional which you can determine. Also there is a report designer which allows you to customize what you get out of the system.
We found it useful for our application, though i eventually wrote a system more tailored to ourselves using MS Access & Visual Basic. We decided against the use of ACT because there were some specific things we wanted to achieve and we could not find these off the shelf.
There may well be other, more suitable CM systems out there - we did not evaluate any others, the boss simply arrived in with it one day. I would suggest having a google and looking at a few. There will be screen-shots and demo's for you to have a look at.
Mark
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www.ComspecComputers.co.uk">href="http://www.ComspecComputers.co.uk">www.ComspecComputers.co.uk - Home/Business Computer Services
RE: Contact Management Software
robert05 | 05/05/2006 01:55 PM
I've used ACT as well, and worked fine. Are you curently using excel or access? Access is nearly as versatile (if not more) and if its bundled with your sw, use that.
I found the cost for CRM were of three sorts - sw costs (turned out to be the lowest) installation, and training. Although you could just do the first but would that be much better than using excel? If you run pivot tables and look ups on excel you can suck out a lot of info that's "CRM-like". I did find some small sw houses that specialise in certain types of business (like event management) and so if your industry is specialist it may be worth looking at more specialist database providers as ACT is vanilla-flavoured (from what I can remember - a few years ago now)
robert
RE: Contact Management Software
robert05 | 05/05/2006 01:57 PM
Oh sorry, are fields customisable, if you mean name them and set them up to specific size and formats (date, customer ref etc) then YES. Is that what you meant?
robert
RE: Contact Management Software
D George | 05/05/2006 04:39 PM
For £99 you cant beat ACT!
We have used it for 2 years with no problems. Maybe in the next year or so we may need to look at something else as it is starting to creak a litlle. But we do have over 5k active contacts and adding and extra 400-500 per month.
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Damian George MBA
Senior Dealer
Corporate FX
Tel +44 (0)207 959 6929
Mob +44 (0)7869 150 578
damian@tri-fx.com
www.tri-fx.com
www.imsfx.org
www.voltrexfx.com
www.ggrecruitment.com
RE: RE: Contact Management Software
icwicks | 07/05/2006 08:57 PM
Hi Damian, (www.schneiderfx.com)
When you are ready to move up from ACT a good natural progression path is GoldMine. It even has a wizard to bring the ACT data into GoldMine.
Best Regards
Iain Wicks
www.iwicks.com
RE: RE: Contact Management Software
icwicks | 07/05/2006 08:50 PM
Hi Tony
Act is very suitable for a first time Contact Management software.
When you are ready to step up a gear you might want to consider GoldMine. I work as a Freelance GoldMine consultant and make my living by installing, customising and training with GoldMine.
It still remains one of the most popular Contact management systems in the market place.
See text below for review quotes etc
best regards
Iain Wicks
www.iwicks.com
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"When it comes to building and maintaining a hefty contact database, this solid, all-around customer relationship manager is perfect for growing businesses..." zdnet Review
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"GoldMine Business Contact Manager gets the basics of CRM right, and includes so many features that small businesses will find almost everything they need. If your small business requires a usable, highly customisable and sophisticated contact manager with a minimal investment of time and money, you can't do better than choose GoldMine Business Contact Manager." zdnet review
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FrontRangeTM GoldMine® Honored with ISM Top 15 Award
For a fourth consecutive time, ISM selected GoldMine 7.0, along with FrontRange HEAT in a third consecutive time, for its Top 15 CRM Small & Medium Business Software Awards for 2006!
RE: Contact Management Software
SPower | 08/05/2006 01:26 PM
I have used ACT!, GoldMine and Salesforce.com, and Salesforce.com is by far the best solution. You can get a free copy with 5 customisable fields, or pay £45 per month per user and get 100 customisable fields. It is a fantastic product, and doesn't need any additional IT infrastructure pieces, as it runs on an ASP model.
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Sean Power
www.quadrigamotivation.co.uk
http://startup-it-security.blogspot.com/
"What I do today is important because I am exchanging a day of my life for it."
RE: Contact Management Software
icwicks | 08/05/2006 04:10 PM
To be honest, If I were you Tony, I would sit down and ask a few questions.
What do I want to achieve?
Why do I need a contact management software?
Answer those questions then make a list of all the attributes your solution MUST have.
Remember there's no point in paying for Bells and Whistles if you don't need them.
All of the products mentioned here are good at what they do and each will have their supporters but you have to research which one will do what you need in order to achieve the Goals you set from your very first question...What do I want to achieve? and it must also tick all you REQUIRED tick boxes.
Regards
Iain
ps -SeanP I looked for a link on