Posted by Bob Walton on Tue, Feb 23, 2010 @ 04:06 PM
Our subscribers frequently ask us about what they can do to further increase the speed of BigContacts and other web based applications they use on a regular basis.
Based on these inquiries we put together a Web Performance Page on our website. This page will give you tips for tuning your browser to deliver a better experience for you while in BigContacts or surfing some other area of the web.
There are a variety of situations that can exist to create a slower web connection.
- The web browser you are using is slow and/or may have plug-ins that are causing issues.
- Your modem or router is experiencing trouble and may need to be reset.
- Your local internet connection can intermittently run slow.
- There could be an internet connection issue somewhere between you and our servers.
- Our application/ server could be temporarily experiencing unusually heavy loads.
One or more of these tips can improve your web experience:
- Upgrade your Browser
We support 4 major browsers, including: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Google Chrome. You can decide how fast you would like to surf the web by reviewing the browser performance comparisons on this new web page.
- Reset your router and modem
A browser is the engine that drives your performance on the web. We encourage you to take a moment to make sure it is tuned so that it will perform better for you.
You won't believe the extra "mileage" you can get out of a day with a properly tuned browser.
Posted by Bob Walton on Thu, Feb 18, 2010 @ 07:20 AM
Best Practices Webinars for Web based CRM Software
At BigContacts, we're committed to making a real difference for you in your business. It's our mission to ensure that you get the most out of this easy-to-use, yet capable Web Based CRM Software. Think of us as your technology partner - dedicated to your success.
With the right tools and proper guidance, Web Based (CRM) Contact Management Software can provide measurable results in your business. Whether you're just considering this software for the first time, or have used it for years, we now offer a FREE Webinar series that can help you turn Web Based CRM Software into a true asset for your business.
Register Now and Get More Value for your Business
Whether you're just considering Web Based (CRM) Contact Management Software for the first time, or have used it for years, our webinar series can help you turn this software into a true asset for your Business.
Webinars are hosted daily.
Posted by Bob Walton on Mon, Feb 01, 2010 @ 09:23 AM
We just released a whole new look for Web Based (CRM) Contact Management Software - "BigContacts 1.5".
This is new interface is one of many enhancements we will be implementing during 2010. We have solicited feedback from thousands of users over the past year and it is this "end-user" insight that will continue to drive our platform going forward. It is our mission to develop a software platform that speaks your language and fits around your business process.
Contact Management (CRM) Software has proven that it can improve productivity, streamline processes, and improve the customer experience. The challenge has been getting users within your company to successfully adopt the software in their day-to-day operation, as most systems are too complicated and are NOT designed to function and flow the way you think.
BigContacts 1.5 has taken a big step toward delivering Contact Management (CRM) Software the way you want it.
A few of the enhancements we made:
- New Navigation menu - We have created "easy buttons" for CRM
- Enhanced Contact List - With the click of a single button, you can pull up and begin sorting and filtering your entire contact list.
- Easier to send emails - With one click you can send individual or group emails to your contacts directly from BigContacts.
- Add/Edit Contact Information - enter all information from a single screen
Test Drive BigContacts for 30 days and see for yourself how we are changing the face of Contact Management (CRM) Software.
Register for an Introductory webinar and discover the 3 essential components to look for in Web Based CRM Software and how they will help you in your business.
Give us a call at 1-888-286-6578 and speak with one of our Business Consultants and learn more about how we can help you simplify your business.
Posted by Bob Walton on Sun, Dec 27, 2009 @ 12:07 PM
Before investing in Contact Management Software or Small Business CRM, you need to have all the facts. Most systems today come full of "bells and whistles" that are touted as essential to helping you in your business.
The reality is that many of these features may rarely get used if at all. On the other hand there may be certain features that are critical to your business. This investment requires a methodical approach to ensure that you make the right choice. Don't make your decision based solely on price or on features.
Consider what's important to you before making a quick decision.
- What are the minimum requirements for you business today?
- What are your growth plans and will this system allow you to grow without a significant $ investment?
- Is it easy-to-use; allowing you to get off to a quick start with all of your employees using it?
If you experience any trouble viewing this example of research, Click Here for a full size image of these tables. 
If you would like a comparison to any other Small Business CRM or Contact Management Software, Contact Us at 1-888-286-6578. We will do the detailed research and provide you with an objective and detailed report.
Posted by Bob Walton on Tue, Dec 15, 2009 @ 02:02 PM
We've
all heard the expression "Garbage in - Garbage Out". Often abbreviated
as GIGO, this is a famous computer axiom meaning that if invalid data
is entered into a system, the resulting output will also be invalid.
At BigContacts
we are committed to your success. We can help you save a lot of time
and money in the long run by ensuring you get things right from the
start. We have trained and certified a team of Small Business CRM
Consultants that have the expertise, track record, and commitment to
ensure your success in implementing our web based CRM software within your business.
We are confident that, if implemented correctly, our platform will help
you:
• Strengthen existing Client Relationships
• For every customer who bothers to complain, there are 26 others who remain silent.
• It costs about 5 times as much to attract a new customer as it costs to keep the ones you have.
• Increase Sales through a more targeted system
• You can increase your total sales (on average) by 15-20% with more targeted and efficient sales practices.
• Reduce costs through more a streamlined operation
• You can reduce general operating expenses by 5-10% by implementing a system to help you better manage your work flows.
Read More>>>
Give a call at 1-888-286-6578 to learn more about this program and how we can help you in your business.
Posted by Bob Walton on Mon, Nov 23, 2009 @ 09:04 AM
At BigContacts we offer a number of reporting options to help you extract meaningful information from the system to help you better manage your business. We are constantly striving to improve what we offer, and encourage our subscribers to give us feedback on what you are looking for in an online contact management (CRM) system. The more feedback we get in a certain area the higher the priority we give to that request.
Based on this feedback, we have just enhanced our "Recent Activity" report. If you're not familiar with this report - it gives you the ability to take the pulse of your business. You can select any or all users in your company to review what they had done over a given period of time. This activity is displayed in chronological order and allows you to review what someone has accomplished for the past 1, 3 or 7 days. You can see virtually everything that has occurred in managing client relationships over a given period. You can view calls made, notes written, emails sent, meetings scheduled, tasks completed, new sales opportunities created, and much more.
The report was a great start, but was still limited in what it delivered. You could only view the activity in chronological order and we limited the time-frame that you could review. We have re-named the report to "Activity Manager" and have added much more flexibility in how you can review activity within your business.
• Select the user you wish to review
• Select the format in which you wish to have the activity displayed
(By date, By Activity Type, By User)
• Select the date range that you wish to view this activity
In addition to all this added flexibility in how you view the activity, we now provide a summary with a "number count" of each activity for that time period. This is great for judging activity levels with sales reps, or even customer service reps. How many calls did someone make in a given period? How many appointments did they schedule? How many tasks were completed? How many new sales opportunities have they identified? and much more...
We hope that this new report will give you more insight and a better pulse on what is going on in your business on a day-to-day basis. For questions, comments or feedback, please email us at support@bigcontacts.com.
Posted by Bob Walton on Fri, Sep 18, 2009 @ 09:18 AM
At Big Contacts we offer a number of options for sending emails to your clients and prospects.
1) You can send and receive emails directly from our system without changing email providers.
2) You can easily filter a list of your contacts to send a group email.
3) You can create email templates complete with standard AND custom merge fields.
4) You can create automated email campaigns to deliver a message to clients and prospects.
Our system will store all of these methods/ modes of email directly in each contact record to make it very easy to track the entire history for each client or prospect.
That's the good news. The challenge, in the past, has been that (being a web based application) it was difficult for our users to simply copy and paste text into an email or email template and properly format all the text to the same font, etc. With this new text editor, you now have the option of pasting in plain text or pasting directly from a Word document.
We have just released one of the latest Email Text Editors on the market today and we hope you will like it.
Here is a preview of that the new toolbar looks like and how you can use it. We encourage you to get in there and click around to discover all of its great new functionality. The editor is so new, that we have yet to create the user guide. This will be coming in the near future, but we hope you will find this new toolbar and its functionality so intuitive that the user guide is not needed.
The Toolbar is the area in email editor where you can activate most of the editor features. Each button in the toolbar access a different function. There are simple functions for basic text formatting and more advanced features like creation of links and tables.
To use the buttons in the toolbar you must move your mouse pointer over the button. The button will highlight and a message with the information about the button function will appear. Click on the button to execute its function. With more experience you will have full control over all email editor features and you won't have to read the description of the buttons. You will just use them intuitively.
Besides the toolbars buttons there are also toolbar combos (drop down boxes). The combos are the white areas with a little arrow on its side. They can be easily accessed by clicking on the white area or the little arrow. Once clicked the menu will expand so you can choose from one of its available options. To execute one of them, simply click on it.
Special Note: We have had many requests from our users to improve the spell checking capability for emails. You asked for it, so here it is. Note above in the toolbar we have highlighted two functions.
The spell check button highlighted in green will allow you to spell check on your command.
The spell check button highlighted in light blue will allow you to enable "SCAYT" (Spell Check As You Type). This is a great feature as you will get instant feedback as you are creating your email document.
There are so many new features available to you now. We encourage you to look around, try it out, and send us emails with any questions or feedback you might have to support@bigcontacts.com
Posted by Bob Walton on Fri, Sep 18, 2009 @ 09:01 AM
One our primary goals as a software service provider is deliver a very intuitive, easy-to-use application for our subscribers. One way we accomplish this is through the concept of our "Contact Dashboard" .
We are one of the few Contact Management (CRM) companies that presents all of your contact history in a very organized manner on a single screen. Putting all of this information on a single screen makes it that much easier to manage your client and prospect relationships as you have everything you need at your fingertips.
Having said that, we realize that all of this information on a single screen can create limitations in other areas. You have told us that you would like a larger, more detailed view of the calendar. The calendar view has been limited to a width of about one-third of the right hand side of your screen. This was done in order to accommodate all the other information we are presenting to you on this dashboard.
We are at the very beginning stages of designing/developing our next generation platform - "Big Contacts 2.0". In the process of this development, we will begin to present you with new and improved designs within the system. This Friday we will release a few small, but helpful enhancements to the calendar.
Expandable Calendar View
From the Contact Dashboard, you will click to expand the calendar folder as you have always done, but you will now notice a new link in the upper left hand corner called (full screen calendar). This link will allow you to expand the calendar to a full screen view.
One of the biggest benefits to this expanded view is that you will now be able to see details of your meetings and your team members' meetings when in the "31" of "31 Group" views.
After you are finished working in your calendar, simply click on the same link in the upper left hand corner (restore calendar) and you are now back to the normal dashboard view to continue working on your clients and prospects.
Meeting Reminders
Another requested enhancement to our calendar is meeting reminders. With this release you will now have meeting reminders available to you.
Each user on the system will determine whether or not they want the meeting reminder activated - based on how they personally prefer to handle their meetings. The user will determine three things in their setup:
* Do they want the meeting reminder feature on or off?
* How far in advance do they wish to have the system begin reminding them?
* Do they want the reminders to repeat?
(The system can be set to as little as 5 minutes to as long as 120 minutes in advance.)
After these settings are determined, the calendar will "default" to this configuration for every meeting that is scheduled, UNLESS you choose otherwise. When scheduling a meeting you will have the option to adjust any of these three settings.
For example, you may NOT want a reminder for certain meetings. Or you may want to be reminded further in advance for one meeting or another. And finally, you may not want to get a repeating reminder for a certain meeting.
(Please note: repeating reminders can be stopped at any time by clicking on "dismiss" in the upper right hand corner of the reminder itself.)
PLEASE NOTE: As we design the 2.0 platform, we want your continued feedback. On the "Contacts" tab in the left hand column under the tools section, we have a "Send Feedback" link. We need constructive insights from subscribers like yourself in order to make this the best Contact Management (CRM) platform in the industry! Please send your suggestions and ideas and we will work hard to implement ideas all that appear to add value to our broader subscriber base.
______________________________________________________
Stay tuned for more great things to come!
Posted by Bob Walton on Mon, Aug 24, 2009 @ 01:38 PM
Last time we introduced the concept of Contact Centric vs. Account (Business Centric Contact Management (CRM) Systems. We also mentioned that we are one of the very few systems on the market today that give you a choice based on how you do business. Well this new option is finally here!
On 8/25/09 we are unveiling our new business contact record for all current and new subscribers to Big Contacts. The first time you login after this update has been made, you will see a notice that will pop-up announcing that this new format is available. You will then have the opportunity to elect this new Account (Business) Centric format.
For those that already have contacts loaded into Big Contacts, we have developed a great new mapping/ linking tool to make it very easy for you to convert. This new tool will scan your contact database, identify all contacts that are associated with the same business, and give you the opportunity to confirm which contacts that you wish to consolidate under that particular business record.
For a quick review of how the different contact formats work, here is a Link to our Site where you can find more information.
To see how this new format will actually look, what it does, and whether it is right for you - Click here to Learn More .
As always, should you have any questions or need further detail about this great new feature, please feel free to contact us at 1-888-286-6578 Ext. 701.
Posted by Bob Walton on Mon, Aug 17, 2009 @ 01:39 PM
Over the past few months our clients have asked for more security features within our system. The primary concerns were centered around the fact that anyone in their company could go in and make changes to contacts without management knowing or approving this.
We're listening and have recently implemented some additional security measures for your account with BigContacts-Web Based CRM Software.
You now must now be and "Admin" on the system to perform a number of functions that were previously open to anyone. Following is a list of what we have enhanced for security purposes.
1) The Marketing Tab - only Admin users will be able to access this tab. A note will pop-up letting the user know that they must get with the admin of the system to make changes to this area.
2) The Contact Tab - the following links, are only available to an "Admin" user. These links are no longer visible to the non-admin user.
- Export Contacts
- Import Contacts
- View Task Manager
- Contact Table
- View Reports
- View Sales Manager - any non-admin person will ONLY see their sales opportunities when they select this. An admin will see the sales pipeline for the entire company/ team.
- Recent Activity - any non-admin person will ONLY see their activity when they select this. An admin will see activity for the entire company/ team.
3) The Reports Tab - the following links, are only available to an "Admin" user. These links are no longer visible to the non-admin user.
- All Sales Reports
- All Outstanding Tasks
- All Outstanding ToDos
- All Completed Tasks
- All Completed To-Dos
- All Data Export Reports