Posted by Bob Walton on Wed, Aug 25, 2010 @ 07:04 PM
BigContacts encrypts all data over the Internet using a secure SSL connection (HTTPS). Our SSL Certificate is provided by the industry's leader in data encryption - VeriSign. Our entire application operates over the secure (HTTPS) connection - ensuring that your data is properly encrypted and secure when traveling over the Internet.
We do, however use third-party Support Software that does not currently utilize the same HTTPS connection. So, when you click on the "Support" tab within BigContacts, we are actually displaying an outside support program in an i-frame window. We use this as a convenient way to deliver our email and live chat support to all of our subscribers.
If you use either IE7 or IE8 browsers (Internet Explorer) they may display the following pop-up to you when moving between tabs as this one tab "Support" does not currently operate on an HTTPS connection. (we are working to bring this software in-house and eliminate this issue all together.)
IE7 Pop-up Message
IE8 Pop-up Message
So how can you get rid of this annoying pop-up message that appears every time you move to another tab within BigContacts? Here's how it's done:
If you use the IE7 Browser
- Go to the Advanced Settings Section of your IE7 browser
- In here you will select the "Security" icon from the list of options. This is the icon that looks like a lock
- Scroll down the list and look for the option labeled "Warn if changing between secure and not-secure mode"
- Un-check this option and then apply your changes
If you use the IE8 Browser
- Go to Tools -> Internet Options -> Security
- Select the "Security" tab -> Click the "Custom Level" button
- In the "Miscellaneous" section change “Display mixed content” to Enable
- Save you changes and the pop-up is disabled
** Please note this setting is now changed for all sites that you visit and this warning will not be generated for any site that you visit. It is important to remember that this is a means of protection that IE has in place for you and turning it off will mean that you need to be more aware and careful of sites you are visiting.
Posted by Bob Walton on Wed, Aug 18, 2010 @ 07:30 AM
BigContacts offers a number of reporting options that allow you to track anything from general activity, tasks, to your sales pipeline. The most common reporting tool that our subscribers use is the Advanced Search function.
As many of you know, there are essentially two outputs when generating a report using Advanced Search.
- You can choose to export your list to excel
- You can simply select the "Find Contacts" button to display the list directly in the system.
This option can very useful as it not only displays your filtered list of contacts right there in the system, the names listed are all "hyerplinked". This allows you to select any name on the list to be brought directly to their contact record within the system.
For those of you that are power users, here's a productivity tip ---If you right click on any given name, it allows you to open the contact record in a new window or tab. You can work the contact, update information, add notes, send an email, etc. When you're done with this record simply close that tab or window and you are right back to your filtered list. You can quickly work your way through a list of targeted contacts using this method.
So what's new with this function?
We have just added the ability to sort the list using any column header. Simply hover over and clcik on any column header in the report that you have created and the system will sort and reverse sort any column that you choose. Every time you click on the column header it will reverse the sort for you.
This is yet another small but effective tool that we hope will increase your productivity when using BigContacts.
Posted by Bob Walton on Wed, Aug 18, 2010 @ 06:32 AM
There are many uses for the Advanced Search function in BigContacts. You can sort and filter your contacts on virtually every field within our Contact Management Software.
Whether you're pulling a list together to generate an email to existing clients, queuing up an email marketing campaign for prospects, or simply trying to identify the contacts that you haven't touched in a while - the Advanced Search function can help.
With all of its positives, there has been one very important feature that was missing. Until now, we didn't give you the ability to select a custom date range in which to filter and then view your search results. After you generated your list of contacts, you would have to export to excel is you wanted to do any further sorting to try and organize things in some sort of time-line.
We now give you the ability to choose a specific date range for a number of fields within the Advanced Search. These fields are found under the "History" heading in the Advanced Search.
-
Select the "Reports" Tab
-
Select the "Advanced Search" sub-tab
-
Select all of the fields you wish to display in your report
-
Scroll down to the "History" section and choose the filters you wish to use
-
Finally, you will "Specify a date range" that you wish to view in your report.
You can now choose a custom date range for:
The date a Contact was added to your database
This can be very helpful for creating a mailing to new clients or prospects that you added to your system during a certain period of time.
The last call or meeting with your Contacts
The last note added for your Contacts
The last email that was sent to your Contacts
-
These three filters give you to ability to quickly identify a subset of your contacts based on when you last "touched" them. Many of our clients plan to use this as a way to identify clients that they have not contacted in a while so that they can plan to reach out to them.
-
There are many uses for this simple, yet important feature. We hope you find it to be an added benefit as you manage your contact data.
Posted by Bob Walton on Thu, Aug 05, 2010 @ 01:27 PM
We recently added a "Reply" feature within the email correspondance folder of each contact record. In addition to "Reply, we have decided to add a "Re-send" Feature.
Often times we hear that one of our subscribers has sent an email to a contact only to find that the contact didn't read it, or accidently deleted, etc. There is often a need to "Re-send" that email.
Now, from within the same email correspondance folder you can do just that.
To summarize, the two new email features work as follows:
- Emails that are RECEIVED from a contact now have a "Reply" Link next to each email.
- Emails that have been SENT to a contact from the contact record now have a "Re-send" link next to each email.
We hope that these enhancements prove to be very helpful for you in your day-to-day communication with clients and prospects.
Stay Tuned: Our next blog post will be out shortly... We are adding several custom date ranges to our Advanced Search Module.
Please feel free to comment here or send us an email at support@bigcontacts.com with any questions you may have on this article or any other aspect of BigContacts.
Just considering BigContacts?
If you would like to see firsthand how this system works and learn more about it can help you in your business, please join us any weekday at 3pm EST for a FREE 30 minute webinar.
Already have a Paid Subscription?
We now offer unlimited FREE Training and Best Practices calls for all Paid Subscribers. Join us on any weekday at 2PM EST and we will answer questions, share best pracitces, and ensure that you get the most of out this great platform. Come back as often as you like!
Posted by Bob Walton on Wed, Aug 04, 2010 @ 03:35 PM
How often do you find yourself out of the office and you need to add an important note to one of your client or prospect records?
You could do this the old-fashioned way by writing it down on paper and then typing it in to your contact management system when you get back to the office. You could even email yourself the notes and then later copy and paste them into the correct contact record within your contact management software when you get back to the office.
At BigContacts, we're constantly looking for ways to streamline your business and help you realize greater efficiencies. We have just released our "remote notes" feature that will help you do just that. This new feature allows you to open your email from any device (eg. your mobile phone), type the notes from a recent meeting, call, etc and email this directly to our system. We will automatically sort and store the details of that note to the appropriate contact record.
Its that simple, with one email you can capture, sort and store your notes while they are fresh on your mind; eliminating this task when you get back to the office.
Here's how you do it:
- Open your email program
- In the "TO:" line you will enter your BigContacts Email Dropbox address (If you don't have a dropbox, click here to find out how you can get one)
- In the "Subject:" Line you will type:
- Note (your contacts email address)
- You will want a single space between "Note" and the "email address" on the subject line
- In the Body of the email you will type all the details of your note.
- Send the email and within 10-15 minutes it will appear in the contact record and is now a part of the history for that contact.
If you have questions on this new feature or any other aspect of BigContacts, please feel free to email us directly at support@bigcontacts.com or join us for a live chat session.
Posted by Bob Walton on Wed, Aug 04, 2010 @ 02:41 PM
Ever think of a task you need your assistant or someone else on your team to get working on ASAP? How do you best record this task and ensure that nothing falls through the cracks? You could send them an email and hope that they get things done and update you with their progress, OR you could remotely send this task to BigContacts - your web based contact management system - ensuring that the task gets recorded in the proper client or prospect's contact record right then and that the task gets done.
We have just released our "remote tasks" feature that will help you assign tasks to others on your team right from your email!
This new feature allows you to open your email from any device (eg. your mobile phone), create the content of the task, and assign it to yourself or someone else on your team. Within 10 - 15 minutes this task is loaded to the appropriate contact record, assigned to your team member and a notification has been sent to that person - ensuring that they are aware of the new task.
Here's how it works:
- Compose an email and In the "TO:" line you will enter your BigContacts Email Dropbox address (If you don't have a dropbox, click here to find out how you can get one)
- In the "Subject:" field - enter "task" followed by a single space
- Add the email address of your contact. (this must match what you have loaded in the contact record for that contact)
- Enter the date that the task is due. This can be a relative date ("next Thursday"), or a specific one ( "May 30th" ).
- At this point, your subject line should look like this:
- "task johnd@gmail.com next thursday"
- Place the contents of your task in the body of your email. The first 75 characters will be used as the title of the task. If your body is longer, the full content will be placed in the 'details' section of the task.
You are now ready to send & assign your task!
If you have questions on this new feature or any other aspect of BigContacts, please feel free to submit your questions HERE or join us for a live chat.
** Look for an update on this new feature soon as we are releasing advanced remote task capabilities to further enhance this feature!**
Posted by Bob Walton on Wed, Aug 04, 2010 @ 07:52 AM
BigContacts offers an entire suite of email services that you can choose from. We offer both FREE and Paid email services - each serving a unique role to assist you with Client Retention and Prospect Conversion.
Current Email Services Include:
-
- Send Individual Emails within BigContacts - You can send emails directly from the contact record. This ensures that the email immediately gets captured and stored within the email correspondence folder with that contact record. The email will appear as if was sent directly from your business email address.
- Send Individual Email outside of BigContacts - We offer a unique email dropbox feature that allows you to send an email from any email system outside of BigContacts (including your mobile phone) and we will capture, sort and store a copy of the email that was sent in the appropriate contact record. You can learn more about how to set up your email dropbox here.
- Send Group Emails within BigContacts - BigContacts allows you to easily send emails to a select list of contacts. Simply select the filters you wish to use to generate your list, select the group email button and send. After the email is sent to this group, each contact will automatically have this email stored in their individual contact record to ensure that this history item is stored for future reference. (This feature is limited to groups of 100 or less.)
- Send Automated Email Drip Campaigns - We offer a unique service that we call "Autopilot" where you can build automated email campaigns that can be sent to clients and/ or prospects in pre-determined intervals - ensuring delivery of a consistent and timely series of messages. Learn more about our Autopilot feature here.
- Send Large Email Marketing Campaigns - This is the only paid service (all of the above mentioned are FREE services in BigContacts) BigContacts has partnered with VerticalResponse to give our clients an easy-to-use, web-based marketing tool that can help you grow your business.
- Identify and filter targeted lists of your clients and/or prospects
- Automatically upload these targeted lists into the marketing module
- Launch an email, newsletter, online survey or postcard campaign
- Effortlessly track and monitor the results of your campaigns
BigContacts automatically notes the contact record of each and every client or prospect that has participated in a given marketing campaign. You will always know how and when you reached out to these contacts anytime you're in their contact record. Learn more about our VerticalResponse integration and how to get started here.
So What's the Enhancement?
We have added a "Reply" feature in BigContacts. We have had a number of requests to close the loop and allow our subscribers to maintain an email thread while sending emails from within BigContacts.
Until now, you would send an email directly from a contact record within BigContacts and the email was immediately recorded within the system. When the contact replied back to you, we capture and store (using the email dropbox feature) the incoming email in the contact record for your future reference.
All of this is good so far, but what if you need to reply back to the contacts reply to you? Where do you reply to this email? How do you ensure that this too gets stored in the contact record as part of their history?
In the past the only way to maintain this email thread AND store the email reply in the contact record was to go to your email inbox that is housed outside of BigContacts and reply there. Before you sent the email you would make sure that you BCC to your email dropbox address.
This did and still does work to allow you to store emails to a contact record, but we decided to make this more convenient for you.
Now, while you are in a contact record, you can simply go to the email correspondence folder to view the email the contact sent to you and select the "Reply" link to reply directly from the contact record.
Posted by Bob Walton on Tue, Jul 13, 2010 @ 01:37 PM
We just raised the bar for training when it comes to implementing Contact Management Software in your business.
At BigContacts we are fanatical about ensuring the success of all our current Subscribers, so we have trained a team of in-house Contact Management Advisors that have the expertise and commitment to help you successfully implement our solution within your business. With this team in place, we now offer FREE Daily Training Webinars. We are confident that, with some time invested on the front-end, our platform will help you better manage and grow your business.
During these daily webinars our trained Advisors will answer questions and demonstrate how to setup and customize any part of the system.
Sit back and see how things are done LIVE on your computer screen. All of this is FREE for as long as you maintain a Paid Account with BigContacts and can be done from the convenience of your home or office.
The topics covered during these daily webinars include:
- Adding Users
- Importing Contacts
- Customizing your Company Settings
- Creating Custom Fields
- Creating Email & Letter Templates
- Customizing your Sales Pipeline Stages
- Customizing your Tasks & Work-flows
- Creating Custom Reports
- Setting up web forms to capture leads from your website
- Setting up automated Email Marketing Campaigns in BigContacts
We encourage your entire team to join us as often as you like. This investment of your time will be well worth it.
Posted by Bob Walton on Wed, Jul 07, 2010 @ 09:18 AM
If you have used your Admin tab in the past few weeks you have noticed a more logical and simplified layout. We are constantly working to streamline our Contact Management Software. Sometimes the changes are very noticeable and others work in the background.
The enhancements we have made to the Admin tab are more subtle but we think, as a whole, will make you job of managing/ customizing your account much easier.
Below are the highlights of what has changed in the Admin tab. Please feel free to comment to this post or drop us a note to support@bigcontacts.com if you have any questions on the enhancements we have made or any other questions that you may have about Contact Management Software in general.
More Logical Organization of Tabs
We have not only reorganized where we display the Admin function, but have also organized the order of the tabs in a more logical fashion. If you're new to the system you can know that if you work your way down the page one tab at a time that this is the most efficient and logical path to setting up and customizing your system.
Simply open each tab in the order that they appear and fill in the information as you go. Stop at any point while working your way through these tabs and your system is now customized to whatever level you feel you need. If you decide later to further customize your system to take advantage of other function within BigContacts you can simply come back and pickup where you left off.
For our existing Admin subscribers, you will find it easier to get things done. Whether you need to add a new user, change your billing plan or customize some of your fields.
Add new Users
With just one click you can open a window to enter you new users information and then press save. Your job is done. Our system will immediately email the new user with their login information so that they can get started right away.
(one click to add a new user)
(enter their basic information and the system does the rest)
Update your account information
Label your custom fields
Add Email and Letter Templates
Add Webforms to capture leads from your website
Posted by Bob Walton on Fri, May 07, 2010 @ 07:20 AM
Have you ever needed to find a phone number or email address for a client or prospect, but were not in front of your computer?
Maybe your Contact Management Software offers a mobile login, but you're on the road and don't have time to login and search for the contact information you need.
BigContacts gives you the ability to send an email directly to the system and ask for the results of a certain last name. Let's say you're looking for a client with the last name of "Doe". You can send an email directly to your BigContacts email dropbox and in the subject line enter the following:
"search" "last name"
(ex: search Doe)
The key thing here is to make sure that you have one space between the word "search" and your contacts last name.
Additionally, you can search using the first name of a person or the company name. Each of these search modes would look like this in the subject line of your email.
First Name search - "search" (enter the contact first name here)
ex. "search" "Frank"
Company Name Search - "search" (enter the company name here)
ex. "search" "IBM"
Click Here for information on how to setup and use your BigContacts email dropbox, or watch this Video on how to manage email in general within BigContacts.
Within 5 minutes you will receive an email back with the search results of the system. The email will deliver the phone numbers and email addresses for all the contacts that match that name.
If you are viewing the results on your smart phone you can simply click on the phone number or email address that you need and initiate your call or email right then and there. No logging in and searching - just a quick query of your database and fast results right there in your email inbox.
If you have questions on this or any other aspect of BigContacts, please join us for one of our daily webinars. During these 30 minute webinars, the lines are open to take and answer your specific questions. View the available times and register for one of our Free Webinars.
