Customer Contact Management Program Suggestions

[Event Mavern]

Hello all,

I operate a very small business with a partner. We both work from our respective home offices. I'm looking for a contact management system that we can both use, so perhaps something hosted online? We need to keep track of contact details in a number of different categories, as well as when contact was made, what was signed up for etc. I like the way Outlook with Business Contact Manager seems to let me do this, but can't see that we could both share a database. We are currently using My Newsletter Builder.com which allows us to keep contact information and as many lists as we like, but I can't filter a list before sending a newsletter. For example, I can't take a list which has all my wedding venues in it and send a newsletter only to those located in Melbourne, I have to send to the whole list.

Any suggestions? Low cost would be good as we are just starting out and cash flow is low at this stage.

Thanks,
Fiona

Australian Academy of Wedding & Event Planning
www.aawpc.com.au

[MissieK]

My VA has recommended http://www.batchblue.com/ to me. It's an online solution. I've only just started looking at it, but thought I'd post the link anyway

Melissa

[LeelaCosgrove]

I use

www.zoho.com

Is quite good - I've used Sugar and Salesforce previously and I find it comparable in many ways.

Best of all - it's FREE for the first 3 users.

[Event Mavern]

Thank you ladies. I'll take a look at both over the weekend and see if they are what I need.

Fiona

Academy of Wedding & Event Planning - Your Stepping Stone To Success!
www.aawpc.com.au

Wedding Boot Camp - We'll whip your wedding into shape!
www.weddingbootcamp.com.au

[GregMarr]

Hi Fiona

Assuming you have a constant and reliable internet connection, I would suggest you also look at Salesforce Group Edition. $99 per user per year and integrates well with Outlook.

Good luck!

[exstatic]

There was a similar question posted about this that you may want to check out!

Small Business CRM

Enjoy.

[LukeH]

Here's a slightly different view on it.

From your description it seems like a lot of the Contact Management you need goes into your email newsletters. You may just need better email management tools which can filter and segment your lists, so you can send only to those in Melbourne as per your example.

If you do it this way then information can be gathered and stored when someone signs up (when they fill out details to join one of your email lists) or you can add more of their information in manually later.

It's not a full-blown CRM software solution, but from your description I think it would cover what you want and need. If you used a hosted email marketing solution then it would be web based and could be accessed by you and your partner. You also kill two birds with one stone by storing customer data with your email management. $20-$30 per month would cover you with a range of email marketing providers.

Best of luck,

Luke