How To Manage Organizational Contacts
Organizational contacts are a key resource in business. Individuals and businesses both need to effectively retrieve needed contact information collected over time. Additionally, a business will be greatly served by the ability to organize contact information in systems that allow for increased opportunities to access this information for marketing purposes. The best way to manage organizational contacts is electronically, with periodic print-outs that can be filed. The following are steps that can be used to manage organizational contacts.
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Instructions
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Gather all of the contact information, including business cards, partial databases, address books, etc.
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Purchase contact-management software, such as Microsoft Outlook, or create a custom database in a program like Microsoft Excel. Either contact management tool will offer the organizer the option to customize categories, which should include basic information such as first and last name, contact title, organization, street address, telephone number, email and website address.
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Create a note section where information such as services provided by the contact and date that the contact information was entered or updated can be stored. If the contact is important, such as the boss's wife, include anniversary and birth date reminders in the tickler system of the program. This will help keep the database updated and make it more functional.
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Business card information can be gathered through an increasing number of business card scanning systems that capture and organize business card information electronically into software. (See Reference 1.) Depending on the size of the project, this may save a great deal of time.
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Consider storing contact information at a secure online Contact Management System (CMS). With the increased use of computer cloud systems, paid CMS such as BigContacts.com and free services provided by online companies like Keepm.com are being used in greater numbers for personal and business contact management. (See References 2 & 3.)
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Tips & Warnings
Once the contact information has been entered, keep it updated whenever new information is available.
Protect information against computer crashes by performing back-ups periodically. These back-ups should be both electronic back-ups, for instance on a DVD disc, and also printed back-ups that can be filed.
