Wet Pluto

Contact management system is an electronic method of managing the information relating to your contacts who may be friends, employees in the organization or customers. It can be used effectively for personal as well as business purposes.

For personal use you can go for a system which has Personal Information Manager or address book features. Apart from maintaining the names, addresses and phone numbers of your contacts, it’ll also perform calendar functions and remind you of your appointments and tasks for the day. You get automatic reminders of important days like your contacts’ birthday, anniversary or any other important occasions. The system will also send automatic mails to contacts at regular intervals to update their information if there’s any change in their addresses, phone numbers etc.

At the organizational level, the system can be used internally to keep track of the employee information. In a large organization employee contact information changes very frequently due to recruitments, resignations, retirements, promotions, inter-departmental transfers etc. The HR and accounting departments can keep track of the contact details of the past and present employees through an effective contact management system.

All the contact information is maintained in a central database which can be accessed by anybody within the organization. However, if the users are situated in different locations or if the information is needed by remote users, a web-based solution is adopted wherein the contact management module can be accessed through the Internet. Whether installed or web-based, information security is assured by providing access to only those who have a password. It is also possible to give limited access so that one department does not get the information of another department.

The most popular use of business contact management system is in the areas of business building and customer care. Marketing team sends mass mails to the contacts in the database about the products/services, new features, discount offers etc. The response of the contacts is recorded and the transaction is followed up to identify how long it takes to close the sale. All interactions with contacts are preserved for planning future campaigns. Customer care staff clarifies the queries of the contacts and attends to their grievances. The interaction history is maintained to improve service in future. Today, contact management system is considered the most important tool of customer relationship management.