Do you send out emails to lists of your contacts, only to get a lot of bounce backs?  Are you afraid clients who you sparingly work with may move, leaving you with outdated contact information?  We have a quick way for you to make sure your database is full of current contact information, so you don't waste money and time, or most importantly let valued contacts get away from you.

    For those of you already using Swiftpage, you know how simple it is to send out a quick email template to a list of your ACT! contacts. But did you know you may also have this free template (found under global templates, called customer_incomplete contact info)?

   
    For those of you new to Swiftpage, you can get more information on the email marketing tool (also known as ACT! E-Marketing) right here.   

    It's as easy as pulling up a list of contacts and sending this email off to them.  Your contacts take it from there.  The email asks all contacts who need to update their information to fill out the attached survey.  They fill out the survey and then you can either have the completed forms sent to your email (so maybe you could send a thank-you email), or you can just set your survey result options to update records in ACT!.

    This way you save time not fielding results from contacts whose records are up-to-date, and have a really quick and simple way to get the new information revised in your database.  You can choose to edit the template to include your company's branding, or send it as-is.

It doesn't get much easier than that, does it?  Do you have any ideas on how to make this process run even smoother?  Tell us about it in the comments!

Have you hired anyone new lately?  Have you moved around any staff members, or reassigned responsibilities?

While we tend to make small changes in staff responsibility from time to time, and only occasionally make large changes like adding on to our staff, any team that is working closely with a CRM should be considering how these internal changes are going to affect the way they use their database.

Databases tend to work best when tailored to fit a business.  That is why we help people design custom databases comprised of the fields that are most important to a company’s business goals.  And what we often find, is that with these custom databases come custom responsibilities.  If your firm has decided it is important to track the date when contracts are received, who is the one who is in charge of this process?  And better yet, who will check to verify those contracts have been attached to the appropriate ACT! records?

Outlining the processes that need to happen in your database should be the first step.  Asking yourself, “what does my database need to do to aid in growing my business” and listing from there is a great place to start.  Then once you have a list of things that should be happening within your ACT!, you can start delegating.

Make up a list of duties each staff member is in charge of, and pass the list around.  When everyone is on the same page, you are able to work in tandem much more efficiently.  Take staff suggestions and you may find that some will suggest changes in practices you may not have considered, which turn out to be more efficient.

Last but not least, make sure there is someone responsible for database maintenance who sets aside time to 1) verify and 2) review.  Verification is basically just quality assurance—the staff member can pull up some quick searches just to make sure data is being inputted as assigned.  This helps keep you organized and preps you for your next review.  A review is exactly what I’ve described for you here!  So all you really need to do is keep this article close at hand, so you can review your database usage every so often (depending on how many users and how much data your database sees, you can review once a year, once a quarter, or during your business’ slower seasons).

Sometimes we feel a little like a broken record over here, but with database maintenance you can never do too much!  And maintaining the roles that are given to each database user is one of the best ways to assure your ACT! software gives back as much as you put in.

Do you have any questions about the way you are using ACT!?  We would be happy to assist.  Call our office at 847-520-0860, or email us at info(at)kristismith.com.