Contact manager

A contact manager is a software program that enables users to easily store and find contact information, such as names, addresses and telephone numbers. They are contact-centric databases that provide a fully integrated approach to tracking of all information and communication activities linked to contacts. Sophisticated contact managers provide calendar sharing features and allow several people in a company to access the same database.

Benefits

A contact management system (CMS) may be chosen because it is thought to provide the following advantages:

• Centralized repository of contact information
• Ready to use database with searching
• Sales tracking
• Email integration
• Scheduling of appointments and meetings
• Document management
• Notes and conversation management
• Customizable fields
• Drip marketing
• Import/export utility

Differences from customer relationship management

A contact manager is usually used for instances where the sales interaction model of the organization is a one-to-many interaction model, in which a single sales representative is responsible for multiple roles within a company. Alternatively, a company with a many-to-many interaction model, in which many sales representatives are targeting a single job role, a customer relationship management (CRM) system is preferred.:

CRM's usually extend the features of a contact management solution into a more comprehensive record of all interactions as now many people need to collaborate on the same information.^{citation needed}

Current market trends

The current trend is an integrated CMS and CRM solutions that can provide both one-to-one and many-to-many capabilities.^{citation needed} It can allow a user to have their own contact list and manage their contacts, while at the same time provide complete collaboration options.^{citation needed} These are the optimal solutions as they provide a SMB or SOHO the option to grow without having to upgrade to a CRM later on.^{citation needed}

See also

• Automated online assistant
• Business intelligence
• Business relationship management
• Comparison of CRM systems
• Consumer relationship system
• Customer experience
• Customer experience transformation
• Customer intelligence
• Customer service – contains ISO standards
• Data management
• Real-time marketing

• Data mining
• Database marketing
• E-crm
• Employee experience management (EEM)
• Enterprise feedback management (EFM)
• Farley File
• Help desk
• Mystery shopping
• Partner relationship management (PRM)
• Predictive analytics
• Professional services automation software (PSA)

• Public relations
• Sales force management system
• Sales intelligence
• Sales process engineering
• Support automation
• Supplier relationship management
• The International Customer Service Institute - contains customer service standards
• Vendor relationship management or VRM