Before the arrival and popularity of the PC, the kind of companies, that might have an early crude version of contact management software, were big. They usually had hugely expensive computer systems like mainframes and minis. Even with the arrival of the PC software for dealing with an organization's contacts, took quite some time to be developed for widespread uses.
Those were the days when people in the PC industry talked about "killer applications" when talking about computers. That seems funny now. They used to say then that the two "killer applications" were Word processor and Spreadsheet software. The implication was that had it not been for the development of such application, their easy availability and reasonable pricing, Personal Computer would never have "caught on".
From today's perspective it is difficult to conceive that business people, consumers and, most of all, software developers could not see any requirement for very many more such killer applications. Today most people have many applications on their computers without which they would feel their work and, possibly, their leisure seriously impeded. The most widely used software today probably is e-mail. Coming "hot on the heels" of e-mail software is web browser software. Most people especially involved in business rely on many software applications in their daily work. They would find their work seriously compromised if they suddenly had no access to them.
Without having to think too long about it, there are many applications that are in daily use that are almost "mission critical". Who can think of an accounts department now that does not use accounting software? Which marketing department operates without the help of some sort of graphics or page layout software, not to mention the widely used presentation packages.
About fifteen or twenty years ago, depending on which applications you refer to, the idea of writing specific applications to handle contact management came on the agenda . It's not surprising because managing large number of contacts and their history and interaction is a fairly ideal job for a computer program. It's not surprising also that contact management software became so popular, since a lot of sales and marketing departments use it. And since sales and marketing departments are by definition, the prime revenue generators of any business they often get particular attention.
Contact Management Software keeps details records of each contact. These records include obvious data like name, address, phone numbers e-mail address etc. It also keeps a record of all interaction with that contact. This means a record of telephone conversations, correspondence (e-mails, letters, etc) and related notes. The software keeps detailed history of everything including meetings. This is crucial it you want to trawl back, maybe years, to see, for example, when some pivotal event took place, like an important conversation, who said what during it; or when a certain e-mail was sent and what exactly is contained.
Not alone does the software allow this kind of history and its research, it also allows the generation of reports related to any aspect of the contact database. This is possible because most contact management software is built on the structure of a relational database. So the most complex extraction of information is facilitated via a clear user-friendly interface.
Another important feature of this type of software is its "reminder" function. It can set reminders for future events, be they meetings to attend, phone calls to be made, or Tasks to be carried-out. Usually the software has the facility also to issue automatic e-mail reminders of such event to any of other parties involved.
All these facilities are extremely useful and close to indispensable. However, many users maintain that the feature they could not really operate without is to do with mailing lists. The capability of contact management software to generate mailing lists is powerful and of great value particularly in the sales context. A user can tell the system to extract a list of all contacts in particularly categories. A category could be the contacts in a particular town. Another category might be all contacts in a particular industry. The contact management software can then be instructed to send a e-mail to all of these. Alternatively it can be set up to produce a letter for printing for posting. In such circumstances the software may also print the envelopes.
Those were the days when people in the PC industry talked about "killer applications" when talking about computers. That seems funny now. They used to say then that the two "killer applications" were Word processor and Spreadsheet software. The implication was that had it not been for the development of such application, their easy availability and reasonable pricing, Personal Computer would never have "caught on".
From today's perspective it is difficult to conceive that business people, consumers and, most of all, software developers could not see any requirement for very many more such killer applications. Today most people have many applications on their computers without which they would feel their work and, possibly, their leisure seriously impeded. The most widely used software today probably is e-mail. Coming "hot on the heels" of e-mail software is web browser software. Most people especially involved in business rely on many software applications in their daily work. They would find their work seriously compromised if they suddenly had no access to them.
Without having to think too long about it, there are many applications that are in daily use that are almost "mission critical". Who can think of an accounts department now that does not use accounting software? Which marketing department operates without the help of some sort of graphics or page layout software, not to mention the widely used presentation packages.
About fifteen or twenty years ago, depending on which applications you refer to, the idea of writing specific applications to handle contact management came on the agenda . It's not surprising because managing large number of contacts and their history and interaction is a fairly ideal job for a computer program. It's not surprising also that contact management software became so popular, since a lot of sales and marketing departments use it. And since sales and marketing departments are by definition, the prime revenue generators of any business they often get particular attention.
Contact Management Software keeps details records of each contact. These records include obvious data like name, address, phone numbers e-mail address etc. It also keeps a record of all interaction with that contact. This means a record of telephone conversations, correspondence (e-mails, letters, etc) and related notes. The software keeps detailed history of everything including meetings. This is crucial it you want to trawl back, maybe years, to see, for example, when some pivotal event took place, like an important conversation, who said what during it; or when a certain e-mail was sent and what exactly is contained.
Not alone does the software allow this kind of history and its research, it also allows the generation of reports related to any aspect of the contact database. This is possible because most contact management software is built on the structure of a relational database. So the most complex extraction of information is facilitated via a clear user-friendly interface.
Another important feature of this type of software is its "reminder" function. It can set reminders for future events, be they meetings to attend, phone calls to be made, or Tasks to be carried-out. Usually the software has the facility also to issue automatic e-mail reminders of such event to any of other parties involved.
All these facilities are extremely useful and close to indispensable. However, many users maintain that the feature they could not really operate without is to do with mailing lists. The capability of contact management software to generate mailing lists is powerful and of great value particularly in the sales context. A user can tell the system to extract a list of all contacts in particularly categories. A category could be the contacts in a particular town. Another category might be all contacts in a particular industry. The contact management software can then be instructed to send a e-mail to all of these. Alternatively it can be set up to produce a letter for printing for posting. In such circumstances the software may also print the envelopes.
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