Excel is a super simple starting point for tracking your contacts.
Just create a few columns for your contacts name, email, phone numbers, email address, mailing address and you’re off!
Expand this by adding columns for important information you need to track. For the example of a mortgage professional it would information on closed loans such as financing type, loan amount, program, rate, occupancy, subject property address, and close date and you have the beginnings of your own simple database.
Be aware that there are quite a few limitations and problems with using Excel if you want to thrive in managing your business using a database.
The number one issue I have seen with managing your data using Excel is that the data is very easily ‘mangled’ and therefore rendered almost useless.
One example is in the case of a customer who had a very detailed Excel file with a large number of contacts and then appended his original Excel with another Excel file and did not realize the columns were off between the 2 sets of data for many months. No data was where he expected it to be. In another case, a customer hired an assistant to add in new contacts to her Excel but did not realize the data was being entered incorrectly and copied and pasted over other contacts information. She had to toss out her Excel that she had maintained for over 4 years.
In addition to data integrity issues, if you want to elevate the information you are storing by adding a Notes column, these notes can start to become unwieldy to track as you work more with a contact. Notes are critical in making sure your contacts feel like you care enough to remember things about them, even if they have not spoken to you in months. Not only is a CRM perfect for entering multiple notes and conversation logs with a customer over time because there is no limit to the number of note entries, but it is also much easier to find specific pieces of information in a CRM.
In addition, CRM solutions usually offer an integration with email services so not only do you have a one-stop shop place to go to see information about your phone conversations and meetings, you can also view all emails communications between you and your contact. There are many other reasons that a CRM offers a much more expansive and organized way to manage your business.
If you would like to know more about how a simple CRM can help you increase your business, please contact me!
Our CRM solutions are built on the most popular CRM platform available with a focus on simplicity with results! You can use it to:
Manage all of your leads, customers and partners
Keep track of all conversations and interactions you've had with them
Keep track of your sales and lead generation
Optimize your sales funnel. ‘Who should I call today?’
Send marketing emails to your leads and customers to generate more sales. Do it yourself, or go for the totally automated marketing option.
Contact us now for a quick Demo Now!