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Serve contact management system outputs hot and fresh! Dated lists can be at least as bad as an informal and unstructured way of staying in touch with people who matter. The impact is relatively low if you are the only user, and if you just use it to greet people at festival time. However, your business is headed for trouble if you are stuck with yesterday’s contact management lists. Every person has a comfort zone. This tempts us to fill contact management forms or screens with names of individuals in whose company we are comfortable. Notoriously tough customers who pester you with questions and ask for discounts, are conveniently forgotten, or put in low priority categories. This adds up when you manage large numbers of people, each with an integral part in the overall contact management system.
Consultants would rarely audit contact management outputs as part of investigations to find out why demand stagnates, because they simply lack the ground zero knowledge. However, an old hand may find holes in the contact management system, and suggests its revamp as a prime move for better business. A contact management system should be dynamic and responsive to market changes. You must keep asking the hard questions on which names should be axed from lists, and which new prospects deserve canvassing efforts. All claims and views should be corroborated, perhaps by peers on a mutual basis. Static lists, at any rate, are likely to contain redundancies and bias, and need fresh eyes. Beware of redundant entries in your contact management system! |
