Why ContacTree™ is not CRM

CRM is all about managing the customers you already know; ContacTree is about turning contacts into customers using a Market Prospecting approach.

ContacTree is based on two premises: firstly that although initially we often know little about the individual contacts that we make, it is worthwhile capturing at least the kernel of that information since any one of them could point us in the direction of someone who could lead us to a sale; secondly, that most of our most important contacts belong to hierarchic groups, such as companies.

The purchase of a capital or high value item is almost invariably a group decision, whether it be a new toy for little Johnny or a squadron of aircraft. Either way it behoves us to get to know, and then to inform and positively influence, all those in the decision-making process – especially before any one of them may have an opportunity to nix a sale that we might otherwise make.

In general, contact management and CRM systems are very prescriptive and require every box on the contact input screen to be complete before you can started generating value. This is obviously necessary as a control once a contact has been converted into a customer, but in many situations where you are still prospecting for business this acts as a strong discouragement from collecting the fragmentary information that someone might be able to use at a later date.

ContacTree™ Personal is a down-loadable Add-in for Outlook (2000 onwards) and is a personal productivity tool that facilitates the rapid recording of contact data, however fragmentary it may be. It does this by grouping individuals by the organisations they belong to and the locations where they are based. This also makes it easy to keep the information up-to-date. Auto-completion tools and tricks such as the generation of email templates facilitate this process.

The USP of ContacTree products is that they have the in-built capability to automatically generate organisation charts from Outlook records. The charts help to determine who in an organisation may be important to your cause, and then to navigate to that contact record, even if you can only half-remember who it was. The charts can also be used to show hierarchies or clusters of organisations.

ContacTree™ Enterprise is a corporate marketing tool that will facilitate the sharing and combining multiple views of a customer and its team. The process by which this is effected simply and intuitively, together with the basic charting schema, is the subject of UK and US Patent applications.

Although the tools are designed to fit the niche between the Address Book and CRM, utilities are also available to generate similar charts from MS CRM and from SForce.

You can learn more about Market Prospecting from the White Paper on our website www.contactree.com.

Back to Home Page