(The Margie’s Travel Goes Online series tells the story of how Margie, John, Delores and their fictitious travel company use Microsoft Office Live Small Business to overcome everyday business challenges.)
Like many small businesses, Margie’s Travel has struggled to find an efficient way to organize and manage contact information it gathers from customers and business partners. The problem has escalated with the dozens of inquiries Margie’s Travel now receives each week from folks who visit its new Office Live Small Business Web site or buy travel guides from its online store.
“We waste so much time because we’ve got phone numbers and e-mail addresses scattered all over the place,” John told Margie and Delores one particularly hectic morning.
“We’ve got people we bill in the database on my computer,” John continued. “Margie, I know you’ve got vendor information stored on your laptop. And now we’ve got all of those folks contacting us and buying from us online—which is great – but we’ve got to get it all organized somehow.”
“But weren’t you telling me when we first started talking about Office Live Small Business that they offer an online tool for organizing and sorting contact information?” Margie asked. “Or am I just dreaming?”
“Geez, I’d forgotten all about that,” John said.
“That’s right,” Delores said. ”It’s called Contact Manager. And it comes free with our Office Live Small Business service.”
“Contact Manager could work really well for us,” Delores added. “Margie wouldn’t have to spend so much time transferring information to her laptop before every tour if she knew she could easily access it online.”
“But how secure is it if all our contact information is online and accessible from any PC connected to the Internet?” Margie asked.
“You decide who can have access and only those people would be able to see or edit the information once they’ve entered a password,” Delores told her.
Margie nodded. “Remember last year when Mr. Witherspoon got so sick in Spain and I went with him to the hospital? My laptop was back at the hotel and I had to ask you to go into the office in the middle of the night to look up his daughter’s phone number for me.”
“Good point,” John said. “If we had all of our contacts online, you could have borrowed a computer at the hospital that had an Internet connection and quickly looked up the number. You know, I’m starting to see all sorts of ways we could use the Office Live Small Business Contact Manager.”
Just a few minutes later, John walked into Margie’s office with a big smile on his face.
“This free Contact Manager is amazing,” he told her. “Can you believe all of the inquiries we receive through the “Contact Us” form on our Web site are captured in Contact Manager. They’re actually set up to work together. How sweet is that?”
“Is there a way to categorize our contacts into groups? It would be nice if we could sort customers, prospects, vendors … that sort of thing.”
“We can definitely do that and create any type of grouping we need for our business,” John said. “We can also track every interaction a customer has had with us –from e-mail inquiries to purchase histories.”
“Hmmm … sounds like it could be complicated,” Margie said. “You know if it’s difficult, we’ll never use it.”
“Go ask mom. I set it up yesterday and she’s happily inputting all my contacts now, and plans to do yours next. She seems to think it’s a breeze to use and will make things run a lot smoother around here.”
“If this is a dream,” Margie told him. “Don’t wake me up.”
Next episode: Delores made quick work of getting their customer and vendor information organized in Contact Manager – and it had a positive effect on everyone’s stress level. Next, find out how Margie’s Travel turns those contacts into a distribution list for their first foray into e-mail marketing.
Margie’s Travel Goes Online series