We have a small business which does housetype drawing packages for major developers. We have never really marketed ourselves as work always seem to turn up.

Now we need to go and be a bit more proactive in finding new work. It would have the contact details of existing and possible clients, space to make notes on conversations and alerts for when you need to chase them again.

My first option was random bits of paper (not very successful).

Plan B is Excel.

Is there basic small business customer contact management software which isn’t too over the top? No need to track deals and targets.

I did one in Excel years ago which had all the contacts details on one sheet, all the general conversations on a second sheet that referenced the first sheet to get the correct contact and also recorded any next actions with a date.

Used conditional formatting to highlight and Next Actions due this week (green), today (amber) or overdue (red).

If I was speaking to one person I would quickly apply a filter on their name or company name and I would only see the conversations I had with them…

It worked quite well as long as I remembered to record my actions.

I guess you could use Google Sheets to do the same thing online and allow multiple people access to either read only or update. We used Google sheets to record the results of the Dual Series. The guy at the top entered the racers name. The guy at the bottom recorded their time. The competitors could see the results.

I think what you’re describing is a “CRM”. There are loads available, some cost mega bucks, there are lots of free or open source options too though (google “free crm”). Briefly looked into it but everything just seemed too complex for what we really wanted.

We just ended up going with something (also free) called Trello, basically works like an online version of post-it notes 😃 works really well, I use it for organising loads of different things now. You can set dates and alerts, etc.

You can do all of that in Outlook.

How many customers and users die you have?

If under 250 customers and 2 users you can Capsule CRM for free. Pretty easy to pick up.

Zendesk is pretty good for managing processes and putting a ‘customer facing’ front end on the whole thing.

Not massively expensive.

A mate of mine wrote one in Excel a few years ago for me. I’ll see if I can dig it out.

How many customers and users die you have?

Need to keep tabs on 50-60 clients. Just 2 of us using it.

We have a similar requirement. It’s not really within my scope but I did a bit of looking for my colleague since I was looking at implementing some of the other 365 tools elsewhere in the business but be aware that MS Customer Manager (which is built into Outlook) is being retired at the end of June 2020.

However,

You can do all of that in Outlook

is something I need to explore further as I don’t think we are using half the potentially useful things we could be…

I spent a good while as a “Business improvement” advisor for the dealer network of an industrial equipment manufacturer. So I visited loads of companies and tried to see what was done well and what could be improved. Sorry for the long intro.

I saw companies who spent a fortune on Customised CRM Systems which were fantastic. I and saw some which were crap.

I also saw one very well disciplined company who worked with excel/outlook and pieces of paper. That company did a better job with the most basic of systems than most of the others I saw. The difference was that they were very well disciplined. The sales guys had to log the info on their offers. The follow up date was recorded on the most simple of systems. The secretary then left a post it note on the sales persons desk each morning with the follow ups which were logged for that day. Incredibly simple. But extremely effective.

My opinion, after visiting so many different companies, was that the system you use doesn’t really make a huge difference. But your attitude and discipline towards how you record the information and follow the promptings of your system make all the difference in the world.

I’ve seen companies spent literally millions on CRM systems and hardly use them at the end.

Take a look at Hubspot, it’s free.

If you get office 365 (business), maybe integration between outlook, planner and todo would work, with that and other stuff as well. It looks worthwhile to learn about some of the collaborative feature and how they integrate the office package, and how to use them properly.

We use Apple so Office is possible but something I’d need to buy in.

Having spent a few years doing business development roles, having some some of cloud-based CRM tool would be really usefulbut as others have said, it’s the discipline that’s important – making sure you keep the info current. Having access to all related documents when your on the phone, helping build your ‘sales funnel’ will really help you with client retention as well as helping with planning and growing your business.

My opinion, after visiting so many different companies, was that the system you use doesn’t really make a huge difference. But your attitude and discipline towards how you record the information and follow the promptings of your system make all the difference in the world.

That, so much that.  Too many people think that buying a system replaces work. I don’t at all think that is what the OP is doing but it is so important to understand

Spend time working out exactly what it is you want to do before you look at systems. It is easy to get distracted by bells and whistles and buy something that doesn’t do what you want when the dust has settled