Easy tracking of comments and history
With PlaybookIQ, all actions completed and comments written are recorded for perpetuity in the History and Comments section of a contact. Users can now easily review comments only with our color and icon differentiated entries.
When the contact full history is shown, user generated comments are now preceded by a balloon and appear in black lettering. System generated history (contact created, task completed, etc) are preceded with a green check mark, have a gray background, and gray lettering:
This new format allows users to still see the big picture of their sales process but draws attention to comments.
Users can also now choose to view Comments only by clicking on the “Comments” link:
This new feature segments out comments only for easy review. Clicking “History” returns to a listing of all user and system generated history.
Field Selection for Web Forms
In a previous post, we encouraged you to increase your inbound marketing effort with PlaybookIQ Web Forms. We’re excited to announce the first of a series of improvements to our PlaybookIQ Web Forms, field choice.
Now when you set up your web forms in PlaybookIQ, you can check the fields you want to include. Only those fields will be populated on the form. Data collected from those fields will be automatically uploaded to your PlaybookIQ Account. We also added two new fields, Company and Title.
Your existing PlaybookIQ Web Forms can be edited to change the standard fields to be included or to add the new fields.
For more information on our Web Forms, visit our Help Center, or view a Sample Web Form.
CRM Import Help – Improved in PlaybookIQ
CRM import can be at once one of the simplest tasks and yet also one of the most rife for errors. Contact data is relatively simple. There are some basic fields for all contacts that most all CRM products support (name, address, email, phone, etc.). There are contact information standards such as vcard that can help facilitate import and export of contact data. Yet even with the relative simplicity of contact data and the availability of vcard standards, we find that most PlaybookIQ users have their data in an Excel spreadsheet or in a text file.
Unfortunately, these file types are also among the least standard and least structured ways to share information. We have recently introduced three updates to help smooth out the CRM import process.
- We added a sample csv file that has been verified to import to PlaybookIQ.
- We added a “common reasons” help section which identifies and describes common issues with csv files.
- We simplified the import process from four steps down to two.
These small changes should make the import process more useful and more reliable.
User friendly CRM for all!
In working to revamp the Import feature of PlaybookIQ, its becoming increasingly clear there is still a gap between the developer and the ordinary computer user. For the technical partner, its easy to throw terms such as CSV, parsing, and “plain text” around (even in a single sentence!). As the non-technical partner, it feels like a research project trying to keep up.
So in comes the user friendly application. But what is user friendly to one is not to the next. So how do we serve both? How do you avoid insulting the more technical users while not leaving the not-so-technical behind?
We’ve decided with our import feature, which has admittedly caused the most user errors in our system, to begin the process with a basic “1-2-3″ step process without much upfront instruction. Import should really be a simple function, and for the user who is familiar with imports and CSV files, this approach should work well. However, alongside the easy 1-2-3 process, we’re linking to more in-depth instructions and information for those who are unfamiliar with imports and CSV files and need additional help. We’re providing this further information in easy-to-understand verbage and concepts, in an attempt to not only help our users use our system, but also to educate them. Oftentimes, this is by providing links to the help section of the current systems they are importing from, systems that have already discovered the best way to explain converting data from their system to a CSV file.
Our goal is to make importing contacts easier than ever. However, even for the technical savvy, errors with CSV files that cause an import to bomb out. A missing comma, missing quote, too many quotes – can cause the whole file to fail. In this case, we’ve decided that more eyes are better, and after our users have examined their file and tried again, we’ll invite the user to send the file to us and try to help resolve the problem.
Our more user-friendly Import feature will launch this week.
PlaybookIQ now offers 20 custom contact fields for each PlaybookIQ account. Custom contact fields allow users to capture contact information specific to their business or industry.
Setting up custom fields is easy in PlaybookIQ. Under the Admin link in each account is a Custom Fields option. Simply click “edit”, input the desired fields, and save. Now each time a contact is added or edited, the custom fields appear for data input.
Custom fields can be easily searched and segmented like any other contact field. This allows for specific industry target marketing or followup. Custom fields can also be used when importing contact data, to ensure none of the data associated with your contacts at import.
Make your blogging effort pay off
Make sure you have an easy way to capture prospects once they’re at your blog. You’ve peaked their interest, now make the contact and potential sale.
Add PlaybookIQ Web Forms to your inbound marketing programs
Use a PlaybookIQ web form to capture inbound marketing opportunities at your website. Web forms are free with PlaybookIQ and require no coding or programming. Set up is easy, and within minutes, prospect information - name, email, address, and phone) - is captured in PlaybookIQ. Prospects can be instantly assigned to a playbook so you know of their interest and can respond immediately to their inquiry.
Inbound Marketing Works
According to HubSpot’s latest report: “Marketing Data: 50+ Marketing Charts and Graphs”, small business owners find inbound marketing to be much more effective than outbound marketing.
Inbound marketing has a 60% lower cost per lead than outbound marketing. Respondents also reported shifting more of their overall marketing budget from outbound to inbound efforts.
100% of business owners who blog multiple times a day have acquired a customer from their blog. Blogging is the key component to inbound marketing.
Inbound marketing has become more important to respondents.
A majority of people said that social media, natural search, and blogs have become more important while the number of people finding paid search important has dropped from 32% in 2009 to 22% in 2010.
I recommend you check out the full report for free at http://www.hubspot.com/Charts.
PlaybookIQ Affiliate Program
We are happy to announce the launch of the PlaybookIQ affiliate program. If you like PlaybookIQ, we want to reward you for recommending it to friends and colleagues. We know there are people that are happy to recommend it to others without any expectation of compensation. Still, we think recognizing your contribution to PlaybookIQ’s growth is the right thing to do.
For each Paid Referred Subscriber who subscribes to a PlaybookIQ Monthly Plan you will receive a Referral Fee equal to 50% of the first month paid subscription and 15% for every succeeding month. All the details of the affiliate program are found in the PlaybookIQ affiliate agreement. If interested, you can apply to become a PlaybookIQ affiliate by filling out this simple form.
Thank you again for using, and now for recommending, PlaybookIQ.
Printable dashboard
Printable dashboards are now available at PlaybookIQ.com. Simply click on the printer icon on your dashboard, and take a printout of your day’s activities with you.
Feature enhancements
Last week we implemented two user suggested enhancements to PlaybookIQ. One enhancement involves the steps shown on your dashboard. Previously, multiple steps within the same Playbook may have appeared on your dashboard if one or more of the steps were past due. Now, only the current step is shown. Second, the contact title and contact company have been separated on the contact screen for clarity. Simple changes that we hope will make a difference for our users.
