CRM Software » features

Enhancement: Live Search

smeade — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 22:50:00 +0000

Besides the detailed search options on the search tab, PlaybookIQ also offers a quick search on the contacts tab. As you type in the search box, your contacts are filtered to all contacts with first name, last name, or company name starting with your search phrase.

Type sm … and as you type…

… smi …

This search box is also a quick way to find everyone in a given company.

We’ve made it faster

With recently improved indexing strategies, this search box is the quickest way to find someone when you know their first name, last name, or company. If you receive a phone call while at your desk, you can quickly find their PlaybookIQ CRM record, open it, and be ready to read through their comments and history all within a few seconds.

Give is a try at http://playbookiq.com. We think you’ll enjoy how quickly you can find and open a contact.

New Feature: Import Contacts from CSV Files

smeade — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 02:28:00 +0000

What is CSV?

Comma-separated values (CSV) file format is the most common and easily understood way to manage generic data. A CSV file is simply a straight text file in which each row of text is a contact (in our case). Data in each row is separated by commas and optionally enclosed in quotes. A simple CSV file looks something like this:

“first name”, “last name”, “company”
“John”, “Jackson”, “ABC Inc.”
“Mary”, “Smith”, “Widgets LLC.”

Microsoft Outlook, ACT, Excel and just about every other software application can export its data in CSV format. More detail about CSV can be found “here“.

How does PlaybookIQ support CSV?

Because CSV is so common and flexible, PlaybookIQ supports import of contacts from generic CSV files so you can quickly move contacts from another application to into into PlaybookIQ.

Here is what it looks like:

Step 1: Prepare your data for import.

The import feature leads you through the process step-by-step. The first step is simply to review your data file to ensure it is a valid CSV file. Step 1 describes what a valid file is so that you can visually review your file before proceeding.

Step 2: Select your import file.

PlaybookIQ imports files from your local computer. In Step 2, you simply tell PlaybookIQ which local file you want to use.

Step 3: Upload file for parsing and inspection of field names

In this step, PlaybookIQ reads your file and attempts to match data to PlaybookIQ fields. The process of matching your data to contact fields is called ‘mapping’.

Step 4: Map fields

For fields that PlaybookIQ could not automatically map, you are prompted to determine the mapping. For data that you wish to exclude from the import, you simply leave the mapping field blank.

Done!

From here, you can now perform the standard bulk-tasks to the newly imported contacts:

add a tag, assign to a playbook, add a task

We are excited about this new, flexible import feature.

New Feature: SSL for All

smeade — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 15:29:00 +0000

SSL for all! All PlaybookIQ accounts, including free trials, now

get the protection of secure sockets layer (SSL) encryption. SSL is the Internet standard for secure, encrypted transmission of your data.

All major web browsers such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Opera automatically recognize and authenticate SSL certificates so, as a PlaybookIQ user you do not need to do anything to be protected. When you log in, you will see a lock in the corner of the web browser that indicates the connection is using SSL.

New Feature: Copy Playbooks

smeade — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 21:52:00 +0000

In PlaybookIQ, playbooks contain your sales team’s best practices. Each playbook is a series of repeatable and measurable steps that can be easily applied to a contact. Each step is assigned a timeline and responsible user. In this way, PlaybookIQ truly combines small business CRM with sales team collaboration and sales best practices.

Sometimes you might want to duplicate the series of steps in a playbook, but assign tasks to different users. Now, we have made it super easy to do so.

Simply:

1. Open the playbook (Playbooks tab, click on a playbook title).

2. Click on the ‘copy’ link.

PlaybookIQ will automatically create a brand new playbook, with all step definitions copied over. You can then go in and modify the new playbook by changing who is assigned each step, removing steps, adding steps, or whatever you wish.

This is just one of many small enhancements coming up soon that will make it faster and easier than ever to get the most out of PlaybookIQ.

Try it out at playbookiq.com.

CRM Message Templates

smeade — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:16:00 +0000

Consistent image and messages to customers and prospects is an important part of your customer relationship and marketing efforts. PlaybookIQ now supports this aspect with Message Templates.

Use message templates to:

Be efficient: no need to retype the same email over and over.
Be consistent: ensure everyone on your team is putting forth a consistent company image.
Be effective: spend your time writing well authored email responses that can be used over and over.
Be personal: include the contact’s name in the message template.

Message templates can be applied to any step in a Playbook. When a contact reaches that step, you need only click “Compose email” link and an email with to: subject: and body: will be prepared in your local email client. You can modify it if needed, or simply hit ’send’ to deliver your email.

Find out more at http://playbookiq.com.

New Feature: CRM Activity Report

smeade — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 02:42:00 +0000

As noted in previous posts, we built PlaybookIQ from the start to be an effective CRM tool for small- to mid-sized organizations to collaborate on their efforts, follow a consistent sales process, and gain insight into their results. When launched, PlaybookIQ offered the Pipeline Overview which shows you how many contacts are at each step of each of your playbooks. This is helpful for identifying process bottlenecks. Today, we announce a new view into your organization’s activity.

With the Activity Reports you can see what you, or others in your organization, got done recently. You simply specify the user and a date range to see a summary of all activity. This is helpful to review progress and to remind yourself of what you were working on in a given timeframe. We hope you like it.

To see this report, and other features of PlaybookIQ, sign into your account at http://playbookiq.com/signin. Or, sign up for a new account, it’s free and at no risk.

New Feature: Permission Management

smeade — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 22:11:00 +0000

PlaybookIQ is built from the ground up as a small business CRM tool for sales team collaboration. To effectively collaborate, all users on your team can perform almost all functions. By default, everyone can create, edit, and delete contacts, tasks, comments, playbooks, and step definitions. Yet, for those times that you want to limit user permissions, we have made it very easy to do so.

In this example, Mary has full control over contacts, tasks, and comments in her CRM system. She cannot create, modify, or delete playbooks or step definitions. Only the account owner can change user permissions. To do so, click on “Admin” in the top-right and then ‘edit’ on a contact. This new permission feature is clean, clear, and concise to use and we think you will like it.

New Feature: Mass Task Assignment

smeade — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:50:00 +0000

PlaybookIQ has powerful search features, including searching for contacts by multiple tags (e.g. all contacts that are tagged both ‘VIP’ and ‘Prospect’). Search results are returned in a list of contacts, with a checkbox next to each one.

From day one, you have been able to add tags and remove tags in mass by checking one or more of the contacts in the search result list. Starting today, you can also add tasks to a collection of contacts:

1. Perform a search or a tag list and then simply check each contact that you want the task assigned to (or check the ‘all’ checkbox at the top of the search results list).
2. Click ‘Add task’.
3. Create the task and it is applied to all contacts.

In this video we create tasks to call and invite “A1 VIP” contacts to a launch party. We think you will find this enhancement valuable and hope you like it. To find out more, please visit http://playbookiq.com.

New Feature: Mass Playbook Assignment

smeade — Wed, 14 May 2008 21:00:00 +0000

PlaybookIQ has powerful search features, including a live search by last name, quick search across all fields and advanced search for specific values in specific fields. Quick search and Advanced search results are returned in a list of contacts, with a checkbox next to each one. From day one, you have been able to add tags and remove tags in mass by checking one or more of the contacts in the search result list.

Starting today, you can now also mass assign to a playbook. (In PlaybookIQ, a playbook is a predefined series of steps and best practices that you want to apply to one or more contacts.) Let us show you an example.

Say that you wanted to put all of your Texas prospects onto the Texas Trade Show playbook. You can now do so with just a few clicks like so:

1. Search
Go to the Search tab, click ‘Advanced search’, and enter TX in the State field and choose ‘prospect’ from the tag list. Click ’search’ to get a list of all of your Texas prospects.

2. Check
Click the checkbox at the top of the results list (this is the ‘check-all’ box).

3. Assign
Click ‘Assign to playbook’, choose the ‘Texas Trade Show’ playbook, and click the assign button.

Just like that, you have automatically created steps to ensure your Texas contacts know about the Texas Trade Show.

We think you will find this enhancement valuable and hope you like it.