BatchBook Blog
Last week, I posted about our recent flurry of updates to BatchBook. After a weekend to play with some of the new changes, there’s one I really love. It’s the List widget on the Dashboard.
And we love to give props where props are due. So, yet again, that was a recommendation that came from the forums. In this case, forum user Barbara Ballard asked:
Inspired by the Marketing dashboard widget … I created “Barbara’s list”. It’s all current clients, alumni, leads, projects assigned to me. It’s who I should be thinking about this week, who I should pay attention to. … Now I want it on my dashboard.
We had been talking about doing a saved search widget. But when Barbara recommended putting Lists on the Dashboard, an bell went off in my head. First of all, Lists are already part of BatchBook. This would put something on the Dashboard that just about everybody is already using in their account. Nothing new to learn. Instant gratification. Secondly, a saved search is best handled as a list anyway. That way it will always update, always be accessible, always be exportable, etc.
It was the perfect solution.
Thank you, Barbara, for your excellent recommendation!
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Tags: Customer Service, lists, Our Users are So Smart
Last year, for quite a while, it seem as though we were churning out feature updates for BatchBook at a dizzying pace. These weren’t enormous new features, but just smaller updates that simply made the lives of our users easier. Since the start of 2009, however, we’ve been busy on a few rather major updates. Some have launched (like our integrations with FreshBooks and Shoeboxed), some are in beta (like Google Contacts sync), and some haven’t been released yet (I’m not telling!).
The month of June has been a welcome return to the “flurry of updates” release schedule. Over at the BatchBook forums, Keri posts detailed notes about product releases. Today, I wanted to tell you about the “Greatest Hits” from these updates.
Batch Updating of SuperTags
Ever want to update the SuperTag field on dozens of contacts at once? Use the checkboxes on the Browse Contacts page to select a whole bunch of contacts (tip: filter by tag first!) and choose the “edit SuperTag field” batch action. With a couple quick clicks, you can update hundreds of contacts at a time!
Google Contacts 1-way Sync
Sean posted an update on the forums about Google Contacts sync becoming a one-way sync.
More Ways to Filter and Search
We known your contact list can grow quite large. Ours sure has! That’s why we’ve added a whole bunch of new ways to filter and search your contacts. Many of these were very popular requests on the forums.
- New Browse Contacts filter: Not contacted in past month: Will filter your contacts to show only those you have logged a communication with in the past month.
- New Browse Contacts filter: Not contacted: Will filter your contacts to show only those you have never logged a communication with.
- Advanced Search: Contact Type: In addition to “Individuals” and “Companies”, we now have an option for “Individuals & Companies”. Why? Because we also have one just for “Communications”!
- Advanced Search: Record Created: Search for records by date they were created. You can search for an exact date or for records created before or after a certain date. (Tip: Use multiple search criteria to search before a certain date and after another date to get a specific window of time).
- Advanced Search: Record Last Updated: Search for records based on the last time they were updated.
- Advanced Search: Record Last Communicated With: Search for contacts based on the last time you logged a communication with them (including an option for “never”.
Twitter and Google Search Widgets for all!
The live-updating Twitter Search and Google Search Dashboard widgets are now available for free accounts as well. Monitor your personal brand, your company brand, your competitors or your industry at large right on your BatchBook Dashboard!
New Dashboard widget: Lists View
This brand new widget gives you a dropdown menu of all Lists in your BatchBook account. Pick a list and see the contacts. There’s also one-click access to the List Report.
LinkedIn now part of Social Media SuperTag
As reported last week, LinkedIn profiles are now officially part of the Social Media SuperTag.
Default Tags & SuperTags
Last but not least, this is another popular one from the forums. Affectionately code-named “sticky tags” by forumgoers, you can now choose a tag or tags to be automatically applied to all contacts (or all individuals or all companies).
We hope you’ve enjoyed the recent updates. We promise more will come soon!
Want to see the complete list of updates?
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Tags: linkedin, small business CRM, social crm, Social Media, supertags
Last night, BatchBlue Onboarding Specialist Stephanie Sweeney and I made the drive up to Boston to attend the Rock Stars of Social CRM event, hosted by Radian6 and Chris Brogan. They had a lot of fun with the Rock Star theme, complete with colored stage lights, concert tees and even a full-blown Rock Band set-up for audience members to rock out with after the panel.
The panelists included were Frank Eliason (Comcast), Paul Greenberg (Author of CRM at the Speed of Light), Michael Thomas (National President, CRM Association), and our favorite CRM go-to guy, Brent Leary (Co-author of Barack 2.0 and Co-founder of CRM Essentials).
Because we consider BatchBook to be a social CRM (slide via Brent Leary), I was curious to hear what the folks at the cutting edge had to say. I was especially impressed with Frank Eliason’s inclusion on the panel, since he represents a company that is actually out there doing all this stuff. While I always appreciate the bird’s eye view from consultants and experts, I have to agree with Doug Haslam of Shift Communications‘ assertion that he’s getting a bit impatient with social media.
After the panel, Doug and I had a brief conversation where I wondered if, when email entered the picture ten years or so ago, there were endless conferences and seminars and articles written about how email (a communication tool in the same way that social media is a communication tool) was going to fundamentally change the business world.
Admittedly, email did change the way companies interacted with their customers – I was in the customer service department at Amazon.com in 1997 and I witnessed it happening first-hand. Customers found it insane that we didn’t take phone orders; that Amazon was an Internet only company. At the time, we were too busy answering customer emails to talk about email as a tool.
That experience definitely influenced BatchBlue’s commitment to providing excellent service. One thing BatchBlue does using social media is host a weekly Twitter chat called SBBUZZ, where small business owners can talk about the issues (largely focused on social media and other technologies) that are most important to them. What’s nice about this event is that a real community of folks has developed there. Each week, there’s an opportunity for folks to share what’s working, what’s not, what kind of issues people are having, even just to swap funny stories about what happened over the course of the past week as they deal with running and growing their businesses.
If Social CRM is all about the customer, I guess what I’m missing at these big, “rock star” events is more of a presence from other small business owners who are in the trenches, actually using these tools to build their customer relationships every day. There are plenty of Rock Stars out there, talking to each other on SBBUZZ and similar social media places. And my favorite Rock Star, Stephanie, was sitting right next to me. She in every way embodies customer service and building customer relationships done right. I’d wear her concert tee any day.
Image: Chris Penn a.k.a. Financial Aid Podcast via flickr
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Tags: @sbbuzz, chris brogan, Customer Service, radian6, rockstars of social crm, small business, social crm, twitter, twitter chats
One of my favorite BatchBook features is the Social Media SuperTag. This week, we enhanced it by adding support for LinkedIn profiles. All you have to is enter address to a public LinkedIn profile. When you save it, we’ll replace the link with a widget that looks a lot like this:
Out of the box, the Social Media SuperTag allows you to enter a contacts usernames on Twitter, Flickr, or Delicious and we’ll show the last three tweets, photos, or bookmarks. You can also enter a Blog feed and see excerpts of the last three posts. This will actually work for any RSS feed. In the screencast below, I add a Slideshare presentations, Last.fm recent tracks, and BatchBook forum feeds to a contact record.
We think this is a great way to see what’s on the mind of your most valuable contacts right before you pick up the phone or start that email. Watch below to see the Social Media SuperTag in action!
Screencast: Social media integration with the Social Media SuperTag
The Flash Video runs 5:18 and is 34.9MB. (Download iPod compatible version, 17.5MB)
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Tags: delicious, flickr, linkedin, rss, small business CRM, social crm, Social Media, supertags, twitter
Last month, I celebrated my two year anniversary with BatchBlue. I can’t believe it’s been two years already. I can’t believe it’s only been two years.
I also had a birthday right around that time, so the oh-so-thoughtful Sean figured that made it a perfect time to upgrade my laptop. So, I went from the older white MacBook to the shiny new aluminum one. While I love the new computer, it is with some hesitance I let the white one go. The thing has been essentially an extension of my body for the last couple of years. And let’s just say, it’s been well loved:
This was the first laptop I ever stickered up. Each sticker has a story and now is as good a time as any to share them.
- Belle: Before we had our lovely Providence office, we were a completely virtual company. Living rooms became conference rooms. One day, I got up from sitting on the floor at Pam’s house. I had a Belle sticker stuck to my butt. Pam has three kids, so this isn’t very surprising. The laptop was already well-stickered at this point, so on it went.
- BatchBook: Well, that’s us silly!
- Twitter: When Saul Colt sent me an autographed FreshBooks sticker (see #8), he also tossed in an extra Twitter sticker. While there may not be many things I like more than Twitter, Saul Colt is one of them.
- WordPress: I’m a big WordPress fan, and Matt Mullenweg gave this sticker to me at SXSW 2007 after I said something nice to him. I saved the sticker until I finally had something worthy to stick it to.
- HubSpot: As the developer of a marketing website, I love HubSpot. So many things that were previously trial and error have become well oiled machines (SEO keyword selection, inbound link monitoring, etc.). HubSpot even interviewed Michelle and I for a case study (and released a portion of the interview for their inbound marketing blog). The fact that I just linked to them with their favorite SEO keyword shows you what I learned from HubSpot!)
- SimpleBits: Similar to the WordPress sticker, I had this one for a while (since 2006) before applying it to something. SimpleBits is the design shop run by Dan Cederholm in Salem, MA. I got the sticker (and my trademark SimpleBits shirt that I always seem to be photographed in) at a Carson Systems workshop with Dan. Dan’s books and his blog heavily inspired the approach I take to design. And he’s a swell guy to boot.
- Creative Commons: Michelle gave this one to me, and Creative Commons is a wonderful thing. Personally, I often pretend it’s a CC Chapman sticker.
- FreshBooks: As mentioned in #3, this was given to me Saul Colt (that’s his autograph!). At the time, he was the Head of Magic for FreshBooks. Now he holds the same title for Zoocasa.com.
- iStockPhoto: Like HubSpot, iStockPhoto just makes my life so much easier. Specifically, I’ve written before about how Kemie (an iStockPhoto contributor) is essentially an honorary member of the BatchBook design team. I got this sticker from the nice iStock team at SXSW in 2008.
- bata: When Stephanie went to Japan, she had a little sticker set to help her learn the language. One of her favorite words in Japanese was bata (butter). It kind of became an inside joke and the sticker found it’s way on my laptop.
- Firefox: Along with the WordPress sticker, I got this one at SXSW in 2007 and saved it. While I use Safari for browsing, Firefox simply can’t be beat as a development browser.
- Kidoinfo: Kidoinfo is a Rhode Island-based site for parents run by our friend Anisa. Anisa has built an amazing resource for local parents. It’s so handy to quickly find something to do on a rainy day!
- Barcamp Austin III: Michelle and I made it for the very end of Barcamp during SXSW in 2008. Barcamp is an “unconference” (meaning it is essentially a “user-generated” conference put on by the attendees themsevles). We missed out on the sessions, but we did get to hang out for the incredible live karaoke band Karaoke Apocalypse. That was the night my respect for Chris Brogan and Laura Fitton shot throught he roof.
- DEMOfall07: The very last one is the very first sticker to grace the MacBook. When we launched our public beta at DEMOfall07 in San Diego, this laptop was the demo unit. It’s just a simple inkjet label with the company name, station number, and date & time we presented (which actually changed, so it’s not totally accurate). But it might be my favorite of all the stickers.
I’ve been using Macs exclusively since my dad got us an Apple IIGS in 1986. I’ve had quite a few Macs over the years. This white MacBook was definitely my favorite since my beloved PowerBook G3 Pismo. It was powerful. It was dependable.
And it had stickers.
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Tags: barcamp, batchblue, batchbook, belle, butter, cc chapman, chris brogan, creative commons, dan cederholm, DEMO, DEMOFall07, firefox, freshbooks, Hubspot, istockphoto, karaoke apocalypse, kidoinfo, laura fitton, macbook, matt mullenweg, saul colt, simplebits, twitter, wordpress
