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One of my favorite parts of working with our customers is talking to them when they realize how using Batchbook can help them be more efficient. In Webinars, Onboarding Sessions and email correspondence, one of the most common ‘aha’ moments comes when we work through how easy it is to stay on track with Batchbook ToDos, particularly when applied using our ToDo Templates.
Batchbook ToDo templates are a just a common series of actions that you may apply to a Contact Record or a Deal Record to schedule out a whole bunch of tasks all at one time, even far off in to the future.
If you think about your business or or your organization, you probably have a bunch of processes which could be scheduled using a ToDo Template Series. Do you have a checklist of things you do when you get a new customer? How about when you get that first order from someone? When a project starts? When a project ends? When a new lead in generated?
If any situation requires a set series of tasks as a response it’s a great candidate for a ToDo Template and makes sure that these follow up or future tasks aren’t forgotten.
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Tags: batchbook, To-Do List
We started the rebuilding of our Batchbook product at the very heart of the application: the contacts tab. This is where you can see all of the people in your network, dig deeper into their interests and backgrounds, follow the conversations and interactions you are having with them and keep track of the special things that make them tick. Really get to know them better.
This should be the easy stuff, right? It’s just names and addresses. Well, a few addresses. And phone. And by phone I mean home, work, the other work, cell, fax, 800#, and international. And also e-mail. Make that a couple of e-mails. And websites. That can be company, personal, blog, or wiki. And don’t forget the social. Facebook profiles, both personal and business. And if it is a business also the brands and contests and causes and events and places. And Twitter. Both the individual and their company and possibly their dog. And LinkedIn and Google+ and Flickr and so many more. And multiply all of this by 2 or 3 or 4 for everyone in your network who freelances/owns/volunteers for multiple companies.
You see where I am going with this. It is actually deliciously complex keeping up with the who’s and where’s of your personal and professional networks. But the thing is, the time it took you to read all of the types of information we are collecting is probably more than you will have on any given day when you need to find it quick! And it is only going to be helpful if you, your team or the magic syncing elves have been keeping the information up to date. So while it’s fantastic that there is so much information to collect, it is even more important that it be easy to get to and easy to update.
With this in mind, our redesign is about Cleaning It Up and Speeding It Up. I will continue to update you on some of the new features and updates that we are rolling out with The New BatchBook as we finalize different components. In Contacts, this translates to:
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Tags: batchbook, contacts, redesign
We’re working on something pretty big here these days. It is a major rebuild of our flagship product Batchbook.
Batchbook is a bit of a paradox. It is simple, easy to get around, easy to update. And yet it is also powerfully complex. SuperTags, to-do templates and integrations allow for enormous flexibility in workflow customizations. The contradiction is by design, as we have learned that CRM success comes both from frequency of use (make it easy) and the deep dive (to work with a unique business process). With the help of tens of thousands of customers and our diligent support team we have been able to hone in on the useful aspects of the simple, while also expanding the power of the complex. And little by little, we have updated and iterated on Batchbook to maintain this careful balance.
The team has been working very hard over the past few months to take all of the knowledge we have gained over these past 5 years to rebuild, from the ground up, Batchbook. Much of the work is back-end streamlining and optimizing to make the infrastructure more powerful and scalable. We’ve also taken the opportunity to improve the interface and workflow to make it much faster and easier to use. And we’ve got some exciting new features built in, as well.
While we still have a ways to go, I wanted to start pulling the curtains back a little to let you all know about things to come. Over the next few months, as we continue to polish things up and test them out I will be sharing bits and pieces of the new and improved Batchbook here on our blog.
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Tags: batchbook, Product Updates
One of my more recently assumed responsibilities around here is to lead some of our Batchbook Webinars and to work with customers during their Onboarding sessions. I really enjoy both of these activities as they let me share my knowledge of Batchbook and show people how they can use it in real situations, and for real business.
There are a lot of theoreticals when you build a product or provide a service but ultimately it comes down to the people you work with. This emphasis on people is really one of the best things about working here at BatchBlue. We want you to know who you are working with when you contact us – we each have profiles on our About Page so you can get to know us. (here is mine) Every email you send is read and responded to by someone here who wants to help, who likes to help, and who understands that our response is read by another real person on the other side.
I think this is important because it gives us a framework to really understand who you are, who you really are. During Onboarding sessions I expect that kids will interrupt, you may be running a few minutes late because a nap didn’t start on time, a call ran late, life interrupted. In a call today my own cat walked across my table and stepped on the volume control for my headset, yesterday my doorbell rang. This happens, this is the way that we work and how business is done. To pretend otherwise is to ignore the reality of who you are, and who your customers are.
Batchbook has always been about people and relationships and the belief that a good CRM manages that process and all the rest is built on top of that. We hope that Batchbook is a good fit for you and that you can use it to remember the things you need to remember about the people you work with.
Tags: batchbook, customers
I’ve been using Batchbook since way back in October of 2007 and it has served as the primary storage area for all contact information over those years, for business and for our personal use. In our house, our Batchbook account is like a knowledge base with all the information I need to get in touch with just about any one.
One thing I always wished was possible was getting my Batchbook contact information to my home phone. The address book functionality in our phone was decent but it required manually entering in all that data. I was going to my Batchbook account to look up the number and then using that to dial. I liked having it all in a single place but I sure wish I could have made that easier.
Recently though we decided that we would replace our primary home phone number with a Google Voice number, and one of the primary motivators for that was my thinking about how well Batchbook and Google Voice would play well together.
Google Voice is a nifty phone service that gives you a single number that you can use for everyone and everything. By setting up rules in the system you can direct calls from different people to different phones and play different messages for different groups. Voice messages come in to my email and I can even transfer calls from one device to another while still online, All great stuff.
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Tags: batchbook, google voice
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