[Luc]

Was wondering if anyone can recomend a contact management program that i can use on my pc for sending out reminder letters to all my old customers.
Having been lazy for the last few years, i thinking of sending out a yearly reminder service to my old customers. does anyone else do this? and is it effective?

[Graeme@Access]

Hi,

An easy way is to use excel to keep the records of your client rather than a database.  Anyways, i prefer spreadsheets and track fields like

Title> Name> Misc 1st Line> St Num> St Name> City> Post Code> Tel> Last work date>First contact date >Lifetime Value> email address.... <insert any other random metric you want to track>

Some would argue you should track things like birthdays, but it depends really what you intend to do with the list.

Others argue that your proposal of the one year reminder is too little, too late.  You loose something like 10% of your relationship with a customer every month they dont hear from you.  An annual list is potentially the same as a cold list.

Anyways, when you have complied all of the data, you can do a mail merge in Word onto a standard letter.  You can personalise it with any fields you have collected.  The help files in word will guide you and i think the xp and 2003 versions have a step by step tutorial.

I prefer the basic ways of doing things, but i think MS provide a contact management addon that is compatible with all of its office suite.  Cost you though for what is essentiallly a front end of its main apps.

Graeme
Access Cleaning Solutions

[Len Gribble]

Luc

You could try maximizer, know a friend use’s it.


Len

[Mike Osbourne]

I'd recommend Goldmine and ACT. They are relatively cheap with more functions than you will ever need. You can keep stats easy, mailmerge, track conversations etc.

Using excel is an option but I wouldn't bother. Too much faffing about to do all but the most basic.