BigContacts Makes Complex Workflow Building Look Easy

BigContacts has unveiled the latest iteration of its CRM application, BigContacts 2.0.

The application is a full-featured CRM suite “that is couched in a simple and easy-to-use format,” founder and CEO Bob Walton told CRM Buyer.

That is a point on which the company prides itself.

“We have taken the pillars of what a CRM system needs and made them very robust but in a way that our customers tell us hides the complexity of that robustness,” Walton said.

Or put another way: “We have put in a great deal of capabilities and features in this system but have made it very easy to execute.”

Clean and Simple

The interface is clean and intuitive, noted Walton. “One way we do that is by displaying the entire customer relationship — the entire chronology — on one screen.”

The contact management features are embedded in this one-screen view, “so if you have sent an email from BigContacts or your mobile phone or even your own personal email client, a feature in the system captures all of that and places it in the contact record,” Walton explained.

This view is provided by the system’s contact dashboard, which supports a myriad of functions. Users can manage notes, calls, meetings and sales opportunities from the dashboard as well — all in support of managing the entire relationship from that single screen, he pointed out.

Easy to Customize

BigContacts 2.0 is also easy to customize, Walton continued. “A customer can take our core platform and morph it into something that makes use of its industry terminology and vernacular. That customization ease permeates the entire system.”

Building a workflow, for example, typically consists of multiple steps involving multiple employees. “Even a simple task could have, say, five steps that five different people touch,” he said.

The system provides enough clicks and selections from dropdown menus for a user to build a workflow across multiple departments or user groups, linking each person in that workflow, noted Walton.

“It can build a very robust complex workflow that goes beyond just a simple basic task,” he observed.

Another example is the system’s calendaring system, which can be customized in any manner necessary. It is similar to Google’s calendar, which allows someone to layer various calendars on top of one another.

“We have taken that concept and applied it to a work and team environment,” Walton said, “so a company can create a custom view of a workforce’s activities.”