Customer Contact Log

Customer Contact Log

Channergy does some pretty neat stuff. But, you may want it to do something that’s not readily apparent. Following are some tips to make the Customer Contact Log do your bidding.

Use the Contact Log to:

• Send Catalogs
• Track Birthdays
• Set Reminders

The Contact Log – a quick primer.

To use the tricks above you need to be able to add a contact to a customer’s account. It’s easy, just follow the steps below.

1. Open any customer’s account (We like to use the Find Customer icon on the toolbar).
2. While anywhere on the Customer screen click the New Contact button, or press Alt-C.
3. In the Contact Log dialog that opens you can enter: an Ad Source Key, an Action to be taken, unlimited length Notes, a Tickle Date to remind you to do something, your Operator ID and a date.
4. Click OK to save the contact (Note: the contact will appear on the Customer’s Contact tab next time you open the account.

Send Catalogs

Do you send catalogs or promotional materials to prospective customers? Sure you do, and Channergy’s contact log can help.

1. When a customer calls or sends a request for a catalog you will probably want to see if he or she is already in your database. To do so click the Find Customer icon on the Main Menu. Type the customer’s name (and any other information you want to search on) and click the Search button.
2. If the customer appears in the list simply double click the account to open it. Otherwise, click the Add Customer button on the Search window or press Alt-A. A new account will be created, already populated with the search information you entered.
3. Whether you find, or add the customer creating a new contact works the same way. Click the New Contact button, or press Alt-C.
4. In the Contact Log’s Action field select Send Catalog from the pulldown list. (Tip: You can select an item in the list by typing the beginning of its name. You can even enter anything you wish by simply typing it and pressing the Tab key).
5. OPTIONAL: You can select an Ad Source Key in the first pulldown too if you wish. This key will print on the labels so you can use it to match catalogs to customers if you send different types. You can set up keys so they can be selected here by double clicking the Ad Source Key table in the Company Database. The label reports sort first on this field, then on Zip.

   (Note: This field can also help you later determine which ads are generating requests. And, if this is the first time a source key has been added for this customer it will become the Original Key on the Additional Info tab of the customer’s screen so you will know where he or she first found you.)

6. Click OK to save the contact. If you are entering multiple accounts go back to step 1. When you are ready to print labels go to the next step.
7. After you have finished entering requests you can print labels for all your customers for whom you entered a Send Catalog entry. Click the link below to download the install for reports Sendcatalog5160.srw or Sendcatalog5163.srw. They will appear in the Reports button on the Customer screen into Channergy and used to print Avery 5160 or Avery 5163 labels. (You can edit it for your label size using the pre set label formats available from the Report Settings icon in the report writer.)

   Click here to download the Send Catalog label reports

8. To print your labels, open the Customer screen then click the Reports button. Select the report Sendcatalog5160.srw or Sendcatalog5163.srw report.
9. When prompted you can enter a date range or simply press Enter at each prompt for today’s date. A preview of the labels will appear which you can send to your printer by clicking the print icon.

(Advanced Tip: We use a similar report to send our free demos. Sometimes we wait a day or two so we can bundle them by Zip Code. When we do, we enter a date range to preview, then we save the report. This saves the date range we entered in the GetDateRange column on the Define Search tab in the report writer. The next time we print we open the report and double click the GetDateRange column. That lets us see the last date range we used so we can print the next set for the next range – e.g., if we last printed 9/1/09 to 9/3/09 then open the report on 9/6 we choose 9/4/09 to 9/6/09. Then we save the report and start the cycle over again. It makes it easy to keep track of which demos have been sent.)

Track Birthdays

Send birthday cards to your customers, and make them feel special (you can toss in a little sales pitch too). (We’ve included it in a download below as well as 2 different types of labels).

1. To enter birthdays first click the Find Customer icon on the toolbar. Type the customer’s name (and any other information you want to search on) and click the Search button.
2. If the customer appears in the list simply double click the account to open it. Otherwise, click the Add Customer button on the Search window or press Alt-A. A new account will be created, already populated with the search information you entered.
3. Whether you find, or add the customer creating a new contact works the same way. Click the New Contact button, or press Alt-C.
4. In the Contact Log’s Action field select Send Birthday Card from the pulldown list. (Tip: You can select an item in the list by typing the beginning of its name. You can even enter anything you wish by simply typing it and pressing the Tab key).
5. In the Tickle Date field enter the customer’s date of birth in the format mm/dd/00 (You can use the real birth year, but if you want to use the reports below we recommend using 00 to make selection easier.).
6. In the Notes section enter an individualized message, if you wish. In the gift card report below this message will print in the center of the card (although you can alter the report if you wish).
7. Click OK to save the contact. If you are entering multiple accounts go back to step 1. When you are ready to print go to the next step.
8. Whenever you like, you can print cards for upcoming birthdays (we recommend once a month around the 15th for the following month’s birthdays). Click the link below to download the install for reports Bdaycard.srw, Bdaylabels5160.srw or Bdaylabels5163.srw report. They will appear in the Reports button on the Customer screen into Channergy and used to print Avery 5160 or Avery 5163 labels. (You can edit it for your label size using the pre set label formats available from the Report Settings icon in the report writer.)

   Click here to download the Birthday card and label reports

9. Enter a date range for the cards or labels you want to print (We recommend printing the following month’s. For example, around January 15 you can print February’s birthdays by entering a date range of 2/1/00 to 2/28/00.

A preview of the report will appear which you can send to your printer by clicking the print icon.

Set Reminders

Ever wonder what the “Tickle Date” on the contact log is for? Once you know, you will wonder how you lived without it.

1. Most reminders are customer related (call backs, delayed order fulfillment, collection notices etc). You can set yourself up as a customer too if you want reminders scheduled for miscellaneous tasks. To set up reminders just go to the Customer screen and enter a contact. To do so click the Find Customer icon on the toolbar. Type the customer’s name (and any other information you want to search on) and click the Search button.
2. If the customer appears in the list simply double click the account to open it. Otherwise, click the Add Customer button on the Search window or press Alt-A. A new account will be created, already populated with the search information you entered.
3. Whether you find, or add the customer creating a new contact works the same way. Click the New Contact button, or press Alt-C.
4. In the Contact Log’s Action field select any field you wish from the pulldown list. However, you should avoid using actions you have reserved for other purposes – like the Send Catalog, or Send Birthday Card actions we made use of in earlier tips. (Tip: You can select an item in the list by typing the beginning of its name. You can even enter anything you wish by simply typing it and pressing the Tab key).
5. In the Notes field enter any text you would like printed on the reminder report.
6. Next, enter a Tickle Date. This is the date on which you would like to be reminded to perform the task.
7. Select your Operator ID from the pulldown. This tags the contact to you so you won’t have to pick yours out of a list of others. You should enter your ID even if you are the only person using the system since the report we will use pulls by Operator ID.
8. Click OK to save the contact. If you are entering multiple accounts go back to step 1. When you are ready to print the reminder report go to the next step.
9. Each morning you can run the Tickler report included in Channergy’s Report Center. Locate and run report R3180 Ticklers for Date Range.
10. When prompted you can enter a date range or simply press Enter at each prompt for today’s date. The date range selects on the Tickle Date you entered in the contact (Note: In order to catch previous unclosed ticklers, we recommend entering a start date of 1/1/1900 and an end date of TODAY. A preview of the report will appear which you can send to your printer by clicking the print icon.
11. The report is sorted by Operator ID so you can take just your section and work it. Task are then sorted by Tickle Date, then customer name. Each entry lists the customer’s information, the action to be taken and any notes you entered into the log. As you complete tasks you should delete the Tickle Date for the contact (search for the customer then click on the Contact tab. Double click the contact to edit it and delete the Tickle Date). This will prevent the contact from appearing on the next day’s report.

(Advanced Tip: The report pulls all actions by default. You can deselect certain action types using the Filter function in the Define Search tab of the report writer. For example, to deselect Send Catalog actions double click the StatusFlag column. In the dialog that opens select Is Not Equal To in the pulldown under the Filter 1 of 5 column. In the next field enter Send Catalog with an uppercase S and C. Click OK to save the changes, and choose File>;Save from the text menu to save the report. Preview the report and Send Catalog actions will be excluded. You can repeat the steps above for additional actions by listing them in the additional fields below Is Not Equal To. If you need to filter more than 5 actions, you can enter up to 4 more filters of 5 fields each below the current one. Press the Red Down Arrow on the dialog to move to the next filter in the column.)