Relationship Intelligence uncovers the intricate connections between people, companies, and expertise, enabling organizations to identify new opportunities and enhance client service. InterAction facilitates this process by collecting detailed data, organizing contacts effectively through various lists, and offering tools like the Relationship Map and comprehensive profile views to support informed business decisions.
Relationship Intelligence as a Key Organizational Asset
Relationship Intelligence reveals the unique and complex connections among people, companies, relationships, experience, and expertise. By leveraging this insight, your organization can tap into the collective knowledge to uncover new revenue opportunities, differentiate from competitors, and enhance client service.
Data Collection Through InterAction
InterAction offers a variety of mechanisms for collecting and viewing Relationship Intelligence. Every data point gathered builds a dynamic database, strengthening your organization’s overall network intelligence.
Optimizing Your Firm List
Properly organizing your Firm List is essential. Categorizing contacts with types—such as marketing and working lists—helps you:
- Clearly identify each contact’s relationship to your organization.
- Prioritize contacts based on their importance.
Contributing contacts to your Firm List enhances the overall database of Relationship Intelligence. It also benefits you directly, as sharing contacts allows for the collection of additional insights from other professionals, further enriching the database.
The following scenarios provide examples of how you can leverage Relationship Intelligence with InterAction:
- Finding New Business with the Relationship Map
- Researching a Contact with the Overview Page, Profiles, and Activities
For details about working with relationships, see the following:
- Create a Relationship Between Two Contacts
- Enter Your Relationship with a Single Contact
- Create a Professional Relationship Between Yourself and a Contact
Finding New Business with the Relationship Map
The Relationship Map™ displays all known contacts connected to a specific individual, enabling you to explore multiple degrees of separation between yourself and any other person.
How It Works
Imagine Ed Roberts, a professional who discovers that Paramount is opening a new office—an organization operating in a business line similar to many of his clients. Rather than sending a generic email to colleagues, Ed opens the InterAction Web Client and searches for Paramount.
Not only does he locate the company, but he also uncovers several of its employees, including the Director of Operations, Lisa Douglas. Using the Relationship Map, Ed learns that several of his acquaintances might be connected to Lisa.
The Value of Accurate Data
This Relationship Map feature empowers Ed to leverage his network for detailed insights into a potential business opportunity and even arrange an introduction to Lisa. The effectiveness of the Relationship Map hinges on comprehensive, accurate data within InterAction—particularly details about “I know this contact” relationships, previous employment, and board memberships. Maintaining and managing such data is essential for developing robust Relationship Intelligence.
Researching a Contact with the Overview Page, Profiles, and Activities
The Web Client provides a range of tools to help you quickly locate and review comprehensive details about contacts—ideal for getting up to speed on a contact’s current status.
For example, consider the professional Lisa Short. When asked to join the project team for the client Georgia-Pacific Corporation, she realizes she is not yet acquainted with the key individuals at the client. With the primary professional, Ed Roberts, on vacation, Lisa needs an alternative way to gather information.
-
Company Overview: Lisa opens the InterAction Web Client, searches for Georgia-Pacific, and reviews the Company Overview page. Here, she sees that Georgia-Pacific is recognized as a top client and operates in the Manufacturing industry.
-
Full Client Profile: To gain additional insights, Lisa selects the View Full Profiles link. This profile provides detailed financial information and further contextual details about the client.
-
Additional Features:
- Contact Types Overview: Quickly view all contact types associated with the company for an at-a-glance understanding of its relationship with your organization.
- Company Summary Profile: Access essential details through the Company Summary profile, which highlights the basic information needed for a swift review.
These capabilities ensure that you have quick access to critical information, allowing for more informed interactions and decision-making.
Digging into Detailed Client Information
While basic background information provides context, Lisa needs to understand the client's recent history, including any open issues. To do this, she scrolls down to the Activities section on the Overview page and then navigates to the full Activities page. Here, she uncovers recent activities logged by Georgia-Pacific employees, which provide current, detailed insights about the client.
Lisa further deepens her investigation by researching the client's key employees, carefully reviewing their profiles, relationships, and associated activities.
The effectiveness of these tools ultimately depends on the quality of the data entered into the Web Client profiles, related contacts, and activity logs.