InterAction’s CRM solution integrates individual contact management with a centralized organizational database, ensuring consistency and up-to-date information. It allows users to maintain personalized contact lists while contributing to a unified Firm List that facilitates real-time updates, relationship intelligence, and streamlined communications across the organization.
The strength of InterAction’s CRM solution lies in its ability to mirror and improve the natural business processes within your organization. Typically, you and your colleagues successfully manage your most critical contacts using personal tools such as address books, contact management software, or handheld devices. If you consistently deliver good client service and maintain regular communication with these key contacts, you can trust that your personal records are up-to-date.
At the same time, your organization also gathers and maintains information on these contacts. For example:
- Marketing and business development teams often manage separate databases for clients and prospects.
- The accounting department holds billing data related to these clients.
- Other professionals interacting with the same clients might maintain their own contact records.
- Internal departments like human resources or marketing track information about the staff within the organization.
InterAction’s CRM bridges these individual and organizational efforts, ensuring that the information you rely on is consistent, current, and holistic.
To accommodate the unique requirements of various groups within your organization, InterAction offers two distinct interfaces:
- InterAction Web Client™: Used by all professionals and assistants to manage their personal contact lists. Through this interface, you can access and leverage the managed Relationship Intelligence across the organization.
- InterAction Windows Client™: Designed for marketing, human resources, and other stewards responsible for the organization’s collective data. This interface facilitates managing and integrating information from various systems, users, and business processes.
Managing Contact Information
InterAction stores contacts in two areas:
- User Lists: Every user maintains their own individual list of contacts. May contains private information, such as home phone numbers.
- Firm List: The Firm List holds a single, centrally managed, unified version of each contact, commonly referred to as Firm Contacts. Contacts on this list contain public information, such as business phone numbers. Note that your organization can customize the term used for the “Firm List.”
Data Consistency:
InterAction’s dual-interface approach ensures that both individual professionals and organizational data stewards can manage and benefit from a consistent, up-to-date database of Relationship Intelligence.
Your organization defines the minimum required fields for adding new contacts, whether on a Firm List or a User List. These required fields must also be met when sharing a contact from one list (e.g., a user list) to another (e.g., the Firm List).
User Contacts and Firm Contacts
You can manage your contacts directly in InterAction or through a Personal Information Manager (PIM) such as Microsoft Outlook. InterAction synchronizes contacts in each user’s Outlook contact list with the contacts in their InterAction list. Additionally, you can use mobile devices to access and edit your contacts. By synchronizing your mobile contacts with Outlook, your updates can be integrated with InterAction automatically.
Even though you maintain your own contact lists, you may want to leverage the organization's collective information. For example, you might need to see updated details from other users, like a new address for a contact, and decide to update your own list accordingly. Similarly, you may wish to contribute valuable information from your contact lists to the rest of the organization to ensure everyone provides excellent service to their key contacts.
To facilitate this information exchange between personal user lists and the Firm List, InterAction allows you to share any of your contacts with the Firm List. This process effectively connects your contact information with the organization's single, unified version of the contact.
Connecting a User Contact to a Firm Contact
Connecting a user contact to a Firm Contact lets you enjoy the benefits of receiving updates while still retaining full control. You can either accept updates automatically or review them on a case-by-case basis.
Additionally, you decide which pieces of contact information remain confidential and which details you contribute to the organization.
Updating Firm and User Contacts
You can establish rules to determine which pieces of contact information remain confidential and which details are shared with the organization.
Connecting contacts offers several benefits:
- Access to Organization-wide Relationship Intelligence: Gain insights about a contact from the complete, centralized database.
- Capturing Who Knows Whom: Automatically record the fact that you have an established link with the contact.
- Real-Time Alerts and Updates: Receive notifications when other users modify contact details, or when they add activities and appointments related to the contact.
- Simplified Mailing List Management: Easily add contacts to mailing lists for streamlined communications.
For additional details on managing your contacts in InterAction, refer to the Overview of Contact Management. To learn more about leveraging the InterAction database, see the Overview of Leveraging Relationship Intelligence.
Understanding InterAction: Personal vs. Public Contact Databases
Think of your user list as your personal address book—customized with just the information you care about—and the Firm List as a public phone book. When you need to quickly look up a familiar number, you usually refer to your personal address book.
However, there are times when your personal records might not have the details you need. Perhaps you need information about a new contact, or maybe a stored number is outdated. In these situations, you turn to the public phone book for accurate and comprehensive details. Similarly, if your user list lacks the necessary information, you can search the Firm List in InterAction to fill in the gaps.