See Also: Step by Step Instructions for 1st Run of ContactTalk; How To; Docking Windows; Drag & Drop; Sorting & Grouping; Main Screen; Quick Reference Table for Customizing Forms; Example Custom Form Controls

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Contact Management, raised to the power of Talk...

ContactTalk has the unique ability to interact with contacts (people/records) contained within the database. How you interact with contacts depends entirely on how you use ContactTalk. ContactTalk can be used as a simple contact manager to an automated campaign manager that sends email, takes calls, and sends voice broadcasts to people based on almost any criteria.

The Contact List.

The heart of ContactTalk is the contact list. You would expect a contact list to display and permit sorting etc... However, ContactTalk's list  has a very powerful grouping feature that permits you to group contacts visually based on any information stored in the contacts table. A simple example would be to group contacts by state and city.

Action Items.

Once you have visually created a group, you can apply "action items" to them.  Currently there are 5 Action Item types: Email, Voice, Fax (coming soon), SQL, and Dynamic. The  Action Item simply contains information on how to perform its task, i.e. send email or call someone. For example, if you want to send email to a group you would create an Email Action Item, then simply drag it onto the group.

Scheduler.

ContactTalk also hosts a very powerful scheduler. The scheduler, of course, has the functionality you would expect, but also interacts with the contact list and action items. For example, you can send email to contacts on their birthday, or only send the birthday email to contacts who belong to a specific group. You could also call all employees on the first Monday of every month to deliver a voice message. The possibilities are endless...

Campaign Manager.

ContactTalk hosts a very powerful and simple campaign manager. This feature allows you to execute action items against contacts who are part of a campaign. The action items are executed at specific times based on the date the contact entered the campaign. For example, send a welcome email on the day the person entered the campaign. On day 5, send another (but different) email.  If the person has not become a customer by day 15, maybe have ContactTalk give them a call.

Voice.

ContactTalk's ability to call someone and deliver a message is called voice broadcasting. ContactTalk does this via the Voice Broadcast Action Item. The voice broadcast action items tells ContactTalk how to handle the call, as well as what to do in the event the call fails.  Once a call is placed, control is given to a mailbox. The Mailbox contains details on how to interact with the caller, i.e. what to do if caller presses the 5 key, or says the word "hello" etc... Mailboxes are extremely powerful because each one can perform a different task such as take a message, forward a call, or interact with the Contact List. All mailboxes deliver a message when invoked, but how they deliver the message, and what they do after the message is delivered, is what makes them unique.