So I went through this long and quixotic attempt to use Google Contacts as a CRM and even wrote up a blog post about it; How to use Google Contacts as a Lightweight CRM Basically, it was a painful failure, but I did come up with some innovative techniques, such as using the "file as" field to add a priority sort order for contacts.
Still, though I always thought my needs were simple and basic, Google Contacts just doesn't cut it. Everything is awkward and time consuming, it is missing really basic features like "tags- and the Google+ Circles Google Groups integration - don't get me stated - is is a disastrous mess.
So for a while I have 'sort of" been using FullContact - it goes out and grabs all the social network links of your contacts and syncs with Google contacts They also have tags and say that one of these days they will integrate their tags with Google Contacts groups, which would be awesome. Their interface is pretty awful and they don't have many sort options - so I can't get the simple "priority sort' I want - why is that so hard?
It drove me to Insightly which has done a lot of things right. Their pricing is "small business friendly" and they allow for a generous 2,500 contacts on their free version. The best part is their social media linking - on the desktop version it is a pane on the right of the screen that shows all the social media accounts for that contact. You don't have to enter those - the systems goes and finds them for you, and there is even a tab for recent Twitter and Linkedin posts (no Facebbook of Google+) yet.
Now for the down side - the Google contacts sync isn't really a sync at all, it is what they call a "one way sync" meaning you have to enter your data in Insightly and then it will copy to a special group in Google Contacts, but I don't think you can then move your contacts to other groups without duplicating them or making a mess of things there, which kind of defeat the purpose of having a sync in the first place. They also don't have many "sort" options so I still can't get my priority sorts.
I probably should have prefaced all of this by saying that several months ago I made a vow to myself to start using social media differently - basically to worry less about platform and to become more "people centric" - in other words, to not depend on "the stream" and instead follow the posts my associates make, regardless of where they make them. That is much easier said than done because none of the social networks are really designed to make that practical but stubborn sort that I am I keep trying anyway.
So on balance I am going to work Insightly for a while - it is missing some things I need, but has other things like the social consolidation that not many tech companies do well. Since syncing with Google Contacts is something they don't do well this is a significant move for me. It means I will have to maintain two sets of contact data and since Google Contacts is so difficult to maintain it is not hard to imagine which will fall into disrepair.
Still, though I always thought my needs were simple and basic, Google Contacts just doesn't cut it. Everything is awkward and time consuming, it is missing really basic features like "tags- and the Google+ Circles Google Groups integration - don't get me stated - is is a disastrous mess.
So for a while I have 'sort of" been using FullContact - it goes out and grabs all the social network links of your contacts and syncs with Google contacts They also have tags and say that one of these days they will integrate their tags with Google Contacts groups, which would be awesome. Their interface is pretty awful and they don't have many sort options - so I can't get the simple "priority sort' I want - why is that so hard?
It drove me to Insightly which has done a lot of things right. Their pricing is "small business friendly" and they allow for a generous 2,500 contacts on their free version. The best part is their social media linking - on the desktop version it is a pane on the right of the screen that shows all the social media accounts for that contact. You don't have to enter those - the systems goes and finds them for you, and there is even a tab for recent Twitter and Linkedin posts (no Facebbook of Google+) yet.
Now for the down side - the Google contacts sync isn't really a sync at all, it is what they call a "one way sync" meaning you have to enter your data in Insightly and then it will copy to a special group in Google Contacts, but I don't think you can then move your contacts to other groups without duplicating them or making a mess of things there, which kind of defeat the purpose of having a sync in the first place. They also don't have many "sort" options so I still can't get my priority sorts.
I probably should have prefaced all of this by saying that several months ago I made a vow to myself to start using social media differently - basically to worry less about platform and to become more "people centric" - in other words, to not depend on "the stream" and instead follow the posts my associates make, regardless of where they make them. That is much easier said than done because none of the social networks are really designed to make that practical but stubborn sort that I am I keep trying anyway.
So on balance I am going to work Insightly for a while - it is missing some things I need, but has other things like the social consolidation that not many tech companies do well. Since syncing with Google Contacts is something they don't do well this is a significant move for me. It means I will have to maintain two sets of contact data and since Google Contacts is so difficult to maintain it is not hard to imagine which will fall into disrepair.
