Datasheet

Customer contact and education

Outlook Contacts is more than a telephone black book; it’s an information

center to track your relationships and activities. You can attach related docu-

ments to the Contact record for easy access, record recent phone call high-

lights, create anniversary reminders, store personal information about clients,

and even build an active telemarketing application. It also has 18 one-click

actions, including dialing the phone for you, to save you time. For more infor-

mation on working with contacts, see Chapter 4.

Sales and fulfillment activities

Analyzing lost orders can, for many companies, reveal where follow-up has

been neglected. When calls come into the inside sales department or when

outside salespeople come back to the office, they often don’t record a cus-

tomer’s pending issues. Later, when the order comes in, the issues may be

overlooked. Salespeople aren’t paid merely to send quotations to customers

but also to follow up on their needs and to understand what’s required to get

a customer to commit and the deal closed. But salespeople often get bogged

down under the flow of everyday activities and lose their focus on the cus-

tomer, which reduces the number of incoming orders. Opening a Task for

each pending quotation and setting pop-up Reminders for next actions can

help keep salespeople on track. You can use Reminders for an internal request

or just to touch base with customers. For more on tracking sales activities,

see Chapter 14.

Procurement

Procurement for office supplies is easy. You can order through the Internet or

catalogs or simply go to a store or a supplier’s warehouse. But besides these

simple orders, how do you control a step-by-step order from an international

supplier? How do you control a project being developed by a new supplier?

Outlook Tasks can help remind you to place a new order, even if you’re work-

ing in a corporation with tracking software. Tasks can help you track special

projects or actions. Associating the appropriate contacts for each action, you

can easily call or send an e-mail while you’re working with the task on-screen.

Financial and organizational control

Mailing a check is a task often put off or delayed by something else, causing

the unpleasant “Hi, did you send the check?” phone call. You can remember

to make monthly payments by using recurring reminders.

Part I: Managing Any Business

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