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Last year, Ixact Contact gave Inman a glimpse into a new user interface that was set to launch by the start of 2018.
Well, software development sometimes takes longer than planned, but today, users of Ixact Contact are finally seeing what we saw back then, along with a few new creative features.
The user interface (UI) delivers on the promise to modernize its look and feel, offering users a range of options to organize their work space.
The left-hand modules menu (dashboard, tasks, keep in touch, business pipeline, etc.) and the right-hand contacts search menu can be collapsed to display only icons, dedicating more real estate to where user activity is centered.
What stands out about this customer relationship manager (CRM) is that while helping agents stay in front of contacts remains its mission, it doesn’t use an overwhelming, Excel-like visual as the launchpad of functionality.
Instead, access to leads and clients is made possible by a ubiquitous, somewhat minimalist search sidebar. While subtle, it’s designed for maximum effectiveness, using an alphabetized list or top-level search field to track down and access actions for leads and contacts.
Another way to access the people most pertinent to your revenue is through Ixact Contact’s Business Pipeline feature, a color-coded graph that categorizes individual records based on lead status. Contact categories include: hot; current; new/unqualified; past-active; long-term prospect; and unassigned, among others.
A new lineup of widgets is now available. These are static images that illustrate critical facets of a user’s business. Use them to get a micro-report of current and pending business, lead source breakdowns, closed business or referral business.
Ixact Contact has also launched a goal setting and tracking module. Using a 15-question survey, the software prompts users to look deep into what they want to accomplish each year, ranging from total revenue to percentage of listing presentations that result in contracts and from total number of contacts to weeks of vacation planned.
It’s a unique, innovative approach to holding oneself accountable to business growth, and it’s probably better than vision boards or reciting morning mantras on your way to work. It puts in hard copy where you want it to be, and it automatically tracks how close you are each time you log in.
One more new feature — for another $20/month — is Ixact Contact’s Social Stream. The new feature provides a wide range of content that stems from the paid content feeds of popular online news sources.
Subjects include cooking, health, technology, news and a host of others. Once topics and sources are selected via highlighted buttons, posts will run automatically three times each day.
When clicked from Facebook, the source article opens in a branded agent page, complete with contact form, and if desired, a forced lead capture window. This could be a little heavy-handed, but it’s nevertheless a good tactic for keeping a brand in front of an audience.
Ixact Contact also included a robust email marketing engine with detailed reporting and a social intelligence report to pull in publicly available lead information.
Ixact Contact may not have rolled out its new features and interface as fast as hoped, but the wait seemed well worth it.
Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe.
