Adaptable tool for building and tracking relationships with contacts
Updated April 08, 2015
Adaptable tool for building and tracking relationships with contacts
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Highrise
I work primarily in the Integrated/Creative Services department of Cabot - we use Highrise to manage our Social Media and PR contacts. In the last three years all of the Marketing Department has been trained to utilize it; now it is used to manage our many contacts, from our farmer owners to bloggers to market managers. We also track outreach efforts (community organizations, partners, etc) and communications with Highrise. I was with Cabot Marketing when we still had a rolodex of our contacts; Highrise has made communication and management of contacts manageable and efficient. Now, when the VP of Marketing remembers a non-profit director she met at a conference who she wants to send a sample of cheese, we can search with a handful of tags and find the contact easily. When we are considering asking a celebrity chef or a blogger for event work, we can look back through email communications and notes to gauge our relationship with them, or search for geographic or other tags to narrow down the best fit for the job. Because it is related to Basecamp--the primary tool for tracking and managing vendor jobs and marketing campaigns--it is ideal for our work.
Pros
- Easy batch upload of new contacts - if you gathered names and contact info for a bunch of people at an event or conference or what have you, put it in a spreadsheet and upload it for easy and efficient adding to the database.
- Simple communication and outreach tracking - each user has an individualized dropbox email address; you can BCC:, CC:, or forward an email to or from a client or contact, and Highrise automatically associates and records that email with the contact in the database.
- Task assignments - users can create and task assignments associated with specific contacts (ie - Send Suzy J. a gift box on Oct 1; Follow Marla K. and Billy Z. on Twitter & Facebook; Get an updated address from Nathan R.)
- Tags - easily create lists of contacts who fit certain needs (I need a: food blogger, in TX, who has a Facebook page - we have "food blogger", "TX," and "Facebook" tags in our system) that is then exportable; also useful for knowing the important associations of a particular contact.
Cons
- Tags - Keeping the entire Marketing Department on the same base with Tags can be difficult. It would be great if the administrators could generate a list of tags from which other users could choose, rather than every user have the ability to make up whatever tags they want. We have policies within the Department, but inevitably not everyone does what they are supposed to!
- Field customization - Unfortunately you cannot delete or change the standard contact information fields, BUT you can add additional ones, which is nice.
- Highrise has been integral in developing relationships with bloggers
- Highrise is user-friendly and easy to introduce to even the less tech-savvy employees in our department
- Highrise has created an efficient and easy digital space to track our relationships with marketing contacts in a way that we could not have done ten years ago, making our relationships with partners and friends of Cabot all the more meaningful
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