Who you know can’t help your business without maintaining good relationships. $25 billion spent every year on CRM software in attempt to build relationships with new customers and show the love to existing clients gives us a good idea of just how important personal connections are to success. That huge amount might also explain why the humble quest to better manage contacts has seen so many would-be champions suit up for battle lately.
Picking up the gauntlet at the start of April is Triggerfox, a “mobile address book for professionals.” Triggerfox unifies a user’s contacts – from social media accounts, phones, calendars and email – into one address book. Currently the app is available for free download on the iPhone.
Hardly the only company that integrates contacts from various networks (Connect springs to mind), Triggerfox looks to also make it easier to interact with contacts. User have the standard options to email, text, and call, as well as the opportunity to send files, invitations, and follow-up replies.
Triggerfox goes even further when it comes to personal touches by allowing users to share handwritten thank you cards. More than organization, ease of carrying out appropriate and thoughtful follow-up actions is the heart of the app.
For old-schoolers who still appreciate business cards, Triggerfox can also incorporate information from cards after snapping a picture. Automatic updates spare users from the trouble of manually adjusting information – a real time saver given the more frequent changing of positions in today’s workforce.
Leading the effort is Founder and CEO Frank Falcone, who previously worked as a CRM Product Lead at Microsoft and as Program Director at the Rotman Executive Centre for CRM Excellence. His experience taught him the importance of maintaining healthy relationships and revealed to him the need for a better contact management tool.
Falcone explains, “The reality is that when it comes to building real person-to-person relationships, traditional CRM software has often failed. CRM systems were built to house mostly transactional data and not personal relationship insights. The simple truth is that people buy from other people – not from companies. I believe thoughtful acts of generosity are the key to building strong personal and professional relationships.”
He is not alone in his belief. Triggerfox received $1.8 million in seed investment from angel investors based in Toronto and Boston, including Dharmesh Shah, Co-founder of Hubspot, and Wayne Chang of Twitter.
Since mobile devices have become the runaway choice for both personal and professional communication, it makes sense to have an app with the flexibility to respond in a variety of ways. Visit triggerfox.com to see if this newcomer is the tool for you. Follow the startup on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
