business contact management

Contact managers are programs business contact management small software that enable people to keep track of their associates and tasks. Contact managers are used by salespeople, customer service representatives, and managers.

Contact managers are related to calendars, but integrate email and personal file information (phone numbers and addresses), with task lists and histories of interactions.

Examples include ACT!, Maximizer, and GoldMine. The market for contact management software has weakened since the late 1990s, when Microsoft integrated basic contact management features into its Outlook email and PIM program. Even on the Macintosh platform, Apple began including PIM, calendar, and to-do applications with its operating system in 2002. Many small business contact management developers of contact managers have consequently gone out of business or been taken over by other companies.

In order to differentiate themselves from Outlook, business contact management software more fully featured contact managers have moved into the realm of customer relationship management (CRM) software.