Contact Solution Required - maybe CRM

[byronyasgur]

Hi,

One of my customers asked me about setting up an email newsletter but i think that what he needs might be some kind of CRM system instead. I know very little about these but i'm sure a good CRM system would be capable of sending out an email newsletter as well as storing customer data

The situation is that his customers fill out cards with various optional details on them eg email, mobile number birthday and anniversary date. He inputs these into a basic database system which tells him who's birthday/anniversary is coming up and displays the contact info which he is using to manually send out birthday/anniversary gift offers. Essentially he wants me to automate this process. I was thinking that a fairly good CRM system would have something like this built in. I could build a system that would give me this with email but doing the same with SMS might be a bit beyond my coding skills and I was thinking that a system must already exist that would be capable of it anyway, so if anyone has experience of CRM systems maybe they could help me out.

 

[mneylon]

How is the contact data being collected?

 

[byronyasgur]

his customers fill out cards with various optional details on them eg email, mobile number birthday and anniversary date.

 

[mneylon]

As in actual physical cards?

 

[byronyasgur]

yes the customers write them out - physical

 

[mneylon]

The obvious issue I'd see with that is that you'd have to physically input them into something
On the plus side it means you're pretty much free to use just about any CRM you want, as you won't have issues with formats etc.,

 

[byronyasgur]

thanks - no the physical input is not an issue - it's something he's doing himself anyway and he's always been happy to do that .......... what i'm after is some system that will automatically email and/or sms a contact when it's approaching their birthday or anniversary with a pre-built email or text .... do they all do that.... i didnt think so