What is it? 

Contactually (www.contactually.com) is one of the most useful platforms for prospecting and follow up, combining CRM, email and reminders into a super sexy and integrated tool.  Where it won’t replace your current email or client relationship management systems, it will take the most usable features of each and blend them into something simple and effective to use.

How it works

After the first steps of account creation, a new user is provided with instructions to connect their email (Gmail/Exchange accounts supported) and social networks, (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin).  Contactually will immediately start scanning your past email threads, social network conversations and contacts – pulling them all into the system automatically.

Based on your frequency of past communication with these contacts, Contactually starts recommending follow up actions and adding them to your “to-do” reminder list.  Let’s say you corresponded with Jon James two weeks ago, but didn’t email him at all last week.  Contactually will add this to your “recommended actions” for follow up.  Future correspondence on the Contactually platform, email or connected social networks will be tracked and logged into the contact’s profile.

Now the system won’t know that certain clients are “hot” or “sellers”, but Contactually creates “buckets” and tags contacts with additional information to create customized follow up groups.  Users can categorize contacts through an upload, one-by-one or their excellently gamified system, “The Bucket Game” which makes grouping your contacts quick, easy and fun.

Follow up is a piece of cake as all historical conversations are tracked inside the system for your reference.  That means you can actually SEE that you talked to Jon via Facebook regarding listing his home in September and then decide to continue the conversation on Facebook or follow up via email.  Other features that simplify follow up are:

• A browser chicklet that allows you to bookmark articles to share
• Custom templates for your most frequent follow up types
• Sharing of saved articles amongst others on your team
• A daily email reminder of your follow up actions.

The Good:

Where Contactually is not a full blown CRM platform, (yet!), it does provide the most frequently used features in a slick interface that’s easy to setup and use.  A recently released a mobile application for iOS/Android allows for “on the go” follow up and integrate with some of the most popular CRM and email marketing tools, (Salesforce, MailChimp, Wise Agent, etc.).

The Bad:

Don’t overcommit on your daily “to-do” actions out of the gate (these are customized in your dashboard).  It is easy to get overwhelmed by suggested actions.  Heed this and Contactually will become an integral part of your business.

The Bottom Line:

Contactually has identified one of the key hurdles in the daily life of a real estate agent, “Who do I need to follow up with and why?”  All agents KNOW they need to follow up with past clients and contacts, but waste tremendous amounts of time trying to remember who.  Contactually fills this need through simple recommendations based on user preferences while allowing the conversation to occur over different mediums, (email, social, etc.)

With a little time and setup, Contactually can provide everything from the most basic of reminders, (i.e. past clients and referral sources) to online lead follow up and referral networking.  In my book it’s a “must have” for the price point and functionality it provides.

 Tech Specs:

• Premium Tier ($19.99/mo.)
• Small Business Tier ($39.99/mo.) – adds custom templates and bulk email
• Enterprise Tier ($99.99/mo.) – adds custom integrations and auditing
• iOS- and Android-compatible; Web based so works with any system
• To purchase https://www.contactually.com/pricing