With the growing popularity of smart phones, electronic contact books, and digitized business profiles (ie: LinkedIn) are the days of the business card numbered?
Is the business card dead?
Do these new technologies bring a transformation in the way we exchange our business contact information and network? Looking back at the progression of contact information from the business card to the smart phone we will see:
- Automated signature lines in email, the creation of V-cards in MS Outlook
- Online professional profiles like LinkedIn, and
- Contact lists in smart phones
In fact the business card is not dead or even dying. In spite of the advances is digital identities you can see evidence of the continued importance of business cards by taking a look at what happens when you join a new company or get a new job. Often before you have had a chance to set your objectives with your boss you are asking her to approve your business card requisition form. And what’s on that form that needs approval? It’s your identity of course. There is a carefully selected title; one that recognizes your progression up the corporate ladder and clearly states your position in the organization. Your business card is the first thing you exchange when meeting new clients, vendors and networking contacts. Before long you have accumulated a stack of business cards and now what do you do with them?
How many times have you seen piles of business cards wrapped in elastic bands, thrown into desk drawers and worse scattered over your office floor. The most productive thing you can to when you get back to your office with a stack of new business cards is enter them into your contact management solution. If you are a Salesforce.com user you will be interested to learn that a new business card scanning solution has been released on the Salesforce.com Appexchange called Scan210. Scan210 allows you to enter a complete contact record into Salesforce by automatically capturing the details on the business card and updating the contact and account information in Salesforce. Scan210 even captures the front and back image of the business card and stores it in Salesforce.com. Users have raved about the simplicity, accuracy and speed of getting contact details from the business card into Salesforce.
Here are a few highlights from our reviews on the Appexchange:
“We purchased card scanners for our NY and London offices and this software has proven to be very efficient in getting new contacts into Salesforce”
“I’ve been using Scan 210 for about one year and have found it to be a big time saver when I get back from a conference with a pocket full of new contacts’ business cards (of all different layouts)”
“Scan210 is an awesome product. It is very intuitive, easy to use, and a huge time saver. It is a “must have” for anyone who uses Salesforce”
To learn more about Scan210 and to read more reviews, visit us on the Salesforce AppExchange.
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