System helps track contacts

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An innovative Web-based system for tracking sales leads and handling customer contacts could help small businesses and entrepreneurs play in the same league as large corporations. It's called "Nice Office," and even if you are not in sales, it offers some unique advantages.

At the heart of Nice Office -- available on the Web and, right now, via BlackBerry hand-held devices -- is a way to keep track of your contacts. Whether it's calling, sending e-mail, sending a brochure or meeting for lunch, everything can be "journaled," or recorded, instantly. The data is available to a company's executives as well as the person working on the contact. When used with a wireless device, it can note the length of phone calls, for example, which can help lawyers and other professionals who bill by the hour.

The Web service is free to small businesses and entrepreneurs; the wireless-service price is $19.95 per month on top of what you pay for your mobile service. Along with BlackBerry, Nice Office soon will be available for Hewlett Packard's iPAQ and Palm's Treo phone/PDA combo.

With that, you get access to a system that is updated constantly, no matter who enters the information or where it's done. Instead of waiting to compare paper notes with an assistant, that person can book an appointment for you while you are in a meeting, and the data automatically is sent to the wireless device. Conversely, you can enter new appointments, log meetings and phone calls or send e-mail from the road, with everything being available back at the office.

This can help small businesses protect one of their greatest assets -- the knowledge that walks out the door every evening. If a flood or hurricane hits, or if your company's top performer is lured away by the competition, all is not lost. Instead, it's protected on server computers maintained by EAgency Inc., the firm behind Nice Office.

There have been and still are other applications for tracking this data, many of which interact with hand-held computers and even wireless devices. What I like about Nice Office, even if I don't happen to sell cars or insurance for a living, is the automatic synchronization of information, as well as the ability to use the data in an interactive fashion.

In a test arranged with the firm, I used a BlackBerry to send a brochure in PDF and make a phone call to a "prospect" whose information was captured on a small business Web site. The whole process took about 10 minutes from start to finish, and that was with a tutor helping. Once learned, it should go much faster.

Sending a brochure by e-mail from the BlackBerry was a neat trick aided by Nice Office's "publishing" feature, with which a user can put certain files -- brochures, contracts, price quotes, or whatever -- into a part of the Web site where users can select items to be mailed; the BlackBerry taps into this and, presto, the file is on its way.

Bob Lotter, EAgency's chairman and chief executive officer, calls the system a "time machine" because, he said, having these capabilities can add a day's worth of time to your week.

"Lots of deals don't happen because when you're sitting there in the room, you don't have access to the things you need," he said. "You have to make a follow-up appointment, do more research, or get on the phone and say to someone, 'Fax this to me.' "

Details are at www.niceoffice.com.

• E-mail MarkKel@aol.com or visit http://www.kellner.us.