One tool in maintaining and organizing contact with prospects is the Next Call Date located on every Prospecting record. The basic action of simply entering a date for next contact is fine but when coupled with the Change Key feature it becomes a well organized method of follow-up.
Let’s begin by changing the way the module sorts Prospecting Records.
From Prospecting > Commands > Change Key
The default sorting method in Prospecting will be Prospect Key and will always revert to this method whenever entering the module regardless of which method you may have set during previous activity. For this example, select Next Call Date followed by OK.
Commands > Find
All Prospecting records are now listed in order of the Next Call Date. In this tutorial data there are far fewer records than you will likely be working with but you can still see the effect of changing the key. First, any records void of a Next Call Date are listed, followed by those with Next Call Date entries; of which, only one currently exists. In the Next Call field enter today’s date.
Notice the record nearest to the date you have entered has now been highlighted. Double-click on this record.
With the complete record now visible, you would attempt to contact Mr. Gill, update his record with appropriate notes and details and finally reset the Next Call Date for future follow-up. Let’s say we tried to call Mr. Gill and found that he was on vacation and would not be back in his office until next week. First, Click on the Add History Entry button to create a note recording the contact attempt:
Don’t forget to complete the note with your operator code or initials and finish by selecting OK.
Now, click within the Next Call Date field and change the date to +7 and Tab. This will reset the date to one week from today.
With our follow-up complete for this contact for now, we would move on using the Next feature and continue to do so until we have addressed all current Next Call Dates.