![[Goldmine box]](../../../graphics/r00086i1.gif)
When
you hear the name Goldmine, it sounds as if you were going to play some
wild west adventure game. In some ways Goldmine for Windows is an adventure,
an adventure in increased sales and customer support. Goldmine is contact
management software. It has the typical contact information (i.e., name,
company, address, & phone number) and appointment schedulers, but due
to its object oriented structure it allows data to be related to other
data and also allows for strong customization of fields and data. It features
a powerful remote synchronization and transfer procedure, allowing mobile
salespeople and technicians to keep a central database updated. Goldmine
can be integrated with your favorite Windows word processor and is E-mail
enabled. Companies that use telemarketing to call and solicit new customers
will love the scripting features, so will companies that maintain a help
desk that answers questions from customers or routes calls to appropriate
departments for sales or service.
The primary method of using Goldmine is through a contact object. Since Goldmine is object oriented, this contact object is a group of information all related to one primary contact person, don't let this fool you into thinking that for each and every person you talk to a one company will need their own contact object. You are able to add secondary contacts to a main contact and keep these secondary contacts related. If at some future point in time you feel the need to turn one of these secondary contacts into a full contact object of its own, all you have to do is select a secondary object, right click and select the appropriate menu. Goldmine is right-mouse- button aware resulting in smart menus that pop-up wherever you are in the program.
Goldmine includes a report generator that has dozens of predefined reports. Goldmine also has a group scheduler. Imagine having to schedule a meeting with a half dozen people. You reserve a room and an overhead projector only to find out that several of the attendees has some sort of conflict ¾ or the only time which will work for everyone, you discover the room you need is unavailable. Goldmine helps solve these kinds of scheduling proglems if everyone in your office uses it to indicate their daily schedule. Even equipment and meeting rooms can be scheduled for use.
Manager's, have you ever wished that you knew the status on call-backs to customer accounts or wonder whatever happened to that new referral. Who called, when, and what happened with the callback? Goldmine's activities and scheduling functions will allow you to track completion based, not on a preset style, but on activity codes that you predefine. This illustrates one of Goldmine's major strengths: the ability to customize and expand lookup tables and frequently used activity codes (functions) as you need them. By creating your own codes for activities, you can perform statistical analysis to analyze your businesses performance and determine needed areas of improvement ¾ or even areas of hidden potential revenue.
Goldmine is available in single-user and network versions. There are versions for DOS, Windows 3.1x and Win95. In brief, Goldmine is a fully-featured, network able, customizable contact manager that includes workgroup features, group scheduling, and strong data-synchronization. Goldmine is available through most mail-order companies and is sometimes found on the shelf at your favorite software store. The single user version lists for $295.00 and the 5 user network version for $595.00. For questions contact Goldmine Software: 1(800) 654-3526, (310) 454-6800, Fax (310) 454-4848. http://www.goldminesw.com
As testimony, I personally discovered a few new, and admittedly a few
old, contacts using the program.