Over the years you may well move office or change contact details on a number of occasions. However, if your clients don't know you have moved or can't get in contact with you, you could be loosing them, or at least, upsetting them.
You're probably answering this with a comment something like, "We'll send them an email or a letter!". Of course you will, but how many of your recipients will actually take the time to update their contact system such as Outlook as an example?
The truth is, very little, but when they do need you it becomes a mad panic and in the worse case scenario, it means a lost opportunity for you.
Wouldn't it be nice if you could just automatically update your contact details in your clients CRM systems or Outlook contacts lists?
Unfortunately, I don't know of a way to do this yet, but here are a few suggested remedies for the problem.
- Update your Linked-In profile with your correct contact details.
- Ensure your website and email signatures are updated and ALWAYS, include your signature on ALL of your emails. Yes, even replies and forwards.
- When informing your clients of your move send them a vCard contact file.
You can create a vCard easily in Outlook, I'm sure the process is similar in other systems also, but I'll demonstrate it here.
Firstly, create a new Contact in Outlook and fill it in with all of the information you wish to share with your contacts. You have space to add your home contact details and date of birth etc. However, just because you can, doesn't mean you have too!
Your screen will look something like this;
Next, pull down the File menu and click Save As.
Now find a location on your computer to save the vCard to. Don't forget to change the "Save As Type" to vCard or vcf file.
Click Save, and there you go. You now have your contact details nicely packaged in a vCard which you can email to your contacts and they can quickly and painlessly import into their contact system.
By the way, they can import it as easily as double clicking the vCard and their contact system, like Outlook, will guide them the rest of the way.
We hope this helps and happy moving!
