Just a few decades ago, businesses used paper-based address books to maintain customer contacts. The address books were well organized – contacts were arranged alphabetically based on characteristics such as name, company, and even department. But with technological advancements, things have changed.
Over time, the concept of maintaining contacts has shifted from using pen and paper to using contact management software and smartphones. In simple terms, contact management involves organizing contacts and ensuring that they are up-to-date. This offers numerous benefits to businesses. For instance, it makes it easy to retrieve contact information and makes it possible to access contact details anytime and from anywhere.
Even so, contact details can be scattered in different applications. With most people using different communication channels, there is a need to place all your contacts in a single location. The process can be tedious and time-consuming if done manually. To overcome this challenge, here are 5 ways you can sync your smartphone contact list automatically:
- Get a Good Contact Sync Software
To automate contact syncing on your smartphone, you need to get a tech solution. For instance, if you use Microsoft Office 365, the global address list feature located in its exchange server will store your contact information. However, to sync your smartphone contacts, you will need to get a sync software. If you do not get such software, you will be forced to use manual processes to sync your contacts – which is both costly and time-consuming. Adopting this strategy also results in revenue and productivity loss.
There are companies that use custom apps to solve this issue – but this approach has its own weaknesses because it comes with few functions and is often not scalable. For Microsoft Office 365 users, a Global Address List Sync iPhone solution can go a long way in solving the problem. GAL sync is a software that facilitates automatic contact synchronization. It also syncs calendars and notes on smartphones that companies give to employees.
The syncing process is fully automated – which means you don’t have to change settings each time a new contact is added or any time you modify some information. In addition, when you add new devices to the organization, an updated company GAL is included in them.
- Update Your Contacts in Regular Increases
The best way to sync your smartphone contacts automatically is to check your sync software and ensure that its settings have been configured correctly. This may feel tedious to do in the beginning but it facilitates automatic synchronization later on. In addition, it reduces the amount of money you spend on data by curbing your charges. To get these benefits, you need to configure your updates so that they occur incrementally. Alternatively, you can synchronize only the contact information that you change. By doing this, you get the data you want as soon as it becomes available.
- Use a Centralized System
To synchronize your smartphone contact list automatically, you need to have a centralized administration system. This enables each phone in your company to get global address list updates immediately. This happens as contact sync platforms use control over settings that enable administrators to share sensitive information and contacts to people with the necessary clearance.
Further, the settings play an important role in accelerating the delivery of GAL to any new smartphones that are added to the company network. This is generally because no manual tasks are available in new or reformatted smartphones to sync the global address list. Contact synchronization is also not limited to a few contacts. When you have a centralized contact management system, you can share as well as synchronize as much information as you wish to each smartphone that is owned by your company.
In addition, contact updates can be scheduled to happen several times each day – not just periodically. This enables you to leverage your contact management system to boost customer interaction and management of their data.
- Set Up Distribution Groups
When syncing your smartphone contacts, having distribution lists can save you a lot of time. It does this by making it easy to target contact updates to specific groups. This means you only get to make changes only when you have modified contacts.
It also eliminates the need to sync contact details from the ground up, which ensures that your lists get updated.
This happens automatically – which means you don’t have to take any action.
- Run Data Filters
Once you set your contact software, you will require minimal configuration to keep it running. However, there are some settings that you will need to tinker to streamline your contact list synchronization. For instance, you can sort your legacy data then filter it to remove contact details that are no longer relevant to you from the syncing process. Besides removing unwanted contact information, running data filters enables smartphone users to reduce storage space.
