News and Updates

Agent is Born

Peter Atwood, 1 Feb 2022

A year ago, I was leading the communications team for a startup and went looking for a cheap, flexible CRM we could use. Having spent my career in Comms, there were specific features I wanted, and I found nothing that suited my needs.^*

Coincidentally, my life-long project of improving my coding skills had brought me to the point where I thought I could build the CRM I wanted by myself.

Here we are a year later; the startup I was working for is in the dustbin of failed companies, and Agent is born.

The key features I wanted are:

It should be as simple and as obvious to use as an address book.

I wanted the whole company to use it, not just the sales staff or the communications staff. If it was too complex or if it buried the basic address book beneath the cruft of CRM doohickies, no one would.

It had to have an agenda field.

This has been a productivity hack of mine for decades: when I think, "Oh right, I need to talk to so-and-so about whatchamacallit," I don't write it down on a to-do list. I add it to an agenda I keep specifically for that person. That way, when I next see them or talk to them, I can pull up the agenda list to make sure I don't forget to mention anything.

Meeting histories.

It's easy enough to look through your emails or WhatsApp or SMSs to see what you last said to someone on that platform, but so much more convenient to be reminded of what happened in your last interaction irrespective of the platform, including phone calls and In person meetings.

When a colleague asks, "Where are we at with so-and-so?", it's helpful to have your notes from your last meeting right there in the person's contact card without having to hunt through your calendar, notebook, or project file (or all three!).

Lead tracking.

And naturally, Agent lets you track leads through your sales pipeline, but in a simple, flexible way. The User Guide has more detail on this.

On to something?

I've been using Agent as my main address book (and CRM) for more than six months while developing it. Inevitably updates introduced bugs, and even crashes, and for those short periods when it was out of commission, I realized just how much I relied on it.

I take this as a sign that I'm on to something.

Comments and feedback are welcome at info@scribbleindustries.com.

^* Obvibase and Less Annoying CRM came close.