This is a quick post based on my experience using CloudContacts. I first heard about CloudContacts a few weeks ago and was intrigued. In a nutshell, I think of CloudContacts as a business card scanner as a service (as opposed to business card scanning as a product offered by CardScan). The process for getting your cards into CloudContacts is pretty straightforward:
-Put 700 business cards in a large plastic bag
-Put said plastic bag in a FedEx or USPS envelope and mail it off to them
-Pay $181.20 for the privilege of having my business cards digitized and make available for easy import into many systems. That broke down to about 25 cents per card scanned.
-Wait a few days until you get an email telling you the digitized file with your cards is available
CloudContacts was a fair deal – not cheap, but a good value
I could have bought a new card scanner for about $200. Instead, I chose to use CloudContacts. I’ve used card scanners in the past and I found that about 80% of the cards I scanned came in 100% correct. For data purity reasons, I often had to manually review all of the cards I scanned. I’m not sure whether paying $0.25 per card was the right price, but it struck me as relatively fair and conformed to my own Kinko’s principle (the Charles Hudson Kinko’s principle states that I’m willing to pay a premium for stuff I don’t want to own but do want to use from time to time; I expect to pay a premium for scanning, printing, faxing, etc but don’t expect to get gouged).
The results CloudContacts produced were MUCH better than what I was able to create by manually scanning cards by hand. I’ve been flipping through the results I got back from CloudContacts and so far I have yet to find a meaningful data error in the 700 cards they sent my way. They also gave me a wide variety of file formats to choose as well – I opted for Highrise and the import was flawless.
Good customer service along the way – As an aside, I had a bunch of questions during the process and Allen from CloudContacts provided timely updates and answers to my questions. I found it very reassuring.
I am pretty pleased with my first experience with CloudContacts. It strikes me as a good business that charges a fair price for a good product.
Thanks Charles! I am glad you found the service valuable – we are continuing to add more features – for example, we just tied in Relenta CRM and are working on Tactile CRM now. More to come…
— Allen
Good work CloudContacts! This seems pretty expensive though – I use a similar service called Shoeboxed where I get a year's worth of business card and receipt scanning for about the same price – and the postage is paid. (http://www.shoeboxed.com)
This is a good tool to use! Although. business cards are still useful for meetings, etc., this is very helpful in removing clutter an for organizing your contacts. Thanks!
Nice service but over-priced. Scanning cards in your own printer and then sending them in (or faxing) should be more efficient.
Thanks for the suggestion! CloudContacts does look like a great solution.
I thought about this concept very interesting.
I thought about this concept very interesting.
Very interesting, this topic is interesting, I think that the business cards are a best option share more about us.