An App Designed to Make Customers Happy

Small Business Spotlight: Insightly

Who: Anthony Smith, @insightlyapp

What: A desktop and mobile app that organizes customer information and communications by integrating with email and Google apps

When: 2010

Where: San Francisco, CA

How: When employees leave a business, they generally depart with their Rolodexes – and all knowledge of past customer interactions and histories. That doesn’t have to be the case, though, says Insightly CEO and founder Anthony Smith.

Insightly integrates with email providers, Google Apps and calendars to manage shared lists of customers and contacts for businesses, and provide the ability to save all correspondences in an intuitive, organized way. With all previous interactions saved and filed, new employees can quickly brief themselves on past customers and quickly improve their customer relationships, says Smith.

Within three months of launching, Insightly had 10,000 customers, says Smith. Now, 125,000 companies in over 100 countries use the desktop and mobile application; the majority of businesses that use Insightly have between 1 and 30 employees, according to the CEO.

Quote from the founder: “There’s not only one industry that can benefit from a customer-relationship management tool. A recent survey showed that our customers include real estate agents, doctors, dry cleaners, small-budget film producers, accounting firms, lawyers and more. We have a pretty good representation across the board with small businesses.”