Here’s a newly improved Web-based CRM tool we use daily keep tabs on clients, prospects and friends: Network Hippo, formerly called Dex. (The old name created a bit of market confusion with other products bearing the same name.)  But it’s more than a name-change. There are new features and functions that go well beyond what you’d find in other relationship-management tools.

Network Hippo is among several platfoms in a suite of services from Ottawa, Canada-based Mercury Grove. (Here’s the company’s press release.) The new release of the platform focuses on relationships first, empowers individual users, and leverages social networking for companies and individuals to develop strong long-term networks. The CRM application is the culmination of business productivity tools,  relationship algorithms, the latest Web technology and social networking.

Unlike traditional CRM products that track sales data and basic contact information, Network Hippo evaluates the strength and influence of individual relationships with contacts to find new opportunities, strengthen relationships, and learn more about key people in their network. If you’re a one-person operation, it’s useful for managing your priorities. If you work in a group — as we do — it lets you know instantly who else in your organization has connected with your business contacts, what the nature of the contact was and what follow-up is required.  And, like any good CRM tool, it reminds you when it’s time to reach out to clients, prospects and friends you haven’t talked to in a while.

“Network Hippo is an extremely smart personal and small business CRM system that gives professionals time to focus on building relationships, not building databases,” explained Scott Annan, Mercury Grove’s CEO. “If information about your contacts is on the web you can find it in Network Hippo.”

Perhaps best of all, Network Hippo belongs to the individual user, not the firm. “When you leave a job, you take your contacts with you” said Annan.  ”It represents a real ‘win-win’ between companies and professionals.  Both benefit from a system that focuses on relationship building, not stockpiling information in corporate information silos.”

Network Hippo provides constant feedback to users on the health of their professional relationships through a contact rating system, and by monitoring how a person uses the system, their business transactions, and by importing their e-mail and phone logs.  It provides weekly status updates on important contacts, and reminds users when too much time has passed between interaction. This personal CRM system is free for individuals, Network Hippo charges a small monthly fee to business users. 

Mercury Grove is a Web business consulting and software development company with offices in Ottawa, Canada; Cincinnati, OH; and Lexington, KY, with consultants and staff located all over the world. 

Disclosure: Network Hippo is one of several products in Mercury Grove’s suite of services. We use several of them. The company didn’t ask for this testimonial nor are we receiving any sort of remuneration for it. We point out the product because we use it, like it, and think you might, too.