The Right Alternative to Physical Business Card Scanners

Networking is important to make new connections, grow your network, and win new business. Such meetings result in the exchange of contact information, and quite commonly, it’s done in the form of business cards.

Even though there is email and social media, business cards are still the first touchpoint in a physical meeting, and the quickest way to exchanging contact information, and so they will never go out of fashion.

For long, having to input all these contacts in one database manually remained an extremely time-consuming task. Not to forget the times when they stayed crumpled in the trouser pocket, collected dust in a fishbowl, or was forgotten about in the wallet! 

The story is different now. There is no need to manually enter the information anymore. Address books have become digital. For example, ScanBizCards, one of the best business card scanners, will help you digitize your paper contacts – be it simple, complex, or blurry – in seconds.

Some Disadvantages of Using Manual Business Card Scanners

There are different brands of manual business card scanners on the market today. These scanners, also known as digital portable scanners, help to digitize business cards by scanning them into CSV format from where contacts can be uploaded in the CRM. However, they come with their own set of disadvantages. These are:

  • These scanners are called portable, but carrying them everywhere is not as easy as carrying your phone – hence installing a business card scanning app like ScanBizCards on your smartphone is so much more convenient
  • They are expensive gadgets to buy, whereas there are business card scanning apps that are free!
  • Unlike an app that only needs to be updated from time to time, when these gadgets become outdated they need to be replaced – this is an expensive proposition
  • Maintenance of manual business card scanners is also quite an expense on the pocket
  • Unlike scanning apps ScanBizCards that have 3D scanning, manual business card scanners don’t have this facility

Hence, the need for a business card scanning app that can scan business cards with both ease and speed. 

The Characteristics of a Good Business Card Scanner

Simply taking a photo of the business card and scanning it at the computer is not enough. This takes up a lot of time and it also means that you will have to manually enter the details onto a computer or copy-paste it from OCR (optical character recognition) software.

The primary characteristic of a good business card scanner is to cut your workflow time. All you will need to do is to open the app and click a photo of the business card. After this, the app will recognize the text automatically and add the details from the card onto your address book.

Reasons why ScanBizCards the Right Choice

There are many scanner apps available for iOS and Android, on the market today. Here is why ScanBizCards will be your perfect choice.

Powered by OCR Technology

ScanBizCards uses the phone’s camera to scan business cards. After scanning and verifying, the contacts are automatically saved on the phone’s address book.

Works With Conference Badges

This business card scanner doubles as a conference badge scanner – ideal for trade shows and other events because it scans traditional business cards and also works with conference badges. It helps append missing contact information such as email, work phone, company address, and LinkedIn URL wherever it’s available. 

It also doesn’t need integration with the event organizer’s back-end system, you can simply snap and save or send the transcribed badges for Human Transcription.

Easy CRM Integrations

As CRM integration is easy, you can add new leads or update existing ones easily into your database. This becomes a very handy feature if you attend many events that generate a high volume of leads.

Assigns a Contact to a Specific Owner

ScanbizCards is a versatile business card manager. Before you export contacts to a CRM like Salesforce, it allows you to assign a new contact to a specific owner. This is a big advantage if you plan to segment your database to send personalized follow-up emails. It also gives you the option of creating notes for each contact that you save. This is useful as it will help you to remember important pointers about your customers.

Easy to Recognize International Contacts

Other than English, it can recognize business cards in over 20 other languages. This includes German, French, Italian, Greek, and others. Hence, if you have gathered a lot of international business cards, this app will help you save them without any language issues!

Facility of Sending Introductory Email

As you keep adding new contacts to your list, it is prudent to send an introductory email to them. This app has that option. You can send an email with your photo and your contacts to the new contacts on your list. 

Stores Information in the CRM

Most businesses keep track of their customers by maintaining a list in the CRM systems. This is why the app ScanBizCards, the best business card scanner apps, is of utmost importance as it stores contact details directly to CRM systems.

Not Expensive

ScanBizCards can be used by both individuals as well as by corporates because it has the below versions:

    • The free business card scanner app
    • Premium app ($1 for lifetime)
    • Enterprise license ($100 per user / per year)

Offers Unlimited Business Card Scans

It is especially useful to businesses as it offers unlimited business card scans. These can be added to existing contacts or saved as a new contact. 

Manual Transcriptions are Possible

If the automatic recognition of the contact details is not accurate, or the cards are hard to read, or you simply don’t have time to edit cards, you can submit them for manual transcription. The premium version of the app has two manual transcriptions and, if required, more can be purchased.

Supports Various Systems and Formats

    • ScanBizCards supports direct export to CRM systems like Salesforce, SugarCRM, ConstantContact and other popular CRMs
    • In this app, contacts can be exported to the Excel /.csv format
    • You can export data into Microsoft Outlook, Exchange and other email marketing system
    • There is support for third-party services such as Evernote
    • It is available as both an iPhone business card scanner and an Android business card scanner on iTunes and Google Play store marketplaces

Scans Both Sides With Ease

ScanBizCards scans both sides of a business card easily, and you can forward newly added contacts to others.

Searches are Easy

  • It has a unique 3D view ‘cover flow’. This makes searching and sorting of the scanned business cards a simple and quick task.
  • The app can scan signatures from your connected email accounts. These are then converted into email contacts. This is especially useful as there may be contacts in your emails that have not been added to the address book yet.

Summing Up

ScanBizCards is unarguably the right alternative to physical business card scanners. Try it today and you will know how quickly and easily you can convert your business cards into actionable leads.