Customer Keepers Keep Customer Data
If you want to keep your customers, you better figure out who they are. There’s no room for guessing games, only for the need to merge technology and customer contact into accurate records. The success of your company depends on convenient, reliable access to customer details, and your database makes that happen.
This customer database that is critical to operational and retention marketing programs is not the sort of thing you can just leave lying around untended – as if it were exercise equipment turned into a clothes hamper. You’ve got to get in there and work those database muscles.
First step – be active in input. Collect names and information, especially during your busy season, so that you’ll have them for the big retention push that follows. Elevate this need.
Unless you’re the only one who comes in contact with your customers, you’ve got to get cooperation from everyone else on your team. That means you need to promote its importance company-wide – while establishing rules for who can actually input and what kind of information you are seeking.
Understanding the database technology is essential, obviously, but it’s also as important to address the human side of the process – such as the need to confirm data with the customer while still on the phone. Not everyone is trained for this sort of task, or appreciates the importance of accuracy in a phone number or email address (when inaccuracy renders them useless).
Recognize, too, that your customers are living active lives, thereby creating outdated details in their records. Be sure customer records are checked with each contact and updated to reflect changes. Conduct periodic reviews of your database and run reports to find duplicate entries (which wastes postage) or missing records (such as zip codes). Fix any errors you can.