{"id":14942,"date":"2017-03-02T10:06:16","date_gmt":"2017-03-02T17:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onehourmarketing.com\/?p=14942"},"modified":"2017-03-02T10:06:16","modified_gmt":"2017-03-02T17:06:16","slug":"customer-database-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onehourmarketing.com\/customer-database-1\/","title":{"rendered":"CHECKLIST: What information to include in your customer database"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"lead\" align=\"left\">Your prospect and\u00a0customer database is perhaps the most powerful marketing and research tool you have to grow your business.\u00a0 Here&#8217;s a\u00a0checklist to\u00a0make sure you are capturing the right data.<\/p>\n<p>It is highly recommended that you use contact management software (or customer relations management management software, sometimes called &#8220;CRM&#8221;) to\u00a0capture and record information.\u00a0\u00a0 Software can really improve your ability to not only keep an up-to-date database, but also provide easy ways for access reports, lists and further\u00a0streamline ongoing communications with your prospects and customers.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Here are some suggestions of what information you should be gathering:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Contact names.<\/strong>\u00a0 You&#8217;ll want to include a primary contact (name of the individual), but you&#8217;ll also want to be on the watch for\u00a0any key names or titles at the business, and record them.\u00a0This assures you have multiple points of contact of those that might be part of the decision making process to use your services.\u00a0 It also serves as a back-up\u00a0should your primary contact ever leave the company.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Job title and job definitions.<\/strong>\u00a0 Get the official titles of any of your contacts\u00a0 (double check to make sure they are correct).\u00a0 Also, if possible, make notes on what their job descriptions are (that is, what are they responsible for).\u00a0 This information can be helpful to refer to later if you need to make contact with multiple people in the company.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Demographic or psychographic information.<\/strong>\u00a0 Having a sense of the age, background, likes\/dislikes of your prospects or customers\u00a0can be important in improving communication with them.\u00a0 As you have discussions with your contacts, if they express elements of their background, experience &#8212; or if you are able to gauge some information on this buy observation, make some notes in your database.\u00a0 Many times, especially with prospects, it&#8217;s helpful to have these notes on hand to refresh your mind of these details before making the next\u00a0follow-up contact.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Name of company<\/strong>.\u00a0 Be sure to get the right spelling and format of the company, so that it will appear correctly on all of your letters, faxes, etc.\u00a0 For example, is it &#8220;XYZ Technology&#8221; or XYZ Technology, Inc.&#8221;\u00a0\u00a0 Pay close attention to these details, as making a mistake can make for bad presentations later in your communication to a prospect or customer.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Address.<\/strong>\u00a0 Get both the physical and the mailing address if they are different.\u00a0 Make note of which address they prefer you to send them anything to.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Methods to contact them.<\/strong>\u00a0 this should include any alternative ways to contact the customer such as\u00a0phone numbers (including cellular phones, if applicable) email addresses, website address, fax numbers, etc.\u00a0 As your relationship evolves with the prospect or customer, be sure to keep updating your database if you receive new ways to potentially contact them down the road.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Buying history.<\/strong>\u00a0 make sure to make notes of the date of the first purchase, subsequent services, amount of sale, and any other transactional information.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Source of lead.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 if the contact is a prospect, be sure to keep track of how customer initially made contact with you.\u00a0 What is from another customer&#8217;s\u00a0referral?\u00a0\u00a0From a direct mailing you did?\u00a0 Or a booth at a conference or trade show? Code this into your database for later reference.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Source of sale.<\/strong> \u00a0When the prospect makes his\/her first purchase,\u00a0record (if applicable) any effort that they may have responded to.\u00a0\u00a0 Did they respond to a an email or follow-sales letter you sent. Or\u00a0 telephone call.\u00a0 Tracking this information over time will help you identify what methods of follow-up are most effective in generating first-time revenue from a prospect.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Special needs of customers.<\/strong>\u00a0 capture and record any special needs that the prospect or customer indicates to you as part of your ongoing communication with them.\u00a0\u00a0 This is important information that can be used later to expand or alter your service offerings.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Customer comments.<\/strong>\u00a0 Be sure to keep track of any comments from customers, whether they be complaints, testimonials, special requests.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Payment history.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0Make sure to log any important details on the customer&#8217;s payment history.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Your prospect and\u00a0customer database is perhaps the most powerful marketing and research tool you have to grow your business.\u00a0 Here&#8217;s a\u00a0checklist to\u00a0make sure you are capturing the right data. It is highly recommended that you use contact management software (or customer relations management management software, sometimes called &#8220;CRM&#8221;) to\u00a0capture and record information.\u00a0\u00a0 Software can really [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v18.5.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>CHECKLIST: What information to include in your customer database - One Hour Marketing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/onehourmarketing.com\/customer-database-1\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"CHECKLIST: What information to include in your customer database - One Hour Marketing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Your prospect and\u00a0customer database is perhaps the most powerful marketing and research tool you have to grow your business.\u00a0 Here&#8217;s a\u00a0checklist to\u00a0make sure you are capturing the right data. 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