A database is handy when you want to effectively manage your customer information. You might not need one initially; however, once your business starts to soar or you want to make sure you provide the best quality customer service. After all, you have a much better chance of being able to sell something to an existing customer.
Nevertheless, the effectiveness of the database will greatly depend on its users. If you don’t know how to configure it for your organization, it will become an expensive waste of money, not to mention the time an effort you and your staff invested in it. Just so you can transform your expense into an investment, you may want to take note of the following tips. They aim to produce a database that is convenient for you and even for your sales team:
1. Get down to the basics. A database is made up of fields or labels, where important data is placed. For example, since your customers have names, fields may include first, middle, and last name. More often than not, a lot of people abuse the use of fields, by over designing labels that are not really necessary for their business. The information that can be entered has no bearing on your business or how it runs. Therefore the first rule for a more effective database management is to simply stick to the basics. It will remove all the confusion that may set in once your sales team starts using it.
2. Prioritize e-mail addresses than phone numbers. When you are gathering contact details from your customers and prospects, you should ensure that you can get e-mail addresses. One hundred percent of Internet users have at least one active account. If they are not frequent surfers, you can still give it a try. This is because e-mails are far more cost-effective than calls. You can also dedicate some time in drafting marketing material that will entice your prospect or customer to buy from your business. Most of all, there’s a huge chance that your customers will respond better to multiple e-mails than multiple phone calls.
3. Remove unnecessary entries. As part of going back to basics, you need to get rid of duplicate records. These are records that have been entered more than once. You really have to settle for one alone to make sure that no 2 sales agents will end up talking to the same person. You also have to eliminate those who have fervently expressed disinterest in your business. You would know it by the feedback they provide to your sales team. Spending time, money, and effort will simply be a complete waste of time.
Normally, you will have to do this manually, which can be time-consuming and tedious. With proper techniques such as data cleansing, it becomes a lot easier. You can also pick a customer management software that allows you to update data in real time. This way, you will be alerted whenever the same entry is being added or better still it can compare and concatenate the customer data.
