Keeping Track of Customers
Author: Scott Davidson
August 2007
To remain competitive, companies must continuously evolve and grow.
For example, one smart plumber, when late to an appointment, would make up for his tardiness by walking the dog or picking up the yard. His creative and thoughtful gestures set him apart from the competition and garnered terrific customer satisfaction. Happy customers tell their friends. He helped create strong growth and loyalty for his company through customer retainment and referrals.
Keeping track of customers will increase customer retention and create lifelong clients who will also benefit through improved direct communications. Technology automates the process.
Retaining customers reduces the need for marketing costs involved in acquiring new customers. Credit card companies will try to retain a customer if there’s an issue because they know it will be much more expensive to win a new customer than to keep a current one.
Having a system in place also merges and resolves “islands of information,” whether they result from software or people that haven’t distributed knowledge to others. A customer-tracking system can increase employee collaboration, as well.
If a company has a salesperson who brings in a lot of money and may be traveling on a long flight to another country to meet with a customer, that person is “off the grid” for an extended period. If another customer calls and usually deals with that particular salesperson, the business needs to make sure that there is shared information with the entire team so the customer can be serviced. Also, businesses need to make sure that accumulated knowledge is kept inside the company if the person with the expertise leaves the company.
A proven system also allows for increased efficiency with organizational skills and gets employees back to selling products or goods instead of focusing on communication and data issues.
And finally, tracking customers can increase profits. Having loyal customers helps you reach the bottom line, reduces marketing costs and improves efficiency.
The 80/20 rule suggests that, if you can define your critical few customers and target your marketing directly to their needs, it's likely to pay off big time. The cost of acquiring new customers, according to many surveys, runs eight to 10 times more than the cost of keeping existing ones. So you get a stronger return on your marketing dollars and better sales by focusing on 20 percent or so of your top-tier prospects.
By using a customer relationship management system, you can track all interactions with your customer, including phone calls, e-mails, tasks, projects and targeted marketing initiatives. When interacting with customers, use your tracked data; then, when someone calls, you know their history and any issues. You can use a predefined system or create one yourself.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a complete customer relationship management Solution, that works on a SQL server for those that have Windows Small Business Server premium edition. The solution enables businesses to consolidate all of the customer information they collect in a single location so they can create a clear picture of customers from first contact through purchase and post-sales.
Another option is Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager, which can both capture customer intelligence and provide the easy access needed to mine customer information effectively. Business Contact Manager has seven pre-formatted account reports, including accounts by rating (great vs. marginal, for instance) and neglected accounts, with such immediate information as who buys what and how well they pay.
Within the activity history, you can go beyond simple contact information to consolidate all interactions for a given customer or account, including e-mails, tasks, appointments or sales calls, notes and other documents. Further, you can easily create customized reports with criteria of your own choosing or, if needed, export those reports to Microsoft Office Excel for further analysis.
The home screen of the Business Contact Manager is inside of Outlook, so the systems work together and provide all company information in once place. It also has the ability to connect with financials so salespeople can create new quotes or a new business opportunity. When you create the opportunity, you can directly invoice it in Office Accounting 2007. This allows businesses to track sales through entire process, from lead to account to additional opportunities after the sales process closes to invoicing.
Using a tool like the Business Contact Manager allows a company to track every interaction with customers, which will reduce costs, retain customers and free your time to make more sales and connect with new customers.
For more information on Microsoft Dynamics CRM or the Small Business Edition, you can visit the Small Business Center at www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness.
About the Author: Scott Davidson is the Heartland Area General Manager for Microsoft’s Small and Mid-market Solutions and Partners (SMS&P) group, which consists of Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee.
