As a marketer, the more you know about your clients, the better. But the more data you store, the more difficult it is to keep it organized. Develop a database in which you can fill the first and last information about every single customer, but at the same time nothing and no one gets lost in it. Don't know how to do it? We will tell you about it in the article.
What is a customer database
List of all customers or leads with information you have about them. In the database you can also have a history of communication with the client or documents that you have exchanged.
A customer database can take the form of a simple directory of names and phone numbers or email addresses. But it can also be a sophisticated system full of data from the customer's name to his hobbies to his favorite wine. In short, everything you could ever need for mutual communication.
What customer information to record
The more information you have about the client, of course, the better. But you have to start somewhere. The most important information is:
- Contact information – company name, registered office or billing information, information about contact persons with whom you communicate in the company. RAYNET CRM will make it easier for you to enter this information - just enter the ID number and it will add the rest from the ARES database.
- Technical data related to the offered product – record everything you need to know to offer the client the right product. For example, the size of the company, the field of business or how their internal processes are set up.
- History of communication with the client – that is, what you are dealing with together, all e-mails, notes from phone calls or meetings. You will always know what you can offer, what clients were interested in in the past, or what a colleague dealt with.
- Sales history and documents – for planning and evaluating the trade, it is good to know how much you sold to the client, which offers he rejected, what he buys the most, or how much money he usually spends with you per quarter.
- Events – regular calls or meetings to keep track of what's happened and what's coming up. In CRM, you link events to a calendar that alerts you to them.
We wrote about important data for customer records in a separate article.
Why work with a customer database
Thanks to careful recording of all data, you will always have an overview of what is happening in the store and with clients. In short, you cannot do without a client database as a trader, it is your external memory.
If you develop a quality database that you will use well, you will also put your business under even greater control. Because:
- you can better estimate how the business will look in the following month or year,
- you offer clients relevant products,
- you can easily filter or segment them - and send an offer only to those you haven't contacted in the last year,
- you remember what the client mentioned in the past and what he might be interested in now,
- thanks to this, customers perceive that you know them well and pay attention to them,
- they feel good with you and are all the more likely to shop with you or recommend you further
How to register a customer database
There are different options for recording data. For smaller companies, simple Excel spreadsheets are often enough. Or maybe just a list of contacts on paper.
But if you have more clients, record more information about them or expand the team of traders who work with the database, the tables become confusing and you will have to reach for a more sophisticated tool.
A popular solution is CRM, i.e. a system for managing customer relations. All customer data is concentrated in it, with which it is then convenient to work further.
Customer database software
You can easily store all information about customers and leads in CRM. Systems today often work on the cloud, so you can access data anytime and from anywhere. Thanks to easy filtering, you can find the clients you need in just a few clicks – without digging through a lot of data.
However, CRM is not just a tool for keeping track of customers. It can do more:
- it serves as a calendar and reminds you of scheduled meetings, calls and tasks – for greater clarity, it links them all to specific clients,
- it records the complete history of the relationship with the client and facilitates customer care, because each of the colleagues can immediately see what has been dealt with the client and what they can follow up on,
- enables evaluation and reporting – click, for example, if you want to see how many clients you have at which stage of the sales funnel, and in no time you have a ready-made graph and clearly processed numbers as documents for a meeting or for the boss,
- it frees your hands by automating routine tasks such as filling in data, sending emails or creating offers and contracts - traders then have time for the actual business without spending hours on paperwork.
Customer records in CRM
Make your business easier and transfer your client database to our RAYNET CRM. You will find all the mentioned functions and advantages in it - already within 30 days, when you can try them for free and without obligations.
