subject: Customer Database: The Backbone Of Your Customer Relationship Management [print this page] Customer relationship management has become a very important aspect of running a successful business. In a highly crowded market, customer retention is given as much importance as expansion of customer base. Especially when your competitors are many, customers can switch loyalty any time. This is why it has become so important to convert customers into loyal customers. And in developing a customer relationship management system you will find a customer database quite helpful. Also known as marketing database, such a database is specially developed to store important information of your customers for future use.
So, what sorts of records are stored in a marketing database? You can store data such as name of your customers, their ages, date of births, addresses, telephone numbers, emails addresses, designations, office addresses etc. You can also record the products your customers buy. A marketing database can help in building a good rapport with your customers in many ways. For example, you can send across a simple birthday or anniversary wishes to your customers. Such little gestures can go a long way in pleasing your valuable customers. Again, a user database or a marketing database can be helpful in direct marketing. When you have information such as telephone numbers and email addresses, you can directly market your products to them. Also, you can inform them of special offers and discounts. Better still, such offers can be made on auspicious days such as birthdays and anniversaries. Your customers will also feel valued and given personal care. These subtle tactics works fine in retaining customers.
Another area where you can use a marketing database is in targeted marketing. This database gives much useful information which can be analyzed to deduce certain statistics and facts. For examples, using the data from the database, you can find out what sorts of products are popular with a particular group of customer. If one of your products does very well with a customer of a certain age group, you can especially target this customer group. Promotional campaigns can become more effective with inputs from your database.
Alpha Software develops several database programs which can be used to increase your sales and in customer relationship management.
