Can Improving Customer Database Management Make You More Money?
February 8, 2022 | Read: 8 minutes
There’s no doubt that winning new customers is a wonderful thing, but a good customer database management strategy can help you get more out of repeat customers, too!
After all, in the long run, repeat business can often pay very handsomely…
There are a number of ways to improve your customer database management strategy, and it’ll make engaging your current customers easier than ever.
With some planning and patience, keeping customers around will become second nature.
You’ll see retention increase and the return on your investments will increase, too.
Below, we’re running through some of the best ways to use your customer database to find more success.
1. Customer retention is more cost-effective than acquiring new customers
There are simple solutions you can use to better attract, retain, and encourage repeat business from your customers. When the data you use is easily accessible, benefits won’t be far away.
It’s a big part of why nurturing customer loyalty should be an important part of your business strategy. However, it’s also something that a lot of businesses are struggling with.
If that includes you, then you’ll be pleased to know that there’s a solution!
While it makes sense to both attract and retain customers, you need to think tactically. There are times when caring for your current customers may trump the need to go out and find new ones.
After all, it’s expensive to acquire a new customer:
It costs five times more to gain than retains customer than it does to keep a current customer.
Constant Contact
That’s no small margin.
And when you compare this with the fact that repeat customers (especially very happy ones) are more likely to use your services again and they’ll even spend up to 67% more than a new customer, it’s easy to see recognise the positive impact this will have!
How to use your customer database effectively:
Making more money shouldn’t come from the result of the hard sell or sneaky tactics, like dragging out a job to increase customer spend. If you want to specifically target customers you’ve worked with before, your customer database is essential.
With it, you can see which customers are best suited to your targeting efforts—such as sending a service reminder query for a yearly check-up.
You might also want to consider reaching out to recent customers to request reviews and collect feedback.
You can even use this as an opportunity to subtly prompt them to consider looking at other services on offer!
Whether you choose to incentivise customers as well, is up to you. But by offering a reward for completing a review, for example, you’re more likely to get their attention.
Of course, giving a minor incentive, like a 10% discount on their next service, has the potential to reward you. Not only have you secured another job, but you stand to get a great review.
Review requests could yield valuable information about how to improve your business. All whilst enabling you to promote your services and attract new customers (though more on that below).
A simple thing can unlock a lot of potential!
2. Create lifetime value with better customer database management
We can all be a little lazy. It’s why we’re often tempted to go for a quick win over long-term gains.
But while £1000 as a one-off today sounds great, we all know £500 a year for the next ten years is better.
This is especially true if you secure repeat business from multiple customers: your potential to earn increases exponentially. As such, you need to make sure you’re establishing Lifetime Value (LTV) for your business.
LTV is especially important as you continue to expand. It should definitely have been on your mind when you first started out, but long-term profitability must be placed ahead of short-term wins. Whether you’re in plumbing & heating, HVAC, electrical, security, or something else, it’s this focus that will keep you afloat and thriving.
The LTV is the amount of revenue your business will generate from a customer over the lifespan of them working with you. This could start with a simple boiler service.
However, depending on how you nurture your relationship, that could turn into a new boiler installation, or even a whole bathroom!
Maximising the LTV might seem like a lot of effort, but it really doesn’t have to be. Not if you’ve developed good practices and are taking advantage of a range of automated processes that help save you time. With efficient processes and a reliable CRM, you’ll be prepared to take care of your customers. That’s whether you have 10, 1000, or shoot for even more!
Part of this success will still depend on how well you market your value to customers. We mentioned automation, and one excellent automated process is the use of service reminders. They will provide a touch-point with customers; even just once a year, it can be enough to trigger a result.
3. Retaining customers will help you attract new customers
By collecting reviews and incentivising customers with simple but effective marketing, you’ll inevitably find more customers who want to work with you again.
At the same time, you can use these reviews to attract new business.
In fact, you might even find customers have already started to spread the good word, as SuperOffice reports:
According to Esteban Kolsky, “72% of customers will share a positive experience with 6 or more people.”
A significant part of retaining customers has to do with referrals, so if you’re already doing a lot to create happy customers, good news may already be spreading. But the same goes for bad news, so you must be careful! The same report suggests that:
“If a customer is not happy, 13% of them will share their [negative] experience with 15 or even more”
Doing some damage control can help here, too, and it’s as simple as asking a customer to get in touch! Make sure you say something like: ”If you’re dissatisfied with our service, please tell us. We’re eager to deliver a great service, every time.”
Something as simple as that can save you a lot of hassle, and even turn a customer who had negative comments into one who’s happy to share their experience of how you helped them!
With your database, your staff can see and share information, so they’re better informed and can deliver more appropriate responses (with improved customer service) to help keep customers happy.
Of course, if you don’t ask, you don’t get.
Whether you ask online, over the phone, or even at the end of the job, reviews are critical to all field service businesses. This is especially true as more and more consumers are making purchasing decisions based on reviews.
It’s increasingly important to collect reviews and help show off the work you do.
4. Don’t rush to improve customer database management
The instant reward of booking a new customer can be great but sustained, incremental benefits will certainly be more worthwhile.
“Patience,” they say, “is a virtue.”
And while retaining customers can be easy with improved customer database management—you need to think long-term and be patient.
We’ll admit that this isn’t always easy. After all, it’s easy to grow tired of a customer who only seems to engage your services for simple, low-margin jobs. However, if you do these smaller jobs well, the customer is likely to put you at the top of their list when the time comes to install a new boiler or refit an entire bathroom.
Time is often just as significant an investment as your money. So, make sure you’re continuing to invest your time wisely and build on your relationships to become stronger. If you do, you and your customers will come to see the benefits.
You’ll find that customer database management gets easier because even though the data you have grows, it’s collected and shared in a much more organised way—especially when using great job management software. As such, the quality of that data and the things you can achieve by using it will improve, too!
A more proficient database will help with everything from improved communications, to automated interactions, and even customer self-service as well!
That’s especially if you’re using additional tools like a customer portal. This can link directly with your customer database and give customers the ability to access their data and save you time.
“Today, 67% of customers prefer self-service over speaking to a company representative [that’s because] when a customer has a problem [they can solve it themselves]. In the long-term, it’s this sort of technological investment that will help you improve customer experience.”
SuperOffice
Improve communication with better database management:
People are smart; they won’t go blindly with any old business. They want a good reason to use your services.
By using your database, you can make sure you’re acting on accurate information that gives them a good reason to stay.
Communication plays a huge role in how you appeal to customers, which is why we’d encourage you to use our The Customer Communication Toolkit.
These comms are designed to help you transform your customer journeys and unlock even greater potential for your business:
