Designing
and building the database:
delivering the technical work
Ensuring that it is constructed from the point
of view of its eventual commercial viability
– not by “techies” remote from the
revenue-generating or cost-efficiency ends of
the business
Critical
information required:
Product/service
profitability: creating a workable “80%
level of correctness” which can be
implemented – and not getting bogged
down in unhelpful detail with cost allocation
A
single customer/client view: uniting all of
each customer’s accounts
Prioritised
ranking of customers by profitability (based
on the information above)
Ensuring that customers with high profit potential
are not ignored
Identifying
important trends (e.g. key clients whose
profitability or order levels are dropping)
Identifying
key sales leads – or “alarm bells”
indicating customers starting to take their
business elsewhere
Generating
marketing material:
using the analytical information to steer the
ongoing marketing activities and expense
Focusing
the marketing material on the key client/service
areas
Stopping
the production of generic marketing that treats
all customers as equally important, and fails to
speak to individual customers’ known
circumstances and buying patterns as revealed
by the data
Creating
a mechanism that allows direct marketing
activity to be readily evaluated and improved
upon
Implementation:
utilising the sales staff / customer service staff
There
is a critical linkage between management info,
marketing and the sales force
Failure
to unite these three areas is at the heart of
cross-selling failure – and the motivation
behind large-scale and usually unsuccessful IT
installations
The
key is in transmitting information, clearly and
quickly, to the important customer contact
points – and ensuring
that it is used
