With the year almost done, many retailers, whilst clearing the decks of customer issues, will soon be spending time over the break thinking about 2014 and what they can do to improve business next year.
I had a press release through over the weekend from a French PR company about two new products they have just released. As you can imagine, I get loads of stuff like this as my name ends up on mailing lists for anything to do with interiors, not just kitchens and bathrooms. At least I’m guessing it was for me, an email address captured at some show in Europe perhaps, and it’s certainly not Bitsy Windsor writing to wish me a Merry Christmas!
But the postcode and email address is right, so at least it got to me – so is this an abject lesson in how important it is to spend the time keeping good data on your customers?
They knew my name and address, of course, but did they also keep data on what newspaper I read, whether I’m still in the industry. And what was their motivation for all this? Was it to ensure that they, as the sender, allocated the required number of press releases to “journalists” around the globe – did they get the information to the right people?
Can the average kitchen or bathroom retailer say the same? How much data (whether kept on computer or filing cabinet) do they keep on past customers that is genuinely useful for the future? With so much business is done through recommendations can you call up all the details of the customer that has done the recommending?
Do you make notes on whether they have kids? A dog perhaps? I met one retailer recently who notes the age of the client’s kids so that when they hit 18 or 21 a mailing goes out that says something along the lines of “Kids left home? Now’s the time to think about that new kitchen…”
Do you have a system that flags up the anniversaries of customers’ installations? Another retailer used to send birthday cards to the kitchen or bathroom after one year and five, so simple but a great little nudge to keep them in mind for the future.
For many small retailers, the answer to many questions about data like this is probably “yes, it’s all in my head”. Of course you remember Mrs Smith from three years ago and exactly what products they had – you probably even remember exactly how much the bill came to.
But that’s just memory, it’s not valuable data. If you wanted to sell your business, or grow and take on new staff then usable data adds value – what’s in your head is not a resource for anyone but you.
So what do you do? What data do you keep and how? And if you’re a supplier rather than a retailer, do you agree that retailers should keep more detailed information? Let us know?
Oh – and Paddo – thanks for the title – never forget you constantly saying that!!
