Customer Database:

Customer Database is the foundation of any CRM programme.

Today’s businesses are better placed for creating versatile customer database:

Today in most businesses, customer data flows in routinely. Customers feed in a good amount of data about them into the records of the company at the first contact itself that all transaction details automatically form part of the records. For example, a mobile phone customer provides to the phone company, right at the start certain basic information about him. Once the transaction commence, more and more details about him become available to the company. In fact, the company details of his incoming and outgoing calls are available to it. It also knows which value added services, promotional schemes and cross selling deals were of interest to the customer. Similarly, a customer of a credit card company provides the company a good amount of basic data about him \ and once the transaction start, the company knows how much the customer spend through the whole year, it will become an excellent database that is rich in content and capable of being used to great advantage, not only by the companies concerned but also by others in the marketplace setting out to acquire customers.

Customer database has to be comprehensive, up-to date and functional: The three most vital requisites of a good customer database are-

• Comprehensiveness
• Up-to-datedness
• Functionality

Comprehensiveness:

The customer database has to be comprehensive. In fact, it has to be so in two senses. It must cover all the customers and it must have all essential information about them. In practice, many data base do not meet these requirements in some others, essential details about the customers such as income, size of the family, and the products (durables) he already owns are not available. The reason is easy to discern. Though a lot of information on customers and data flows are routine in the today’s business, many firms fail to capture them.

Up-to-datedness:

Once the company puts a customer database together, it needs to keep updating it. After all the customer is a very dynamic entity and when the marketing environment is also highly competitive and fast changing. Updating customer data naturally that is up-to date and relevant, minimizing the wastage arising out of obsolescence and data irrelevance is a necessity for the firm.

Functionality:

The customer database should be functional as well. Though most companies appreciate that customer database is crucial to CRM, many of them do not appreciate that database must be functional. For instance, grouped by age, life style, employment, attitude and loyalty the database must be capable of being sliced and diced at will. Once then it can be described as functional.