Profiling Customer Data
The customer experience is no longer just about the experience they have with the product / service and the people in the organisation. The customer experience encompasses communication.

So how can the communication you send give you a competitive edge? The first step is to start profiling the data you have, so you can customize or target the communications sent. It’s not just a list. Building a database is a good start, but it’s not just about putting a list of customers into a spreadsheet and sending out a mail.

Think about the details and what value you could offer by gaining more insight into your customers – their likes, dislikes, interests and buying habits, for example.

Capturing the correct data
Once you embark on capturing more data about your customers, you should think about the following points:
  1. If you’re not going to use the information – don’t ask for it.
  2. You need to consider ways in which you can enhance the data you already have, and how to phrase the questions.
    For example, are they interested in reading about cars or driving them? The way they answer the question could give you insight into what communication would be most valuable.
  3. Remember that your data ages
    For example, don’t request age, by asking for their age bracket. Rather ask for birth date or ID number, if you can justify it.
  4. Validation of answers are important and should always be built into your profiling questionnaire.
    When writing the validation code, you need to put yourself into the respondents’ shoes and think of all the ‘funny’ ways that they could enter the data – or not.
  5. Most important for a questionnaire: start at the end first. Decide what you want from your data and your reports and design your questionnaire to support that.
  6. You should consider capturing your data at every point of interaction, so take note of the data you have collected from responses to invitations, conversations with sales staff etc., and enhance your data with the new information.

Using the list effectively
Once you have a list that you can use for your communications, decide what you want to say and what your goals are and match the message back to the appropriate customer segment.

You should try sending targeted communications to your customers, based on their profile. This means that only certain customers receive the communication. So for example, if your customers have specifically told you they play golf, you should send them communications focused on golf, including invites to golf days.

This will result in customers getting communications that are relevant to them, not just all the general marketing messages. You can also customize your communications, this means that if you send a newsletter out every month, certain sections are only seen by certain individuals, based on their profile.

Keeping up the momentum
Once you have captured enough data to identify trends within your database, you can create a long-term communication strategy. Don’t let your data go stale by not using it.

You can use the profiled data and create campaigns according to your marketing objectives.
Getting the correct data is a lengthy process and should be tackled one step at a time. You can’t be all things to all people and you need to start somewhere. There is never a time like the present to start profiling your data, so you can send targeted and customized communications.