Customer Data Base

[SPECIAL LOCATION]

Just pondering a few of my customers and how they got to know of me...

i.e. I have a some customers where I have lost count of the number of subsequent recommendations that have stemmed from the one original customer...

Along with all the usual sort of customer info..

do any of you keep a note of how they first contacted you..

e.g.

verbal recommendation from customer or another trader..

Your own personal paid for advertising.. (e.g. Yellow pages etc..)

Indirect non-paid for advertising, (maybe neighbour hood watch/parish magazine)

Personally meet customer while working elsewhere..

Name from label on CU at property customer moves into

etc..

etc..

Do any of you then keep any records of quantities for each type of initial contact

Total number of repeat jobs from a customer..

and values of work secured..

etc..

etc..

Have been considering this for a few years now...

not got round to it yet...

But with 12years worth of self employed customers I am getting more curious to see how the data breaks down..

So do any of you keep any extra customer data base records..

If yes.. what do you use...

Proper database application or just a spread sheet?

Guinness

 

[sellers]

no, but thanks, just starting doing a spreadsheet of my jobs, date, quote, final price, address contact etc. so will add that field in.

 

[NozSpark]

I not commiting to anything as I don't want the Data Protection Police after me

 

[Andy™]

i did once have a list with address & where they got into from. lasted about a 2 month, but it didnt get used much

 

[Zeespark]

I have a heading named contact type on the informal estimate sheets I do, ie recommendation, builders name etc. IMO its essential that you know this as you can then find out what forms of advertising are the most productive.

AndyGuinness

 

[SPECIAL LOCATION]

Indeed..

I keep a mental sort of note

I am pretty good at remembering customers & how they first got in contact

but don't have anything in black & white

and I couldn't say easily what percentage are Word-of mouth

& what percentage are advertising etc..

Also get into the realms of Multiple addresses for the same customer..

Same customer moves house 3 times I do work at all there houses?

So do I record by Property or customer?

I also have a some properties that have Multiple customers...

old customer moves out...

New tenant becomes a new customer.

:| ut the kettle on

 

[sellers]

Thought I'd drag this up, this is now my second year in business and I have started keeping a customer/job database. Each job is numbered, and then I can reference invoices and quotes.

Nearly being 2 weeks since the new year I have had 17 Jobs in total.

6 have been existing customers, so around 35%

8 have been recommendations, so just around 45%

3 have been from a local booklet that goes out once a month, so around 15%

0 have been from my yellow pages add

0 have been from my website, but that does usualy get a few a month

 

[SPECIAL LOCATION]

This is very relevant info when deciding where to spend you advertising budget....

This does beg a question..

Say customer 'X' was recomended by customer 'Y'

But customer 'Y' originally came from Yellow pages.....

so Inderectly customer 'X' only came about due to Yellow pages advert that customer 'Y' read!

?

Do you need some record for inderect origin of contact???

Also....

How am I going to to log certain customers...

ie. some of my customers have been at 3 or 4 addresses?

So on the one hand the customer Name is the Key record...

In the other hand the Address is the Key record....

I have some customers who I have done work for at more than one address..

But both relate to either!!!!!!!!!!!!!1:O:|

 

[Apache]

So do I record by Property or customer?

I also have a some properties that have Multiple customers...

old customer moves out...

New tenant becomes a new customer.

:| ut the kettle on

Just record by name. All quite simple. If they move, update their address.

We can search our computer by name, part address etc. Would be easy enough to set up a spreadsheet and have some stats work them-self out automatically.

We give our powers of memory more credit than we should, write things down and you won't forget.

 

[sellers]

Customer X may have indirectly come from the yellow pages, but their prefered method of finding a contractor would be from a recomendation. Whereas customer Y's prefered method is the yellow pages, if you get me.

My job database includes

JOB NO. - JOB DATE - CLIENT - ADRESS - JOB DETAILS - CONTACT - LEAD - PRICE - DATE COMP - FINAL COST - PAYMENT

I use it also for quotes then I can see how many quoted jobs I missed out on. When a job isn't completed the row is white, when job is completed and not yet invoiced row is yellow, when invoiced and not paid its red and when paid green. I also highlight blue when quoted for.

 

[Apache]

Do you mark anything up for follow up? Ring them in 10 years when the next PIR is due?

 

[SPECIAL LOCATION]

Just record by name. All quite simple. If they move, update their address. We can search our computer by name, part address etc. Would be easy enough to set up a spreadsheet and have some stats work them-self out automatically.

We give our powers of memory more credit than we should, write things down and you won't forget.

Yes all very simple if you are only interested in the customers..

and where they currently live..

however when working on an electrical installtion...

It is often the actual physical address..

and its electrical installation details, certificates etc..

that is just as relevant..

NOT just who happens to be the person occupying that address when you did some work there..?

If doing some fault finding on a job, or planning some alteration work..

some background info about how a particular circuit has been altered can be very valuable knowledge.

So it is more than just the current occupier that carries a significant relevance..

Also some customers only have one or two jobs to their name..

Other customers where I have regular maintenance amendment work have getting onto 50 or 60 jobs relevant to them....

but I also want to view stuff by calender year and / or financial year...

when considering annually turnover costs profit etc..

Also work quoted for .. but not gained..

or quoted for partially accepted.

Quoted for.. gained plus extras

and record of these costs greater or less than equal to the original quote..

But also want to know the total value of work per customer..

Average value of jobs complete..

Average value of jobs lost..

And as a reference over a 12month period and/or as a running total since started trading ...

etc..

etc..

Just to add...

I am more than aware of the simplistic needs of a basic data base..

But the longer I am in business for, the more frequently more complex considerations crop up...

and the harder it is to remember AND cross reference all relevant info relating to the particular consideration I want to select by...

One of the various Open University courses I have taken AND passed is Relational Databases (M385)

So I know what I want to do...

But none of the current applications I have FREE access to can give a fully cross referenced database with with ALL the various key searches and sorting I am looking for.

:|

---------- AUTO MERGE Post added at 01:28 ---------- Previous post was at 01:22 ----------

Do you mark anything up for follow up? Ring them in 10 years when the next PIR is due?

See theres another bit...

This info relates to the address NOT the customer..

same details can be relevant to alarm system with internal batteries to replace every 4 or 5 years?

However...

If you did happen to know original customer had moved to a new location...

You could have a property with an alarm system you installed 3 years ago,..

who technically Is NOT yet and has never been a customer?

So what customer name do they come under????????? ?:|

D'you begin to see where I am coming from???



its NOT just a list of customer names with their current address!

 

[sellers]

I understand you SL, You can do some fairly good trick with formulas on exel.

Mine is a job list not customer list. Name is the person paying for the job, could be landlord, contactor or owner, if a different person lives at the address their name goes in the contact list.

For example I have entries where client is a local plumbing firm, but contact is mrs smith and her address. Then the next week when she calls me direct, she is the client of that next job.

 

[Sidewinder]

Specs,

Have you tried the Open Office database?

Is it any good?

 

[kme]

SL:

IF you find a way to design one; or even want another head to try and work it up with - I`m interested

And if you DO crack it - I volunteer as "beta-tester"

 

[SPECIAL LOCATION]

Specs,Have you tried the Open Office database?

Is it any good?

No and dont know..

respectively..

Guinness

 

[Apache]

SpecLoc - I won't quote you as it was a big post, but you basically want something like our practice management system!

Each owner has a 'card' with their name and address, we can also add up to two further addresses and names if it's an unmarried couple or they have a holiday home. We can specify where to send the bill for example.

In each card each pet has a page where it's details all go, this could easily translate to individual jobs or job types. Alternatively Mr Landlord could have a card for 1 green lane, 2 green lane etc. When we enter work we can flag up recalls for booster reminders, but that could always be changing the alarm batteries.

If an animal moves owners we can transfer it and all it's relevant history to another card [including any reminders set]. This is the same as transferring a house's history to a new owner [who you would make a new card for]. The history that is transferred is 'closed' to editing but remains as a ghost on the old owner so it can still be seen.

The system has various means of analysis, from average transaction values, work quoted that gets billed etc.

We can do it with pets, a lot of what you want we can do with animals. If you get my woolly parallels?

 

[Sidewinder]

Specs,

Oo DB, as far as I know can do all that Access can do, but without the bloatware.

IF you have an OU email still, & mine works evern several years after completing my studies, you can get student priced software...

 

[baldelectrician]

I don't have a database (data protection when on a pc)

I do keep diaries which have contact details, description of works etc

I also log where they got my number.

 

[Sidewinder]

Yep Canoeyboy same deal!

Got this for my kids for their computers!