Page 137 - 100 Great Marketing Ideas (100 Great Ideas)

to integrate all the data on customers into a single database.
Interestingly, this showed that some customers appeared in the
company’s databases more than once, perhaps under a slightly
different version of their names (for example, Alan Smith might be
recorded as A. Smith), so effort was being wasted on contacting the
same person more than once.
The new, combined database was cleaned (old addresses removed)
and de-duped (duplicate customer records removed). As a result,
Carphone Warehouse staff now have an up-to-date, accurate,
and comprehensive view of each customer available in real time,
if necessary while the customer is in the store. This enables the
staff to identify opportunities for cross-selling, and also to identify
customer need more accurately.

In practice

• Find out what information exists on your customers, whether it

is on computer or not.

• Combine the databases and remove any duplications or obsolete

addresses.

• Ensure that confidential information is only available to those

who really need it by password-protecting those parts of the
database.

128 • 100 GREAT MARKETING IDEAS