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KnowingYour Customers
Once you've been in business for a little while you will have a pool of existing or past customers. This pool is one of your biggest assets and one way of using this asset is to find out more about these customers, their experience with you and what they think.
The reasons for doing this is are several:
Finding out about your customers should be an on-going activity. Follow-up with customers who have
made major purchases, include questionnaires with bills, make a point of personally speaking with some of your
customers from time to time and make sure complaints are handled well. But even if all this is being done there
will be gaps. Even small businesses which have the intention of carrying out all these activities will occasionally
fall behind with their customer information.
One way to up-date your files is to send out a questionnaire to all your customers or at least to your best
customers. It should deal with your services, the customer's work, the customer's satisfaction with your company and a comparison with other companies. To increase the response rate you will probably have to offer a discount or other small gift but, once the information is in, you can target your existing customers for new business and you will have a much clearer
idea where your new customers are likely to come from.