企业如何利用客户数据推动销售？

关于你的客户，你该知道和记录的数据有多少？你该如何处理搜集来的这些信息，还有多少算是太多？

对于这些问题，每家企业都都必须找到自己的答案。以下是我们这家规模100人的库存管理软件公司寻求解答的方法。

我们竭尽所能，搜集与业务有关的所有客户信息，范围从用于识别我们产品是否符合客户需求的几页报告，到数十页详细的信息，甚至包括姓名和公司职务等个人信息。这些数据都进入主要客户关系管理的数据库，以方便我们定期、积极运用。

我们绝不会分享或出售这些数据。但我们成功的秘诀在于，以非常人性化和个人化的方式使用这些信息。我们尝试让客户经理每个季度都亲自给每位客户打电话，这么做的目的是要听取客户建议，以“调整”我们的软件、服务和流程，也就是了解我们可以增加什么、考虑什么，甚至可能是要减少什么以节省成本。当我们用这种方式使用数据时，客户一般都很愿意为我们提供更多有用的意见。

我们估计，使用精准的客户信息，让我们增加（或维持）10-15%的收入。在经济衰退时期，10-15%几乎是我们整体利润，是否能保有这些利润，全都依赖我们搜集的信息以及使用信息的方式。

我们也使用客户数据来决定产品开发优先顺序和产品特色。例如，数年前，我们得到来自客户的重要反馈意见：他们希望能够改善公司管理客户退货商品软件。根据这些信息，我们制作了一个测试版的软件供他们使用，借此了解客户使用软件核心功能后的想法。我们以为客户会说：“目前用起来还不错，接下来你们可以开始去完成我们要求的其他75%了。”但他们说：“这看起来相当棒，正是我们所需要的。”这个意见让我们无需重新开发软件，也不会让软件过度复杂化，还替我们省下约20万美元的开发资源。

在另一个例子中，我们喜欢称内部一份数据报告为“ProCat”（revenue by product category，按产品类型区分的收入），其中的销售数据告诉我们，必须微调某个核心产品的销售方式。这个早期预警远早于标准销售报告，我们立即进行调整，核心产品的销售额立即翻番。如果我们没有遏止销售额逐步衰退的趋势，很有可能在12个月之后造成重大灾难。而每月建立ProCat报告的成本基本为零。

虽然企业应该清楚遵守法律要求，并尊重个人隐私，但我们认为，任何企业都应该尽可能的从他们的客户身上搜集数据。若是用人性化和个人化方式运用这些数据，客户就会愿意（甚至乐于）分享想法。明智地使用这些数据，并且无微不至地处理这种客户伙伴关系，是企业最明智且最有效益的决定。

英语原文：

How much data should you know and record about your customers? What should you do with the information you gather, and how much is too much?

Every company needs to answer those questions for itself. Here’s how we approach the task at our 100-person inventory software company.

We collect as much business-specific information about every customer as we possibly can. The results range from a few pages gathered to see if our product was the right fit for the customer, to sometimes even dozens of pages of highly-detailed and even personal information such as individual names and roles within the company. The data goes into a master customer relationship management, where we put it to active and regular use.

We never share or sell the data. However, the secret to our success is that we use the information we gather in a very high-touch and very personalized way. We try to have our account leads make a personal call to every account approximately every quarter. The goal of these calls is to get clients to suggest the ways to “tune” the software, the services and processes &#8212 what to add, what to consider, and possibly even what to downgrade to conserve cost. When we use the data this way, customers are generally happy to give us progressively more.

We estimate that 10-15% of our revenues are won (or retained) as the direct result of our use of this specific customer information. In a down economy, that 10-15% could mean our entire profit, won or lost as the result of information we’ve gathered and how we use it.

We use customer data to direct our product development priorities and features as well. For example, years ago we got significant feedback from customers about improvements they like to see in software that manages customer returns. Based on this information, we built the basic pieces and released them this beta version as a means to get feedback about how our customers felt about the core functionality. We fully expected them to say: “So far so good &#8212 now go and finish the other 75% of what we asked.” Instead, they said: “It looks great, and that’s all we really need.” The feedback saved us from having to overbuild and overcomplicate, and it saved approximately $200,000 in development resources.

In another case, sales data from a data report we affectionately call “ProCat” (revenue by product category) was able to tell us that we needed to make some tweaks to how we sold one of our core products. This early warning arrived long before we’d have seen the issue in our standard sales reports. We immediately implemented the changes, and sales of our core product doubled immediately. Had this gradual decline continued, it would have created a major catastrophe approximately 12 months down the line. The cost to build the “ProCat” report each month is essentially free.

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While businesses should clearly obey legal requirements and respect individual privacy, we believe that any business should gather as much data from their customers as they can possibly get. It’s the personalized and high-touch use of the data that makes customers willing (and even happy) to share. Using that data wisely (and treating the customer partnership with impeccable care) will be the soundest economic decision a company can make.

Additional reporting for this article was provided by John Erickson, VP Training and Support for Fishbowl.

作者：大卫·K·威廉姆斯（David K. Williams）是库存软件供应商Fishbowl的CEO， 玛丽·米歇尔·斯科特（Mary Michelle Scott）则是该公司的董事长。该公司位于美国犹他州奥瑞姆，它是全美发展最快的公司之一  

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