An acquainted business relation sighed after receiving a letter from a large Dutch company last Friday: “It’s a pity I’m not a jurist or a tax advisor, it actually seems to be quite easy,” she concluded with a grin. She runs a restaurant and she never before had been in contact with the company in question. “How did they ever come up with the unfortunate idea of sending me this letter?” she wondered. “Such a waste of money, and poor judgement for that matter, pretending that all their information is up to date, while it’s clearly not. Otherwise, they would never have sent me this letter.”

This firm was making eyes at her company and its business. They literally claimed to be in possession of up to date knowledge and information that could demonstrably contribute to the success of both their own and my contact’s clients. They offered her up to date software tools, specially developed for legal and tax professionals as well as innovative ways to be able to access their data 24/7. This company’s letter looked good with a message that was perfectly put together offering a sound commitment: “With our innovative techniques, permanently offering up to date information, you will save time and you will be able to serve your customers more effectively and efficiently. In short: you’ll be more successful!”

On the other hand, I do see how this letter gets sent out to my business relation or to their entire mailing list for that matter.
Maintaining a customer file up to date proves to be very difficult. The fact remains that it’s just not part of the company’s core business like the products or the services it sells. All attention is focused on this last aspect, which makes sense. However, maintaining your database is a key issue for commercial success. Nowadays, you need to make your communications to customers and prospects more relevant than ever before.

So don’t leave it to chance but focus and direct your actions, letters and mailings to the right target audience. The maintaining and analysing of customer data is a specialism. Make sure you find a specialist to take care of these tasks for your company and put this person on the payroll or hire him/her as an external professional. Whichever you choose, it’s certainly worth the investment!