Customer Service: Mine and Go for Gold

In your database, identify your best -- or “gold level” -- customers, and treat them like the treasures they are to you. “Let them know you appreciate their business, and try to get a bit higher average-order size out of them,” suggested Arthur Hughes, vice president and solutions architect at marketing services firm KnowledgeBase Marketing, during his two-day session “Database Marketing From the Ground Up,” held at DMA05 in Atlanta last week.

Some profitable strategies to try with your high-value customers: exclusive newsletters, loyalty programs, personal letters and phone calls. Hughes offered an example of such a program:

A manufacturer of building products, whose merchandise is sold to contractors, identified 1,200 top customers out of its housefile of 45,000. It then split that 1,200 into two groups of 600.

Group A received special treatment such as phone calls to decision-makers.”Interestingly enough, these customers were not offered discounts,” said Hughes. “Instead, the manufacturer’s staff built a relationship with these 600 customers, taking care of their needs one on one.” Meanwhile, Group B, which was the control group, received no special treatment.

Results: The number of orders received from Group A increased by 12 percent, while the control group saw an 18 percent decrease. Also, the average order value for Group A increased 14 percent. For an estimated $70,000 in staff and call time, the manufacturer’s overall corporate revenue after the test increased $2.6 million.

To reach Hughes, call: (866) 4KNWLDG.