If you are scheduling to buy an existing business or developing your own business, it is very important to have your own customer database. This will help your business’ progress and success. Having a customer database will give you lots of benefits as the business owner. Below are a number of benefits that you can get from having your own customer database.

A customer database allows you to determine the history of your clients and their present status with your company. You are able to see what kind of relationship you have with your customers. The QUICKEN or the MYOB may be the customer databases that accountants may say to you when you ask them. But to tell you, this is not as important as the customer database that is described in this text. The computer database that the accountants call the secretarial package would only include the customer’s contact information and what item they procured. In the industry specific customer database, it contains all the pertinent information that you need.

The customer database that you need would be one that not only includes the customer’s contact information but also the items that they are of great interest, information about how they knew of your business, information on what advertisement you have sent to them and if this advertisement clicked or not, what did they expect from you at the beginning of your encounter and what do they think about your business at present, special and private negotiations or deals that you had with them, their dollar sale and their long-term value and a lot more.

It is best to find and obtain a customer database that is specific for your own business. This way, the issues that are encircled around your business can be focused on. On the other hand, if you do not have or if you cannot find the customer database particular for the business that you are running, you can develop your own database. Investing in it would give you great rewards in the long run.

In the past years, many industry specific customer databases have been created and developed. The requirements for the management of the different industries vary so the customer databases differ from every industry. Examples of the developed customer databases include the Carpet Cleaning Business costumer database and the Sewing Machine Sales and Repairs Industry database.

Sometimes, the database doesn’t focus on the client or the customer but tracks the item that was given out for rent or for sale. This goes for businesses like the sewing machine repairs and sales industry. In this kind of industry, the sewing machines are the ones that are being tracked. The database includes the information about who have rented or owned the machine and how many people have rented or owned the machine. In addition, it also includes what repairs have been done or given to the machine, how many machines were sold and repaired.

In the carpet cleaning industry, they also don’t track the customers or the client. The homes or the houses that they clean are the ones that they monitor and keep track of. This customer database would be of great importance most especially if you are running a housing rental carpet cleaning business. Having this will enable you to monitor the place that you clean, how often you attend to that home or what you have done in order to clean the house carpets.

Having a customer database will also protect you from being fooled by disingenuous renters. An example of a situation wherein a business owner saved his business by using a customer database is a customer who accused the home carpet cleaning service of damaging and staining the carpet even more instead of cleaning it. The carpet cleaning service owner had a customer database wherein the photo of the carpet before cleaning and its photo after cleaning were filed. Therefore, the service provider was able to monitor what stains were found in the carpet before cleaning, what stains were endured in the carpet for a long time, what stains were new and what stains were removed. The cleaning business owner showed the photos to the Real Estate Agent and was saved from having to pay the damages that he was not liable for. So in the end, the renter was the one who paid for the costs of damage in the ruined carpet.

Another situation is when an owner sold his cleaning business. Since the client had a customer database, he was able to raise the value of his business for about three times the original value. So when he sold his business, he received three times the amount of pay that a regular cleaning business without a customer database would have if it was sold.

In addition, the one who bought the cleaning company was a National Company and the reason for buying the said business is because of the established costumer database. At present the former owner of the business is presently enjoying his benefits including a white Mercedes.

Having your own customer database doesn’t need to be expensive and fancy. If you can’t find a database for you business, you can develop your own by using simple software. The software that is commonly used for developing computer databases includes Microsoft Access from Microsoft. Some companies employ one person and let him undergo training for database development. After the training, he is tasked to make a customer database for the said company as part of his job. Another option is to hire Microsoft access developers so that you are able to have your own customer service. These developers are quite cost effective so you won’t shell out so much money on that. What is important is in the long run, you will be able to see the difference and the benefits that you can get just by having your own customer database. So take the risk and invest in developing your customer database so that you can also raise the value of your business.

For more info: How to start a cleaning business

If you are assessing about building a cleaning industry or buying an existing business, the number one tool every cleaning business must have is a customer database. Without a good quality customer database, you will have no Goodwill when you decided to sell or exit your business. It is that important that without it, you will lose over half of the value of your business when you go to trade your business.

Let me explain … why is customer database so important?

The function of the customer database is to inform the history and the story of your customers over a period of time. Many accountants will tell you that your customer database is your secretarial package like MYOB and QUICKEN. In fact, I will tell you now that if you only use these application you are gravely restricting the achievement of your business as accounting packages do not inform you the full history of the relationship between you and your customers.

The customer database is the most significant tool in your whole business. It contains every bit of information about your customers where as the accounting system only contains essential contact information and what they have purchased. The sort of information that you want to store in your customer database does vary depending on the type of business you actually have.

The sort of information I would generally expect in the customer database are things like, their contact information, goods they are interested in, information about what they are expecting from you, when you have contacted them and what they discussed, what advertising material you sent to them and whether they buy off that marketing stuff, what adverts brought them to you, what their standard dollar sale is, what their predicted long term value is, any special deals you have done with them and so much more.

What I suggest to every cleaning business owner is to strive and locate an industry specific client database. Pretty much every industry has its own customized system which focuses on the issues related to your business. If your industry does not have one, then it is really important that you invest the money into building one that address the issues of client management for your business.

Over the last few years my team and I have built a number of business specific database for industry like the car cleaning business, the sewing machine sales and repair industry, the carpet cleaning industry, the recruitment industry, the industrialized industry and so forth. In each and every case, their requirements for their customer management structure were very different.

In the case of the Sewing Machine industry, there value in their business was being able to track and manage the actual sewing machine not the customer. It was more significant for them to be able to know what repair work was done on the machine and how many diverse people had owned it. The real money in the sewing machine industry is in repairs and sales of their material etc.

Where as, in the carpet cleaning industry, the most significant element to track and manage in their industry is in fact the homes that they clean not the clientele. This was particularly significant when you are doing housing rental carpet cleaning. In this industry, renter’s can be a very misleading group of people; one of my customers had a situation arise where the occupant actually accused her carpet cleaning business of wrecking the carpet and streaking the carpet and not them.

Well because my consumer had track the past of the carpet in that home, they were able to show to the Real Estate agent, what stains were at first in the house from preceding work to what was in there now. In fact, since they photograph every home once they begin and when they end, they had a complete photo history of this home on file. They were able to show to the real estate agent the full account of work carried out and which stains were enduring and what were new and this meant the earlier renter had to foot the full bill for the damage they had completed not our client.

If my client had not invested in building this customized carpet cleaning customer database, then she could have been in a real bind. Further to this, when my client decided to sell her business, she got three times what others were getting for their carpet cleaning commerce, because of the value that was established in her customer database.

The corporation that bought her out was a National Carpet Cleaning Company and they wanted her business because of the customer history she had. This is a perfect example of how the Customer Database illustrated the true value of the Goodwill in her business to the prospective buyer. I should note, she now drives roughly in a white Mercedes because of the cash she earned from the sale of her business.

Customer databases do not need to be costly and they can be easily built in Microsoft Office applications like Microsoft Access. The reason many companies are using Microsoft Access is because of the ease of being able to build the systems and get people to help them. What a lot of companies do is to train one person in using Microsoft Access and then get them to construct the database as part of their job. Alternatively, there are lots of Microsoft Access Developers out in the market place and they are really cost effective to hire. Always though check with preceding clients to see what they thinking of their work and how first-class they really were.

See: How to start a cleaning service