When you’re a growing business, you’ve got to effectively manage and update your leads in a way that’s organized and efficient. You can do just that with a customer database and intuitive customer relationship management (CRM) software.
Read on to learn more about the basics of a customer database, the benefits of customer database management, and how you can use a CRM like Nutshell to manage your customer data.
A customer database is a detailed, organized collection of customer information and contact details. Such a database is critical for organizing data.
What can you store in a customer database?
Customer databases house general customer information like:
First and last names
Email addresses
Phone numbers
Basic demographic information like age and/or gender identity
Every business’ customer database will look a bit different, though. The customer data a business collects from its audience for its customer database depends on the goals of the company, the leads you have, and how you want to use your customer information.
For example, some companies’ databases may include more behavioral data than others, like what devices a customer primarily uses to browse your site or what social media platforms they’re most active on.
What types of customer data should you collect?
Below are three common types of customer data businesses can collect to better understand their audience:
First-party customer data: First-party data is collected directly from your audience. This data includes client information like names, email addresses, and basic demographic information. You can collect first-party customer data through online form submissions like surveys and contact requests.
Second-party customer data: Second-party data consists of the same information as first-party data but comes from a trusted business partner or second party who collected the information straight from their audience. This data is collected through methods like sweepstakes and giveaways where more than one company is involved.
Third-party customer data: Third-party data is collected by an outside entity that’s separate from your own. Some third-party customer data is publicly available, like census records or labor statistics. Third-party data includes information like social media handles, demographic data, user interests and behavior, and basic job information.
With customer database software like a CRM, it’s easy to collect and manage all of this information.
Benefits of a customer database
These are just a few of the many benefits of a customer database that you can enjoy when you begin to organize your customer and lead information.
1. Organized customer profiles
One of the most obvious perks of managing a customer database is the organization it provides. Whether you want to organize your customer information by name, priority level, or another metric of your choice, you can organize it in whichever way works best for you and your sales team.
This increased organization is also going to save you a lot of time. Gone are the days of flipping through endless pages or sticky notes of customer contact information. With a customer database, you can easily input information and look it up again later in seconds.
2. Better customer service
Having all of your customer information organized in one place allows you to provide better service to your customers. With customer data easily accessible for your sales team, they can better understand the individuals they’re talking to and ensure they’re providing customers with the services they need every time.
In turn, better customer service is going to help you build more brand loyalty within your customer base and foster long-lasting customer relationships. Word of these positive customer experiences will travel to the ears of other prospective customers and potentially push them toward working with you too. It’s a win-win for everyone!
3. Targeted campaigns
When you maintain a customer database, you can gain a better understanding of who your customers are, from demographic and geographic location to user behaviors and interests. This information can help you to create more targeted marketing campaigns.
Targeted marketing strategies can yield better results for your business and give you a better return on investment (ROI) for your campaigns because they appeal to your audiences in a way that encourages them to act.
ONE TEAM. ONE TOOL.
Powerful email marketing, minus the headaches
Nutshell Campaigns plugs directly into your CRM data, so you can create highly targeted audience segments, track the impact of your emails in real-time, and manage all your communications out of a single tool. Get started for free!
Knowing about the ins and outs of a customer database is one thing, but creating one and putting it into action is another. We’ve gathered six of our favorite customer database software options to help you start collecting or organizing customer data like a pro.
When you add a new contact to your customer database, Nutshell automatically scours the Internet for any additional information on your customer to help you learn as much as possible about them, so you can create a more informed marketing campaign.
The Zoho CRM is another great customer database management tool. This CRM helps you track leads in real time and organize customer information with maximum efficiency. Import customer data with ease, and even enrich your data with Zoho’s built-in artificial intelligence (AI) software that assists you in improving the quality of your data.
Zoho’s dashboards help you maintain an organized customer database that’s easy to navigate and makes reorganization a breeze (because, let’s be honest, sometimes a change is needed when your business is always moving forward).
With HubSpot, you can import customer information with just a few clicks and easily keep your customer database up to date as your client list grows.
With easy-to-browse customer profiles, you can manage customer relationships, manage your sales pipeline, and start new conversations with customers in no time.
Salesforcelets users manage their leads, contacts, sales records, and more. Data can be organized based on different criteria, which makes searching for the right information easy.
Salesforce also offers advanced data segmentation features like dynamic segmentation that automatically updates segments when customer data changes.
Another useful customer database is Pipedrive, a well-known CRM that supports sales teams as they work to close deals with leads.
Pipedrive makes contact and purchase history tracking easy. Lead segmentation allows users to personalize their email communication with contacts. Pipedrive also uses data enrichment to bring in new insights about your contacts from around the Internet.
Zendesk is built to give companies a complete view of their customers and relationships. By having a single customer database, you can connect your sales and service teams and keep everyone on the same page.
Zendesk’s data analysis tools help you make the most of your prospect and customer data and keep contacts from slipping through the cracks.
While your organization’s needs are unique, there are a few features you should definitely look for in a customer database that will make using it much easier:
1. Usability
Whether everyone on your team has used a customer database before or not, usability is an important trait to look for. A platform that’s easy to learn and use will set your team up for quick implementation.
2. Integrations
Your company likely already uses multiple tools to gather its customer data. Look for a customer database that offers lots of integrations with other applications and tools so you can reduce manual data entry and easily keep your records updated.
3. Pricing
Pricing is a vital consideration for businesses of all sizes. Find the plans that are as comparable as possible across tools and compare their prices. Also, consider whether the features a customer database offers align with your company’s budget.
4. Automation
Managing tasks should be as easy as possible for your team. Whether you need to add or update contact information or create marketing lists from your contacts, automation features can streamline your workflows and put more time back into your day.
5. Unified customer data
The information stored in your customer database should also be totally synced. When different users and teams are accessing the same customer records, this improves efficiency and streamlines workflows across your company.
Make customer database management easy with Nutshell
Customer database management doesn’t have to be hard when you’ve got Nutshell by your side. Our contact management and marketing features help you keep track of who your leads are, where they’re coming from, and how close you are to turning them into loyal customers.
Learn more about what Nutshell’s CRM can do to help you with your customer database management efforts by starting a two-week free trial or attending a live demo today.
Get an easy-to-use CRM that’s intuitive yet powerful
Nutshell is the customizable, all-in-one CRM and marketing software that helps B2B teams close more deals.
Try it for yourself with a 14-day trial — no credit card required!
