Title - Tags - retention
UNNEEDED DRAFT COPY - EXTRACT IDEAS AS NOTES…
Going forward, I highly recommend investing in software to organise this information - and more importantly - making the commitment to capture the information from customers at every opportunity so you database is always complete and accurate.
For now, though, you most likely have this information somewhere - even if it’s scattered across paper files, digital systems, and on the back of napkins.
So first things first, if you don’t yet have this information organised, is to gather all of the information you can possibly find from every location that you have on your current and past customers, and put it all in one place. If it’ s all on paper, dump it in a big pile on a desk or the floor. If it’s digital put it all into one file or piece of software. Don’t worry about organising it for now - just get it all together in one place.
Next - decide what database you are going to use to store your customer information. Again, if you already have a database - great. I know most dental practices, for example, already have software in place for this. If you don’t, but you have a very small number of patients, you can do it by hand. But in most cases, I recommend using a spreadsheet at minimum. Better is customer relationship management (CRM) software. My recommendation is Hubspot. I’ve tried several different options over the years and Hubspot is the most flexible. Plus, the basic plan is free, so you can begin organising your customer information without cost.
Next - pump all of the customer information you gathered into your chosen database. I gave you the basic categories above. Add all of your customer names and whatever information you have for the other data points until you have all of this info (or whatever pieces of info that’s available to you) all in one place.
Now we’re making tracks!
You now have an organised customer database.
The next job is to define an active vs inactive customer.
This will require a little imagination.
To get the cogs turning, here’s how I did it in my own practice.