There are many ways to say it, but to have your customers say type, or write something twice is just bad service. Effective CRM solutions can help you avoid this and help your customers to want to come back for more.

You’ve probably heard of the example said that remembering someone’s name is one of the most powerful ways to build rapport between people. You’ve probably also seen this in action and know that it’s true. Well, imagine if a business could remember all sorts of information about their customers. Imagine if a customer decides to buy something from your business again and you remember whatever they’ve told you previously. Your business looks professional and organised. The customer will feel warm and fuzzy and at best, will be a customer for life (as long as nothing happens to stop that), at worst, you’ve eliminated one possible reason that they wouldn’t return for further business.

It costs less to keep existing customers as compared to gaining new customers. So, make sure that you look closely at a customer’s interaction with your business, and make sure that you streamline your processes to eliminate hurdles for your customers. This may require creativity and a point of view of your business that you may find difficult to take. One of the best ways to do this is to get someone to analyse your business from this point of view. You’ll need someone who has good analytical skills as well as someone who knows how to critique appropriately (contact me if you’d like to hire me for this type of work).

One of the best ways to help people to learn is to use an example. Flybuys.com.au is “deserving” of the freebie this time. This may be difficult for you to try this out for yourself if you’re not a member of Flybuys, but I’ll do my best to explain the problem with words. The first thing that I wanted to do was to check how many points I had earned, and the second was to change my address. Checking my points was fairly easy, I just load up the site and enter my membership number into the text box on the top left hand side of the page.

OK, now take note. I have now entered my first piece of information, my Flybuys membership number. I should not have to provide this again, but as you’ll see, I do need to repeat myself.

Now that I’ve entered my membership number, not only am I presented with my points balance, which is nice, as this was my first request and I’m presented it on screen without asking. I am also presented with a membership menu on the left hand side of the screen, this gives me a number of options including changing my details and ordering a new card. I want to change my address, so I select “your details” from the menu. Here is the first problem. Now, understandibly, I am required to enter a few more details to change my details, such as my date of birth for identification. I have no problem with that, but it also asks me to enter my membership number again! I’ve already entered this, why must I enter it again?

I give in and type in my membership number again (what choice do I have?) and I also need to enter my phone number. Luckily enough, I do remember my old phone number, I enter it and am presented with my details which I change and submit. So, so far I’ve entered my membership number twice and my old phone number. Now that I’m in the site, I decide that I’d like to redeem my points for an award, but I decide firstly, to double check my points value. I click on the membership menu “check your points” and again I’m prompted for my membership number! For the third time, I enter it and I check my points again.

Now I would like to check what awards I can trade my points for. Another mistake of this design is that there is no membership menu option for redeeming your points. I needed to click on “Awards” on the main site menu. I do that and search for an award, I find one and click on it, and I am once again requested for my membership number, date of birth and phone number. The fourth time! My new phone number does not even work, I have to enter my old one. By now, I don’t trust these guys at all, and I think to myself, it’d be best to wait a few days to redeem my points as they’re likely to send my award to my old address even though I just changed it!

This is a simple example of designing your customer facing people and systems to keep customer information so that the customer does not have to repeat himself/herself. It is extremely frustrating and I’m sure that it drives customers away in droves. Make sure your company is a pleasure to deal with, spend the money that is necessary to build quality systems and you will be rewarded with customers that come back again and again.