How to Make the Best of Your Customer Service Database

Relying on an inaccurate customer service database is one of the top things that can seriously harm the success of your call center. 

1. Inaccurate customer information means you have duplicate contacts in your database.

2. Having duplicate contacts obviously reduces your team’s productivity as your agents will call the same contacts several times.

3. And there’s no doubt that your customers will get frustrated after being called several times with the same issue. Which would be embarrassing, right?

As we all know, call centers are basically data centers. And as data continually flows through call centers, keeping data clean and accurate is not just an option for any forward-thinking call center, it’s a must.

Leveraging an up-to-date customer service database, for example, will allow you to better understand your customers’ behaviors and needs, and thus help you increase your customer experience.

In this article, I’ll show you why it’s important to keep your data up-to-date, and give you some tips on how to get the most of your customer service database. Read on, take notes, and find success in your data!

The importance of having an up-to-date customer service database

These days, customers are ever-more demanding and want to feel they are valued by the company they have chosen. Therefore, one of the best ways to win customers is by providing them with a customer experience that is as personalized as possible. Check out our recent personalized customer service article for more details on this.

As customer personalization starts with knowing your customers, one thing is certain: by relying on accurate data, you can easily avoid customer irritation. If you keep calling them with the same offer again and again just because you do not have up-to-date call records in your CRM, they will easily get frustrated and you can be sure that it will seriously hurt your business in the long term.  

Speaking of personalized customer service, by keeping your database clean and accurate, you can better keep up with your customers’ preferences. Amongst other things, it will be a great help to your telesales strategy, as you’ll be able to better predict customer needs and approach them with an offer that will be truly interesting to them.

Furthermore, as I’m sure you’ll be aware, call centers are all about efficiency. Call centers aim to constantly improve their efficiency in, amongst other things, telesales, customer satisfaction, dialer performance and agent productivity.  You may not even realize, but one thing that will definitely help raise your call center’s efficiency is having an up-to-date customer service database.

You can raise your efficiency, for example, by clearing out no-longer valid contacts from your database. If someone’s not interested in your services and already told you this several times, then why keep contacting them?

Similarly, you can raise your dialer efficiency by having an up-to-date customer service database. In addition to what was mentioned above, after a certain period of time, customers who never pick up the phone should not be in your database either. Time is money, and it’s a waste of time to keep on calling them.

I cannot emphasize enough that customer service works best when it’s driven by data. That data, however, needs to be clean and accurate. In fact, every successful call center manager needs to constantly keep an eye on accurate customer data.

If your call center ensures it utilizes up-to-date customer information, your reports will be as accurate as possible, giving you the full picture of your team’s performance. Using outdated data, on the other hand, will result in inaccurate reports that will not only damage your business but also give you a false picture of your team’s performance.

Of course, GDPR is also relevant here. As the new legislation is now officially in effect, having an up-to-date customer service database has become more important than ever. Make sure to check out our ultimate GDPR guide and ensure your call center is playing by the rules when it comes to data storing and processing.

Tips for keeping your customer service database up-to-date

Now that you understand why it’s essential to have clean and accurate data in your customer service database, let me give you some tips on how to get the best out of your database:  

Try and rely on automated processes

Although it’s possible to update your database manually, there’s no doubt that it will be a huge burden for your call center supervisors. And of course, even the best employees make mistakes, which can be very costly to any company. Luckily, these days by leveraging semi-automated or fully-automated processes, you can easily keep your database up-to-date without placing your call center in jeopardy.

API integration

If you use several systems and databases in your call center (and I’m sure you do), integrating them is essential.

The best way to integrate your systems is by using API integration. As for your databases, you can easily synchronize and update them with the help of a webhook, called Database API. You can even set event rules, meaning when X is updated in your system, Y gets updated in your database as well.

Periodic reviews

As already mentioned, knowing your customers is the ultimate key to success. Therefore, make sure to have periodic reviews of your databases, and catch up with your customers to ensure that all your customer data is up-to-date.

It may be a good idea to pre-set and automate your reviews for, let’s say, every 3 months. Again, my advice is to rely on an automated process in order to eliminate the risk of human errors.

Data cleansing

In order to keep your customer service database up-to-date, you’ll also need to carry out systematic data cleansing processes. Getting rid of unnecessary customer data is not only recommended, with GDPR in effect, it is now mandatory.

Furthermore, by removing inconsistencies and clearing out inactive users from your database, you’ll empower your agent team to work with the information needed in order to most efficiently serve your customers – resulting in a happier and loyal customer base.

Back up your customer data  

There’s no doubt, customer data needs to be backed up. I suggest that you opt for cloud-based backup solutions, so that if your servers go down your information can be easily accessed. After all, when your business is at stake, it’s better to play it safe.