When things are easy, they’re easy and when they’re hard, they’re hard. Sometimes things are difficult, but sometimes they are easier. But there are ways to make hard things easier and easy things a breeze. Keeping your business references organized is one way to make a hard thing much, much easier.

Regardless of what we may think, the truth is right in front of us, keeping track of all your customer reference data can be a real pain. All too often we have to gather information from dozens of different sources, whether its personal meetings, phone calls, PDA tags and show data. Integrating all that data into one place that makes it simple to bring it back to mind when you need it is essential if we’re to be successful in maintaining that great professionalism we all want to achieve.

Information is the key to us being our best in our jobs. Put the updated data in the database the moment we get. Regardless of the source, whether its on the phone on the ‘net from a contact site, at a show from a business card or PDA data exchange or simply as a lead from a magazine or even a name mentioned in passing, having that information in the database means we can find it again in our customer reference tool. This takes a bit of discipline, as it is easy to become sidetracked into another project or call, but the discipline pays off in the long run.

Just like maintaining your car, your database has to be maintained consistently as well. Customers expect us to keep track of them, so when they call, verify their information. This insures our databases are current. It doesn’t help to have a customer’s name and have a need to contact them, but can’t because our data is out of date. Not only is it counterproductive, but it can be embarrassing to have the need to call a customer back to ask for an email address or fax number simply because we didn’t get it the first time. The 10 seconds spent verifying email addresses and phone numbers can save us a client later when it comes time to contact them.

Granted, you can’t help losing contact with a customer who changes jobs or moves on, but with several reference points such as email address and cell phone numbers, that means your odds are a lot higher you’ll always be able to reconnect to the customer at a later time. Keep in mind that in today’s economy, just because a customer changes jobs doesn’t mean they’ll want to change vendors. Keeping track of customers and contacting them on a semi-annual basis means your database stays current.

It may be labor intensive at times, but your customer reference database could well be your most cherished asset when it comes down to it. Items can be replaced if you have a disaster, but your customer reference database is what your business is built on.

In today’s business environment, any edge we can have to be more successful is an edge we have to find a way to get. Customer Reference Insights is a place to find the tools and customer reference system to get those advantages for yourself. Check it out!