Datasheet

Likewise, businesses that work with individual customers must develop a
personal and continuous relationship. In order to understand their wishes
and desires, you must know these people well and understand their prefer-
ences, tastes, and moods. You may forget or neglect information written in a
notepad or stored in your head. Outlook contacts can help you collect, record,
and organize any information about your customers. Recording customer
wishes can be a good way to improve your product or service and increase
your customer satisfaction. Customer care and attention is the successful
key to any personal business relationship (see Chapter 4).
Do you want to send a compliment to your customers when their baseball or
basketball team wins a game? Just select your contact by team and send them
an e-mail. Classify them by importance, like Platinum, Gold, and Silver, and
set up the reminder to touch base twice a week or once a month. Read more
in Chapter 14.
Marketing and sales
Marketing is the strategies, tactics, and activities involved in getting your mes-
sage to intended target markets. The focus is usually on selling or facilitating
the introduction of a product or service. Can you send, in a few clicks, a Happy
New Year card to your customer base? With your customer base updated with
Outlook Contacts, not only can you send a card, but you can also group cus-
tomers by categories and take different actions for each group. You can even
design a telemarketing program that includes automatic dialup from your PC.
Chapter 16 explains the use of checklists for marketing programs, events, and
communications.
When it comes to the sales side of things, “Hey, where is my order?” is an oft-
dreaded follow-up question for many salespeople. If the customer has to ask
this question, it can create an unpleasant feeling in the customer or even cause
him to send his order to a competitor. The successful salesman focuses not
on the customer but on what the customer is looking at and makes that the
common starting point for building a relationship. Not only can Outlook help
you get to know your customers and their goals better, but it can also help you
take the proper actions on time. For more on what to do when, see Chapter 14.
Innovation
Innovation is not only about new products or services. It’s also about improv-
ing the way you work — better, easier, faster. It’s even about shrinking your
costs. Using Outlook, you can increase your productivity with less stress by
using the applications explained throughout this book.
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Part I: Managing Any Business
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