Strategy to Create Your Data-Base

Using the GuestBook™ System

In order to fully understand the concept of the GuestBook™ System, we must first define your marketing goals and then create a strategy to achieve those goals. To create a strategy we must answer specific questions.

For Example:

By understanding the type of customers you have and their interests you will be able to build a question library and pick questions from the library to use in your customer entry screen. You should build your question library utilizing your marketing plans and customer feedback. When you are ready to do a mail marketing promotion you should be able to pull names from your data base specifically keyed to that promotion. The closer the relationship of the question to the promotion the greater the response will be to the mailing.

For Example:

You own a restaurant and you ask your customers, "Would you like to be invited to our winemaker's dinners?" (Y/N). When you decide to promote the winemaker's dinner, you would select the names, of those who answered (Y) to this question. Naturally, your percent response rate will be very high. On the other hand, a general question like "Do you enjoy wine?" (Y/N) would not yield you the high response rate.

You own a office products retail store and were considering expanding your selection of computers and computer related supplies. You might want to ask, "Do you own a computer?" (Y/N), followed by, "Are you planning to purchase a computer in the near future?" (Y/N). A report on these questions would show you the percent of your customers that use computers and the percent that will be purchasing computers. with this information you will not only be able to make a sound decision on expansion, but also will provide you with a list of prime candidates for your computer expansion sale promotion.

General questions are very useful for getting feedback on customer satisfaction. You may ask questions like, "How was our service?" (Excellent/Good/Fair/Poor), or "Was your visit memorable?" (Y/N)

Use of descriptive questions are very useful for getting more personal feedback from your customers. The customers can answer your questions in their own words and are not limited to a provided answer. You are able to view these comments in list form and get a better understanding of who your customers are and what their needs are. GuestBook also allows you to sort by open ended questions.

For Example:

You might ask the question "What made you decide to dine with us this evening?" By viewing or sorting the list of comments you would be able to see what other advertising you do, is working. You could sort everyone that said they came becausee of the yellow pages, Or you might ask, "What would you like to see on our new menu?" From this type of question you will be able to develop a menu based on the needs of your customers and then inform them that you have added a item because of their request. What better way to make your customers feel involved in your establishment.

For every question you add to your question library we recommend creating a letter in the letter library to respond to that question.

For Example:

You may ask "How was our service?" (Excellent/Good/Fair/Poor). You should prepare a letter to respond to a fair or poor answer. This way when a customer responds fair or poor you will be able to respond by letter in a matter of minutes, and have it in the mail that day. A quick response to unhappycustomers could turn them into one of your most loyal customers.

You can have GuestBook™ up and running with as few as 3 to 4 questions and three to four letters. Our staff will be able to help you in deciding the appropriate questions and letters, to get the system building the best customer list possible, for your business.

Our Pledge at Plainfield Software is to make sure that all of our customers receive the best in service and support to maximize, their profits using the GuestBook™ System.