Using SMS surveys to clean up your database

Customer data is a huge asset. According to Zswift, businesses with databases of 500 customers or more achieve a 140% increase in average order value compared to those with smaller databases.But in order to benefit from this statistic it is important to ensure that your database is up to date. Customer data can deteriorate so rapidly that it could be rendered useless within 3 years as a result of failed nurturing. (source).When customer data is out of date, not only does it leave a sour taste for your brand, in some cases you may actually risk breaking the law.For example sending emails to customers who have already opted out is considered a breach of the Spam Act 2003 and can cost you more than a few failed messages. In 2013, GraysOnline was fined $165,000 for breaching the Spam Act.  Letters are expensive: hiring a freelance designer to work up the design, getting the mailshot printed, and the actual cost of mailing to recipients can all add up to thousands of dollars. Calling customers can strain resources, and is also intrusive when you’re unaware of the best time to call – you’re not giving prospects the opportunity to respond at a time that suits them the best.Email is convenient but it’s hard to cut through the voices of senders of the thousands of other emails from competing brands, arriving in the same inbox. Did you know that prospective customers are likely to receive up to 97 emails per day by 2018?Yet with the help of SMS, updating customer data is pretty straightforward. Using SMS Surveys can help your business get a response from customers anywhere and at a time that suits them. With a 98% open rate, as long as you are timing your survey carefully and keeping your questions short and to the point, it’s likely that you will get a good response from this channel. We’ve developed a guide on how you can utilise SMS surveys to keep your customer database up to date. It contains examples of SMS surveys you could send and provides you with ideas on the sort of questions to ask. Start using the tactics to keep your customer data up to date by downloading our guide.If you would like to discuss how you can utilise SMS Surveys to keep your database tidy, please contact us at [email protected] or call us at 1300 764 946.