• Analysis
• Databases
• Definition
• Sharing
• Collecting
• Collection problems
• Customer relationships
• Business to business
• Consumer relationships
• Knowledge systems
• Managing relationships
• Service in relationships
• Service rating
• Stories

Customer knowledge systems

Customer knowledge can be collected in a wide variety of ways. The key to a successful customer knowledge system is making it easy to gather and update the data and making it useful to those people looking at the data. Our Notanant brand is developing Customer Knowledge systems.

The traditional method for building customer knowledge systems has been to write up and store reports on account meetings and sales contacts.

The difficulty with such an approach is the volume of paper based information that is generated, often for little effect as few people actually read the information, valuable though it is.

The second generation approach was to use computers to gather the same information. However, this also suffered from a weakness that the data was not really completed as effectively as it was on paper and most of those completing the data tended to be away from the office in the field.

The third generation approach has seen use of the Internet and intranets to collect information that can be shared amongst colleagues. This is still somewhat in its infancy and many people are still just collecting information, rather than collecting information in a method suitable for analysis and investigation.

We believe that we have a number of key 3.5 generation tools for customer knowledge collection including the use of the internet for data collection and data entry (including via WAP phone for those in the field), the ability to record data in free text and to update specific relationship information (see Relationship Analysis tools) and the ability to search and pass on information based on recommendation and peer-review. By making the data public and developing a forum whereby other parties in the business can access the information and make suggestions for additions to the account, you genuinely create value adding relationships with your clients.

The fourth generation which is already build into Notanant, our marketing knowledge system can take these internal systems taken a stage further with the development of self-maintained databases where customers keep their own information up-to-date in return for a discount or financial incentive. As the boundary between customers and suppliers blurs, these are likely to become a more common approach to doing business and sharing information.

For help and advice on building customer, competitor or marketing knowledge systems contact info@dobney.com or take a look at Notanant our on-line solution.