Customer Intelligence and GDPR – what do you really need to know? This month we have been talking about data protection, in respect to the upcoming GDPR legislation.
Anyone who processes personal information must comply with the six Principles of the Data Protection Act, which make sure that personal information is:
- fairly and lawfully processed;
- processed for limited purposes;
- adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary;
- accurate and up to date;
- not kept for longer than is necessary;
- secure.
During our client workshops this month, we are quizzing them on the information they want to collect and hold about their contacts. We encourage them to really evaluate the ‘must have’ information, against the ‘nice to have’ information, and to gain clarify on the value, significance and use of every data field that exists in their CRM.
If there are too many fields, it’s often the case that staff won’t fill them all in. An empty database with inadequate out-dated information is pointless. So it’s good to regularly re-valuate, rationalise and review your data collection needs.
We encourage you to look at the information you hold about your organisations and contacts – and the 360 degree view you aspire to achieve, and evaluate the criteria below:
Compulsory fields – what is the absolute minimum you must hold on a stakeholder to make the information any use to your team and to ensure you understand their communication preferences?
Core fields – What is the information you should hold about stakeholders to make their records valuable to your team for business development, customer intelligence or quality review?
Segmentation – How do you segment your stakeholders – by interest, by job role, size, or relationship with your organisation? – how do you filter your contacts and know how and why to engage with them?
Communications Preferences – How does organisation reach out to people, and how do you know how to contact people? What are the best methods and ways of reaching your audiences? How responsive are people to these different methods?
Intelligence – What external information might you collect, or information you gather about your stakeholders to help you understand them better? Is this external information in the public domain, is it acceptable information to hold about them?
Level of Relationship – what is the level of interaction you have had with a stakeholder – are they a donor, volunteer or beneficiary of your organisation, or have they just signed up to a newsletter. How do you move people through a funnel of engagement with you?
Engagement Level – What level of engagement have the customers had with you. How many years and how much have they donated? How many years and how many hours have the volunteered? How many services and hours of support have the benefited from? And what has been the impact and outcomes of this intervention?
