My wife was complaining last night about the dentist our two college age kids see. She was upset that the dentist’s schedule has little room and flexibility during the college holiday break schedule. The dentist happens to be a friend of ours, so I called him with a “customer relationship” suggestion.

I asked him if he wanted to, was it reasonably easy to access his database and produce a list of all of his college age patients.  He said, “sure, why?’ I relayed the perception my wife has about the scheduling issues.

I suggested that he might want to think about sending out an email in October to those parents of his college age patients and informing them of special holiday break appointments he has reserved for those who will be in town during that time.

I told him I thought it would accomplish several things:

1. Using your data to communicate with customers about a specific idea or proposition is always a good idea and strengthens the relationship.

2. By letting parents know that you have special times for their kids set aside during the holiday period signals that you care about their needs and helps distinguish your level of service/brand from others.

3. Regardless if they avail themselves of the offer, it creates good “word-of-mouth” and nothing increases marketing ROI like WOM!

All of us have an opportunity to leverage our customer data and transform it into actionable efforts that will boost marketing ROI.

As for the dentist, he liked the idea and said he looked forward to thanking me in person at my next visit.  Uh,oh.