Understanding is the basis for well-planned and executed customer relationship management. How well rental companies know and understand their customers translates into how well they know and understand their customers' industries and their own capabilities of offering goods and services to their client base. That understanding also has a high impact on its level of customer retention. Losing customers to the competition is never good, especially if it could have been avoided through better customer relationship management.

Let's say a rental company has been running successfully for the past 10 years. It has built up a fleet of equipment, added employees over the years, achieved yearly revenue growth, and more importantly, built a solid clientele. Odds are the company has collected some information on its customers: where they are located, what types of equipment they are renting, or when their busy season will run. This information by itself is of little value unless the rental company has a way to use it to better its business.

Rental companies have an idea of who their best customers are — the loyal, reliable ones who swear by their services, always refer the company to others, and pay their bills on time. But what about all of those other customers who rented something once or twice and were never heard from again? While some of these may have only been one-time opportunities, countless others could have the potential to turn into quality, return customers. And if the rental company is able to leverage the information it already has on them into a relationship, it may lose fewer customers to the competition. A business management software system can help a rental business bridge the gap from collecting information to utilizing it to better their business. A customer relationship management program is a valuable tool to use when collecting customer information. Some systems will have this built into a full business-management solution that will work with multiple departments and automate other areas of the company as well.

Any customer relationship management program should allow users to take the customer information gathered and use it to group similar customers together, build accurate and up-to-date profiles, and have the means to assemble mailing groups for marketing materials. A fully integrated software system will take this a step further and allow rental companies to see who is current on payments (billing/accounting), who has equipment out on rent (rental management), and should allow rental managers to forecast and prepare for future demand of equipment (sales/marketing). By using a system that allows rental companies to integrate CRM with other facets of their business users will have access to valuable information that should help them better manage customer relationships and in turn, keep customer retention levels high.

Once customers are profiled and grouped accordingly, users can distribute a tailored marketing piece to each one. The software can be used to keep track of response rates — if a particular piece wasn't very effective, the rental company should easily be able to tell. The software can also keep track of which customers responded to which offers — this may help rental managers when planning future promotions.

Create a follow up to-do list to catch up with those customers who didn't respond to the marketing. Rental companies can use their customer relationship management system to guarantee that no one falls through the cracks — this will keep customers coming back instead of switching to a competitor.

When rental companies have customer information at their fingertips, they can turn a sales call into a quick satisfaction survey and find out what they can do to better the relationship. CRM software should be able to tell the rental company what piece of equipment a customer rented last, allowing them to easily follow up and see if there were any problems. If the customer has something currently on rent, then the rental company can ask: Is everything meeting your needs?

A software system with service planning should also be able to tell rental companies if their equipment is due for any maintenance. If the customer mentions they have a big job coming up in three months, the rental company can set up a reminder feature in the system so it will know to call that customer back in time. CRM software should easily be able to tell rental companies which customers have rented a particular piece of equipment over any specific time frame with an integrated system. Those users can look back to the customers who may have rented something a year or two ago and consider sending them a promotional offer to entice them to use their rental business again. This can also help rental businesses better utilize their fleet, especially if they have a particular line that hasn't been moving as well. Taking the time to show customers that their rental company understands their needs could keep them from switching to a competitor.

Collecting the proper information on rental customers and knowing how to use it to build relationships is an important process that can be facilitated through a quality software program. Rental companies should consider a software program that will allow them to build customer profiles and use them to better their business. If the program properly integrates with other areas of their business, they should be able to tell which equipment is renting well just as easily as which customers are renting frequently. Rental businesses that match some of these factors up just might be able to turn a few one-time customers into repeat renters. Remember, customers choose their rental equipment providers for a reason. Missing the opportunity to retain those customers could very well translate into big sales for the competition.

Mike Shelburne is vice president of Avon, Conn.-based RMI Corp., a supplier of business management software dedicated to the equipment rental, sales and service industry.