How Are You Tracking New Customers?

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HeadsUpAuto
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How Are You Tracking New Customers?

Post by HeadsUpAuto »

Hey Everyone,

I've searched the forum and found several posts kinda discussing this but nothing that gave me a clear answer to my question.

As I understand it we have two areas within Mitchell 1 for potentially tracking a source/referral.

1. Customer Tab - Referred By
2. Order Tab - Source

What I'm wondering is what is the generally preferred choice and why? (pro and cons)

The second half of my question is I understand how I could choose to use either of these options for a brand new customer but how is everyone handling this when that new customer returns for a second visit and is no longer a new customer? I want to be able to run a weekly/monthly report to see where my new customers are coming from but this information is inaccurate if I have existing customers returning within the same report period.

I would like to be able to run a report that shows new customers with their referral information without having existing customers with past referral information interfere. Does that make sense?


Thanks,

Chris.
LeapingGecko
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Re: How Are You Tracking New Customers?

Post by LeapingGecko »

Hey Chris,

Customer Tab - Referred By
This one is good for tracking the original source of customers, but as you mentioned it will track them even after they are no longer new customers.
The report Management > Referral-Marketing will track invoices posted by customers with this set.

Order Tab - Source
This one is set on a per-order basis. Since you're looking for new customers based on their first invoice, this is the one to set.
The report Management > Referral-Inv Sources will track invoices posted by customers with this set.

I hope this answers your question.
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Re: How Are You Tracking New Customers?

Post by nickscarcare »

We use customer tab, biggest downfall to this is you can not click a company name and it shows up, we have to set up a business also as a customer.
Some people try to turn back their odometers. Not me, I want people to know why I look this way. I've traveled a long way, and some of the roads weren't paved.

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Re: How Are You Tracking New Customers?

Post by timbre4 »

Each report is designed to answer a primary question; this request sounds like a desire to have both new customers + referral info as one report. You can get the data you seek but it'll take a couple reports to do so. [I checked the MM data export option but it doesn't include referral/source parameters]

With 'new customer' in the mix, we're talking about 3 factors. Let's qualify the two mentioned as intended by design. (shops usage can differ)
Referral - by user defined options or friend (existing customer) = ONE TIME - how the customer came to be added to your database (website, friend, etc.)
Source - by user defined options = why EACH TIME an invoice came to be written (website, radio ad, CRM coupon, etc.)

Under Reports > Marketing tab, select Referral Friend/Customer option. The report will include invoiced work that occurred during the selected date range. Remember, the Referral is a one time event; that may have happened back in 2016 but that should not prevent showing that relationship resulted in invoiced work in 2023. That's how it has to work. You will always have new customers, they may not include any referral data every time. Maybe you want to use Source to "see" where the work is coming from.

Under Reports > Marketing tab, select Referral Invoice Sources option. The report will include invoiced work segmented by the user defined options. The dollar amounts generated will indicate what's popular and what's not. What's Working? You want to determine which marketing efforts are effective whether they are new customers or not. What's making me some business?

New Customer - defined as having a recent posted invoice inside the date range parameter the user sets.
Under Reports > Followup tab, double-click any FL report listing to gain access to the Followup tabs. Select Customers based on first Invoice date and set a date range. Click Search to build a list of customers who had invoiced work during the date range.

Hope this helps a little.
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