Create a Mail Merge List
This is the procedure to perform a customer mail merge using Microsoft Excel and Word for customers you have in your Loyalty / Customer Marketing database.
Exporting the Data From Counter Intelligence1. From Counter Intelligence Office, select Reporting / Customer / Customer Marketing Report or Customer Loyalty Analysis in version 2008 or greater.
2. Make your selection based on the criteria you require ie. Branch or Amount Spent. Also optional customer marketing fields such as date of birth, favourite colour etc.
3. When prompted for the print option, select to print to an Excel spreadsheet. Save it with a filename of (for example) CUSTOMER LIST.xls. Once the export is complete, close out of the reporting screen.
Verifying / Modifying the Data in Excel4. Start Microsoft Excel, click on File / Open.
5. Browse to the C:\ Program Files \ Counter Intelligence Office \ Reports folder.
6. You should be able to see the file you named earlier CUSTOMER LIST.xls.
7. As the first 4 rows contain report heading information, these lines can be deleted. To do this, click on the left of each row to highlight it, then click Edit and select Delete. This should remove the entire row. Repeat this process for the remaining 3 rows.
8. Modify any data in the Excel spreadsheet if necessary such as Address lines, empty rows and column headings.
9. Once all modification is complete, click on File / Save.
Merging the Data into Word10. Start Microsoft Word, click on Tools and select Mail Merge.
11. When the Mail Merge window appears, click on Create and select Mailing Labels. Alternatively you can use the Mail Merge Wizard which will step you through the process. If you are printing letters or emails instead, select Form Letters or emails instead of Mailing Labels. It will give you an option to use the active window, click on Yes.
12. Click on Get Data and select Open Data Source.
13. This will bring up the Open File window. Change to the C:\Program Files \ Counter Intelligence Office \ Reports folder first. Change the Files of Type option by clicking on the down arrow and select MS Excel.
14. You should be able to see the file CUSTOMER LIST.xls. Highlight and click OK to select it.
9. Once all modification is complete, click on File / Save.
15. It will then display another window. Click on OK to select Entire Spreadsheet.
16. It will then prompt to setup your document and allow you to specify the type of label you are printing to.
17. You can then start inserting the merge fields (the fields you want on your label) i.e Name, Address1, Address2, Address3.
18. Click OK. Then click on Merge to merge the customer addresses to your labels.
Note. The procedure for printing Form Letters and emails is similar, except at step 10 select Form Letters or emails instead of Labels.