Five common dirty data issues and how your business can avoid them
Thryv Data Team
Hart has a wealth of experience leading product design and data management projects. He has worked with internal and external stakeholders to increase efficiencies through the use of APIs and automations. He is passionate about helping clients improve the quality of their customer databases, ensuring they reap the benefits of having clean and up-to-date data.
“Maintaining your database is important, and it’s just as important as any other part of your overall marketing and sales strategy."
We believe that not taking care of the smaller details – such as, incorrect or invalid data - can lead to much bigger problems for businesses.
Here is a list of the five most common data issues, and some simple ways your business can avoid them:
1. Out-of-date data
Outdated data is no longer useful because the contact details of an individual have changed, such as their phone number, email address, address or name.
“The best way to maintain your data is to regularly engage with your customers."
“But that isn’t always possible and, in some scenarios, frequent engagement with your customers can drive them away.”
We believe the best way to keep data current is with a regular phone, email and address validation ‘data wash’. This involves checking large volumes of customer information to ensure their contact details are as current and complete as possible.
Depending on your business model, you may also need to validate customers’ phone numbers against the ‘Do Not Call Register’ to ensure you’re not making unsolicited telemarketing calls.
If your business sends direct mail, a ‘National Change of Address’ validation from Australia Post “can be a real money-saving investment”. You won’t be spending money on letters or marketing material that won’t be received by the person you intended to reach.
2. Incomplete data
Incomplete data happens when you’re only collecting partial information about customers.
“In our experience, this usually happens because your web form or CRM doesn’t mandate that certain contact details must be collected."
“Or because there’s a reason your customer doesn’t want to provide it.”
We suggest that the first step towards ensuring data is complete is to have your web form or CRM capture all valuable points of data.
“At minimum, we would suggest collecting first name, last name, mobile phone, and email address."
“If you can, collect their full residential address, which is the ultimate way you can segment your customer market using Helix Personas.”
Secondly, we recommend providing customers a reason - maybe even an incentive - for providing all their details. This can be easy when you are shipping physical products because customers will want to receive an invoice via email, have their goods delivered to their current address and have their phone number on file in case any issues arise.
“But in other scenarios, you may want to provide a discount on their next order, access to exclusive offers, or provide a loyalty points system."
“These incentives will pay you back easily, if you consider complete data a cornerstone of your marketing and sales plan.”
3. Inaccurate data
Inaccurate data is information that’s simply wrong. It could be wrong because a customer has made a mistake, they purposely supplied incorrect details, or something may have gone wrong when the data was entered into a database.
The best way to avoid data getting “dirty” this way is to ensure all data collected about your customers - through CRM, on your website or elsewhere - is validated upon capture.
“That means that a phone number is confirmed to be ‘active’, an email address passes a robust test that goes beyond just syntax, and an address is valid according to authoritative sources like the Australia Post database. This happens before anything enters your system."
The Thryv Data TotalCheck
tool as a simple way to do all this. TotalCheck draws on a wide range of trusted data sources to validate, update and complete live data entry into your web form, app or another platform.
4. Duplicate data
Duplicate data happens when your CRM has two or more distinct records for the same person. It can inflate your view of how many customers you have, increase your marketing costs, and reduce your marketing ROI. Duplicates can even turn away customers because you’re sending communications to the same person more than once.
"Most ‘off-the-shelf’ CRM tools now have good duplicate checking algorithms that can be configured so that your team are notified when entering a new customer record for someone who is already in the system.”
However, if those CRM tools aren’t configured properly, or if team members are missing or not receiving accurate alerts, problems can arise.
“You’ll need the help of external experts at this point, such as Thryv Data."
“We can review all your records and flag duplicates based on at least 13 different criteria. Once this is done, you can review and consolidate your database.”
5. Inconsistent data
Inconsistent or non-standardised data impacts the integrity of your CRM systems because it reduces the value your team or business can place on data.
“For example, if phone numbers in your CRM are not stored in a particular format, then your team won’t take care to ensure that new numbers are stored in that same format."
“This can lead them to accepting phone numbers that are invalid or wrong. And, may have an impact on your ability to use that data in an SMS campaigns, outbound call campaigns or for customer identification.”
We suggest integrating a product such as TotalCheck
into your CRM process - so that data isn’t just validated when captured, but stored in consistent ways.
“When using TotalCheck on your public-facing websites or with your CRM, an extremely ‘dirty’ phone number can be entered and still be usable. It could have spaces, parenthesis or even a question mark in the middle".
“TotalCheck will strip out the non-numeric characters, validate the number as ‘active’ or ‘inactive’, and then return to you a ‘clean’ phone number in both local Australian or international format.”
That means your customer database will only contain clean data, irrespective of how it was entered. This ensures your database remains a valuable, ready-to-use sales and marketing asset.
We can improve your data quality
Regardless of the state that of your customer database and campaigns are currently in, we can help. We take a four-step approach to ensure:
1. Your data entry processes collect quality data - and only quality data.
2. Your customer database is maintained and kept clean.
3. Your customer database is segmented into easy-to-action, marketable personas.
4. Your online presence across key social networks and search engines is accurate, so customers can find you.
Click here
to learn more.
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