Did you know?
- 75% of commercial businesses believe that they are losing as much as 73% of revenue due to poor data quality – Experian QAS
- Poor data quality costs U.S. businesses more than $600 billion annually – Data Warehousing Institute
The most important thing to remember about list management is that it is an ongoing procedure. It cannot be a one-time operation because people move jobs, change their phone numbers and create new email addresses. (Consider that 11 percent of the U.S. population moves annually.) Also, customers have complete access to their contact information; over the phone, through the mail, in the store or branch, so opportunities for changes are everywhere. And it is your responsibility to keep your database updated with the latest information. Otherwise the discrepancies added to your system multiply like rats.
1. Format your fields. You want consistent terms and formats across a given field. E.g. the date field: Ensure you maintain DD-MM-YYYY or MM-DD-YYYY throughout the data base.
2. Parse components. Break down strings of data into multiple fields so you can more effectively standardize data elements with greater accuracy.
3. Check content. Fields may appear populated but are not accurate (for example, a phone number may contain letters). Your data-cleansing process should identify and correct these anomalies so your data is fit for use.
4. Eliminate duplicates. Identify matches and eliminate duplicate records. These records cause unnecessary strain on your resources.
5. Eliminate hard bounces. In the case of emails, even a few hard bounces will get your IP address blacklisted. Take extra precaution in this regard.
Many companies are embarking upon list management initiatives. Their success relies completely upon clean lists. B2Bdatapartners makes sure your list is fresh, updated and always accurate. Contact us today.
