Customer Databases

Keeping the database accurate

Data hygiene - the principles and practices that serve to maintain accuracy in computer data - is crucial for an effective Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. It is a good idea to "clean" your database regularly.

Wrong data is not only wasteful of your budget, but can adversely affect your company's image through:

• wrong addressing
• duplicates
• personalisation errors

Inadequate data organisation reduces the ability to communicate to the right customer.

Advanced data tagging and enhancement technology and services can provide the highest possible standards of data accuracy and consistency.

By adopting such methods, you can:

• Improve efficiency - businesses that do not employ data capture tools at the point of customer contact often suffer from capturing records which are misspelled, incorrect or are missing important details.
• Ensure compliance with your legal obligations, particularly those relating to the Data Protection Act 1998 and electronic marketing. Consumers can opt out of receiving marketing by telephone, fax, post or email, and it is important that people who have opted out are removed from your database.
• Improve campaign effectiveness - inaccurate data can result in the proposed message not reaching the targeted recipient, although you will still incur the cost of delivery.

If the information you have on record changes frequently, you might consider automating your update procedures, perhaps by means of integration with other systems.

Keeping a customer or prospective customer file up to date will invariably help with marketing costs, improved response rates, better targeting and more accurate communications by telephone, fax, post or email.

Learn about the Data Protection Act 1998 at the website of the Information Commissioner.