STRENGTHEN DATABASE

Lack of information quality

Today, every company stores and uses data about its own customers and prospects: Goods are sent, invoices are written, consultation protocols are kept in the call center, marketing campaigns are set up and much more. Over time, this CRM data becomes more and more extensive and complex. But without a data strategy, the overview is quickly lost.

Data quickly becomes obsolete. For example, they are entered incorrectly, are no longer current, or are duplicated. Such data errors reduce data quality and have immediate economic consequences. This is also referred to as the “garbage-in-garbage-out” principle: errors in data cause errors in analyses and forecasts. To illustrate, if you put water in the tank of your car, you won’t be able to drive far. So it is with data quality. Poor data leads to a lack of information quality – wrong decisions are made and opportunities are missed.

Avoidable costs

But a lack of information quality also causes high, in many cases avoidable, costs. A simple example is not reaching a customer or sending out elaborate catalogs twice. Unrecognized risks are also problematic, such as when a customer bundles large merchandise credits under different identities. Costly inconveniences also quickly arise when customers are contacted despite an advertising ban and legal disputes threaten. This makes it clear that strengthening the data basis reduces risks and costs. Where are the biggest challenges in data quality?

How to strengthen data quality

Poor quality data contains data errors, duplicates, missing values, incorrect formatting, inconsistencies, and more. The matter is very complex and requires experience. That’s why the Schober Information Group offers a data quality check that quickly determines certainty about your own data quality and optimization potential. Briefly, the most important three aspects:

Duplicate addresses – this happens when several contacts to one company or several people from one household are registered. In this case, Schober offers to identify and mark multiple existing data via a duplicate comparison. Subsequently, the entries can be merged or even deleted upon explicit request.

Outdated information about companies – this happens when companies move, go bankrupt, change their name or similar. Around 30% of addresses need to be updated within a year, it is estimated. Here, Schober offers to identify addresses in the CRM data that are unsuitable for advertising, relocations, insolvent or defunct companies for processing or to confirm them positively.

Outdated information about people – this happens when people move, get married or die. Here, Schober offers reconciliation and updating based on negative inventories – such as movers, deceased or bad payers.

By the way: In principle, database entries are only made at the express request of the customer and only by the client himself.

More insight thanks to data enrichment

Data quality is the suitability of data for a particular purpose. And that doesn’t end with being coherent. You also have to provide the necessary information! If you want to convince people of the advantages of a pool in the garden with an elaborate marketing campaign in the spring, for example, you need information on the residential structure and purchasing power. Because in an urban residential area without gardens, of course, you can not create a pool. If advertising companies do not have this information at their disposal, targeted enrichment with the Schober data universe can help.

Whether geodata, identification data, potential analyses, industry keys, decision-maker data or company size – the Schober data universe provides the required data and significantly increases the depth of information. This ensures targeted customer contact and the ability to create detailed analyses based on facts.

The advantages of information quality and depth

A strong database with high quality and depth of information strengthens sales, support, product development and marketing. This is undeniable. In our experience, the concrete benefits are, for example, better deliverability of marketing and sales campaigns. This starts with the correct postal address and goes on to socio-demographic characteristics and the correct form of address. The result is efficient CRM processes that save more than just costs. After all, a strong database is an important asset and a central component of value creation for companies.

Data is silver, good data is gold

Data is silver, but good data is gold, because only from it can companies gain the information that determines market success. Analytics become more accurate, leads can be more precisely estimated, and customer interactions become more precise overall. “Get the basics right” is what we say at Schober and with the “Brahm’s staircase” we have developed a method to generate added value from data. This has also resulted in a cloud-based out-of-the-box platform. We call the solution udo and think you should get to know udo.

We will be happy to show you how to increase data quality. You are always safe and DSGVO-compliant with us, because Schober attaches great importance to data protection and security. Just log on to michaela.weisse[at]schober.de and she will help you do a free data quality check and increase sales thanks to high depth of information. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact her.

Good luck and long live your sales!

Your Schober Team