Bad data is like a dead fish….It stinks! – 12 ways to improve your customer data

By following these steps you will be able to better reach to your customers.  You’ll also be able to utilize your customer data to see what each customer is worth to you, select them for new offers you have, decide who should receive which promotions and foster a relationship with your clients.

• Split up the names into first name field and a last name field. A middle initial is good too.  This lets you search for the client a couple of ways.  It also makes it easier to find and remove duplicate entries in the database
• Assign Industry codes for companies. For B2B products and services, targeting offers by industry can often make perfect sense.
• Allow for home address and work address information. This allows for the elimination of duplicates.  It’s hard to find duplicates in a database when the person has different addresses.
• Provide a place for spousal information If you are offering a B2C service or product a database that allows for spousal information can eliminate confusion.  For example, if one partner brings a car into a shop, and the partner other picks the car up, the database should be flexible enough to operate smoothly.
• Give a note field for sales people.  You have to accommodate the users of the database.  I’ve heard stories of sales people putting notes in title fields like “danger she likes to talk”.  Down the road, this gets printed on a mailing piece and a customer is lost.
• Remove duplicates on a regular basis.  It’s also a great idea to have a checking system so that when you enter a client into the database, you can make sure the person isn’t already in there.
• Get undelivered mail returned. Pay the 75 cents and get your return postage guaranteed so if the mail is undeliverable, it comes back to you.  First class mail is returned automatically, but not bulk mailing unless you pay extra)
• Run the addresses through an address verification program. This just confirms the accuracy of the data entry.
• Utilize the change of address service provided by Canada Post.  Your customers probably won’t contact you when they move.  Keeping on top of this is essential.
• Standardize your phone numbers and cell phone numbers. ###-###-####  This is also a great way to eliminate duplicates.  Especially if last names are misspelled in the database
• Keep track of the recency of the data. Put a date field in there so that you can see the last time the contact information was updated.  This can be used to re-activate customers.
• Know everything that your customers have purchased from you. Have the tables in the database structured so that you can keep track of every transaction that the client had with you. This can range from what books they bought, to what services were provided.