Chapter 07.

How to keep your database fighting fit this winter

Winter can leave us all feeling tired, lethargic, and unable to perform at our best. And without regular TLC, the same can happen to our customer data.

So, as you approach the busy Golden Quarter, it’s a good idea to give your CRM some much-needed attention to keep it fighting fit over the winter.

Here, we take a look at the symptoms of a tired database, as well as the treatment options to get it back in working order.

The five symptoms of a tired database

Poor delivery success rates 

Poorly maintained and unverified address data can result in late or failed deliveries.

Customer complaints

Faulty fulfilment leads to disgruntled customers demanding refunds and compensation.

Mounting costs

Returned shipments and mail, failed delivery fees and chargebacks can all build up over time.

High email bounce rates

Hard bounces, soft bounces and spam complaints can damage your marketing campaigns, brand and customer comms.

Inefficient reporting processes

Teams spend too much time sifting through data attempting to gain insights

The treatment plan

If you’re experiencing one or more of the symptoms above, your data could be tired and in need of some extra care.

We prescribe the following steps:

Deal with missing data

Plugging any missing values in a data set is an important element of quality data management. Missing postcodes could mean undelivered goods and missing forenames can lead to important communication being misdirected.

Validate existing data

Reviewing existing data for consistency and accuracy will have far-reaching benefits, including enhancing your marketing, improving deliveries, and increasing operational efficiency.

Remove duplicate data

Companies have an average 20-40% duplicate customer profiles or records in their databases. Identifying and removing these additional records will keep your database ship-shape and accurate.

Handle structural errors

Redressing mistakes that arise from processing, such as measurement and transfer of data, illustrates the importance of data cleansing. Inconsistent punctuation, typos and mislabelled classes are the most common problems that need to be resolved.

Diagnosing the problem

Take our free data health check to get a full data diagnosis.

We'll compare your customer and prospect records against our own data sources to reveal how accurate, complete and compliant your data is. We'll then provide you with a visualised data quality audit, and a unique Data Quality Index Score.

Did you know? You can now sign up for an annual subscription for our data maintenance services. This unlimited usage model, much like Netflix and Spotify, enables you to cleanse and suppress your customer data as often as you like to ensure revenue and retention activities can be maximised throughout the year.