Summer is here and whilst looking out of my office window I can see the first clutch of Swallows and House Martins taking their tentative flying steps and idly thinking about when are we really going to get the summer we have all been promised?
But back to data matters and my biggest bug bear is rearing its ugly head – and so now is the time to name and shame. Abbey Business Banking – They insist on writing to my wife with bank statements, new credit cards, etc with ,,, (comas) in front of the company name. It may not mean much to a lot of people but to others it is attention to detail and customer care. It creates a very bad impression.
Data quality is not difficult. It has never been so easy to clean data, but part of the key is to make sure that data is correct at point of entry and that care has been taken to ensure that the name and address are correct and the correct salutation has been supplied. Not rocket science.
On an ongoing basis data should be cleaned which makes good housekeeping. It can be “eyeballed” and amended. It can be cleansed periodically by a bureau or by using a tool yourself. When i pointed it out to the young operators was oblivious to the irritation that that caused.
Other to name and shame include Tiscali who use my top line of my address twice in the mailing again an easy to rectify error – but asking them to amend their records was like being a Victor Meldrew. Another guilty company is Viking who insists on sending two lots of their business catalogues to me, despite me saying that one would suffice.
I want to make this as a regular of my blog spot so please email me with examples of poor address or duplications to me at david.murray@thesoftwarebureau.com and a bottle of Champagne will be winging its way to the provider of the worst example.
As a footnote and to end on a positive it was good to be at the Data Marketing Show Live at Olympia. What set it apart from other shows is the segmentation of the different practises now encompassed under the “Data” umbrella. There were four sections to the show which meant that every person we had on our stand was in that part of the show to talk about data and direct mail.
