For many retailers, the challenge isn’t attracting customers. It’s maintaining an accurate view of them.

Today’s customers engage through multiple channels. They browse online, call customer service teams, respond to marketing campaigns and, in some sectors, still place orders through traditional mail. Every interaction creates data and every new piece of data introduces the potential for duplication, inconsistency and error.

Our latest customer story with Chums demonstrates exactly why customer data quality remains so important and how a well-designed data management strategy can improve accuracy, reduce costs and protect brand reputation.

The Challenge: Many Channels, One Customer

Since 1981, Chums has built a successful home shopping business serving customers across the UK. While around half of its business now comes through its website, a significant proportion of orders still arrive through more traditional channels including telephone and post. The average customer is around 70 years old, with more than half of the customer base over 75.

This creates a familiar challenge.

A customer may order online one month, call the contact centre the next and send an order form by post shortly afterwards. Without effective reconciliation, those interactions can easily create multiple customer records, resulting in duplicate communications, inaccurate reporting and increased operational costs.

For organisations that rely on direct mail, the consequences are particularly visible. Multiple catalogues landing on the same doorstep not only waste money, they can also damage the customer experience.

Creating a Single Golden Record

To address these challenges, Chums uses Cygnus to reconcile approximately one million customer accounts every month. Records arriving from web, telephone and postal channels are validated, matched and merged to create a single trusted customer view.

This “golden record” approach ensures that customer history remains complete and accurate regardless of how customers choose to engage.

Each month, the entire customer database is processed through Cygnus, with records validated against the Postcode Address File and matched at an individual level to identify and reunite duplicate records. The process handles around one million accounts and typically completes within five to six hours.

The result is a cleaner, more reliable customer database that provides greater confidence across marketing, customer service and business reporting functions.

Data Hygiene That Goes Beyond Deduplication

Maintaining accurate customer records isn’t solely about finding duplicates.

Customer circumstances change. People move home, move in with relatives, enter care facilities or sadly pass away. Organisations need effective processes in place to ensure customer data remains up to date and communications remain appropriate.

Chums has developed a comprehensive approach to data hygiene by combining internal knowledge with external data sources.

Returned mail is captured and added to an internal suppression file, allowing the business to build a detailed picture of records that should no longer be contacted. This internal intelligence is then applied alongside external suppression and hygiene services.

In addition, customer records are screened against multiple mover and bereavement data sources in a carefully structured waterfall process, helping maximise both accuracy and cost effectiveness.

Control, Visibility and Continuous Improvement

One of the key themes that emerged from our conversations with Andy Bryan, Head of Customer Insight at Chums, was the importance of transparency.

Rather than relying on an outsourced process where the underlying methodology is hidden, the team retains full visibility of every stage. Match settings can be refined, results investigated and processes adjusted as customer behaviour evolves.

This control enables continuous improvement and ensures the data management strategy remains aligned with the specific needs of the business and its customers.

The Business Benefits

The benefits of accurate customer data extend far beyond operational efficiency.

For Chums, maintaining a single customer view helps:

  • Reduce duplicate communications and catalogue mailing costs.
  • Improve confidence in customer insight and reporting.
  • Ensure suppression and hygiene screening is applied effectively.
  • Protect brand reputation by reducing the risk of inappropriate communications.
  • Improve the overall customer experience through better quality data.

Most importantly, it demonstrates that customer data management is not simply a technical exercise. It is a critical business process that affects customer relationships, operational costs and commercial performance.

Data Quality Is an Ongoing Journey

No customer database stands still.

New customers arrive, existing customers move, contact details change and channels evolve. Organisations that treat data quality as an ongoing discipline rather than a one-off project place themselves in a far stronger position to deliver relevant, respectful and cost-effective communications.

The story of Chums is a reminder that creating one trusted customer record remains one of the most valuable investments any customer-focused organisation can make.

Read the full customer story here: https://www.thesoftwarebureau.com/chums/