Is your customer data fresh?
Stale customer data can hamper your business and have a negative impact on the customer experience. That's why it's important that you take the time to keep your customer data up to date.
What are the implications of outdated data? And what can you do to keep your records updated?
Fresh Data Enhances the Customer Experience
It is important that every interaction your customer has with your business gives a good impression, but out-of-date data can hinder that.
Your customers may miss out on relevant messages or in contrast could get duplicate emails, texts, or printed materials. This can look spammy and make them feel annoyed with your business.
Incorrect data can also mean mistakes in personalization. Getting a customer's name, title or job title wrong reflects badly on your business, making it look like you don't value them enough to address them correctly.
Fresh Data Saves You Time and Money
It is all too easy for outdated data to start clogging up your databases.
Customers move locations, change phones, move jobs or switch email addresses. Some might change their name. Before long, your data will start to get a little stale.
As the article "How Keeping Customer Data Fresh Helps Grow Your Business" points out, stale data can cost you time and money.
Stale data could mean:
All of this can have a negative impact on your business, preventing you from reaching the people you want to reach.
Every incorrect detail also has a cost: every time you send a letter or email to the wrong person, you're wasting the postage, or using up part of your data limit, to no avail. There's also the time cost of reaching out to the wrong people.
How to Keep Your Data Fresh
So,just how can you keep your data fresh? You can start by:
Keeping your data fresh will save you time and money and help keep your customers happy.
Make data maintenance part of your business, and make sure your team on is board so that everyone who handles data does so carefully.
About the Author: Tristan Anwyn writes on a variety of topics including social media, how to build customer relationships, content marketing and how to keep customer data fresh.