Guest Post by Diamond Services International

Over the last decade I have lost count of the hours at work and after hours spent cleaning up a customer database preparing for a mail out or an e- blast. Missing emails, incomplete or misspelt addresses, missing postcodes and incorrect format, just to name a few human errors and data entry laziness I have encountered. It is a tedious task to take on and often ignored until the last minute. One thing is for sure… poor data in = poor data out!

I have spoken to quite a few business owners in the last few months about this topic and less than 50% are really looking after the health of their database. Many business owners know their database is messy to say the least but are not sure where to start and how to get their team of staff to care about the health of the database as well as spend time each day cleaning the database.

The key to a healthy customer database is definitely staff training and having a Policy and Procedure in place along with a correct data entry sample template on hand as well as putting one person responsible for the database. Consistency and accuracy of the data entry is of high importance in order to stay in touch with your best customers and will also ensuring you make the most of your marketing spend. When databases are old and inaccurate, they can cost your business money and potentially customers.

So where do you start I hear some of you ask… DSI has prepared a list of ideas and key strategies to assist you in this process and is located in the Resource area of the website.

Contact me here to receive the password for the Resource Page

I also have a helpful quick little tool from SWIM to locate those double up customer files.

Select Merge Customers on the Customer SWIM page. Using the merge customer form but leave empty select search. Your full database will be listed. Click on the results column heading for 'phone', so it sorts by phone number. Then you can spot the duplicates and merge the customer files. Repeat the process for ‘address’ column, and also surname. This will locate majority but won’t confirm customer files with format issues or empty fields.

Remember your database is key to connecting with existing clients and future sales. Make the time to start the process!