7 good reasons to deduplicate your customer data
Data quality in the customer repository is a universal issue, and dealing with duplicates is an integral part of data quality management. De-duplicated and merged data are more valuable to the company, on several levels. Here are 7 good reasons to deduplicate your customer data.
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The main source of duplication lies in the compartmentalization of the company’s various information systems, which multiply the number of databases, such as CRM, marketing, sales, customer service, ERP, points of sale, and web portals. This configuration generates duplication in the information system at each touchpoint, and the collection of customer data is likely to trigger a new customer file. Inexorably, duplication spreads throughout the company.
When a customer database contains 10% duplicates, it reaches a critical threshold! This has a major impact on customer care, customer satisfaction and customer retention operations, as well as reporting on customer services and sales. In this situation, it is impossible to have a 360° view of the customer and their interactions with the company, such as orders, after-sales service calls, agency or point-of-sale visits, and previous complaints. CRM users have to juggle between different files for the same customer, without knowing which one they can rely on. These are all problems that deduplicated and merged data automatically solve.
The benefits of deduplicating and merging data are tangible for business line operations, but also on other fronts. Deduplicating the customer repository helps to achieve the following objectives:
1. Strengthening customer knowledge
Duplicate data can distort customer profiles, leading to inaccurate segmentation and targeting. Removing duplicates from the customer repository enables more accurate customer profiles to be created, without confusion for users.
Sales and marketing teams can then analyze their own data to better understand customer behavior, preferences and purchasing habits, facilitating the implementation of personalized, targeted marketing campaigns.
2. Making reporting, analysis, and decision-making more reliable
Deduplication improves the accuracy of data analysis and reporting. Once duplicate data has been eliminated, sales and marketing staff have access to a single, reliable source of customer information.
By relying on consistent data, performance analysis, campaign evaluation and decision-making become more relevant. Sales and marketing teams can accurately measure the effectiveness of their actions and make improvements based on their data. More precise data also means the ability to adapt strategies and engage effectively with customers.
3. Improving the ROI of relational campaigns
Duplicates can lead to redundancies in marketing actions, such as sending several emails or making repetitive sales calls to the same customer. Another problem is segmentation, as duplicates make it difficult to distinguish a regular buyer from a newcomer when yet another customer file has just been created in their name.
Deduplication avoids such inefficiencies by ensuring that each customer is known and recognized, and receives the appropriate communication only once. Confusion-free communication increases campaign deliverability and, ultimately, profitability. What’s more, accurate contact data directly feeds the quality of the relationship between your brand and its customers.
4. Enriching the customer experience
Without a unified view of the customer, it’s difficult to take into account their history with the brand to personalize their experience. This is the case, for example, when it comes to accounting for points as part of a loyalty program. Points earned at different points of contact need to be unified in the database used by the CRM tool so that the correct tally appears. Otherwise, the customer will be faced with unnecessary errors and confusion.
To avoid these clashes in the customer experience, you need a complete and reliable view of the customer journey. That’s why deduplication contributes to a seamless, consistent customer experience based on accurate, non-repetitive data. Sales and marketing specialists can then provide personalized recommendations, tailored offers and relevant communication, improving customer satisfaction and loyalty.
5. Streamlining storage and associated costs
Duplicate data takes up unnecessary space, wasting storage resources. Deduplication reclaims storage capacity by identifying and removing redundant data, resulting in rationalized storage utilization.
In addition, by reducing the need for additional storage infrastructure, deduplication saves on hardware, maintenance, and energy costs.
6. Improving system performance
When duplicates are removed, the overall volume of data is reduced. As a result, data access and restoration times are shortened, system performance is improved, and latency is reduced.
In scenarios where data is transmitted over a network, deduplication can significantly reduce the amount of data to be transferred. This optimization minimizes network congestion, speeds up data transfer, and reduces bandwidth requirements.
7. Strengthening data security and compliance
Deduplication plays a crucial role in backup and disaster recovery solutions. It reduces the size of backup data sets, shortens backup windows, and enables faster data restoration by eliminating redundant data.
On the compliance front, duplicates can lead to inconsistencies, errors and lack of compliance. Deduplication helps maintain data integrity and consistency, as well as compliance with data governance policies, ensuring accurate and reliable information.
About DQE
Because data quality is essential to customer knowledge and the construction of a lasting relationship, since 2008, DQE has provided its clients with innovative and comprehensive solutions that facilitate the collection of reliable data.
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