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Centralize, unify, and qualify your data… A FAQ to clarify everything!
In an increasingly complex digital ecosystem, leveraging customer data requires that it be centralized, qualified and unified. How does this all add-up? Here’s an overview of the fundamentals in 6 key questions.
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When faced with erroneous data, invalid or outdated contact information, as well as duplicate data generated by the coexistence of different databases, no company can escape the need to centralize and qualify its customer data to get a unified view of customers.
Data quality is all the more strategic because without it, even the best marketing tools cannot deliver the expected ROI. And unique customer repositories (UCR) are no exception to the rule. When contact information is wrong, messages and mailings don’t reach their destination because of unreliable contact information, delivery rates are lowered, communications miss their target, and operational staff can’t be sure they can trust the customer data they access… In short, poor customer data quality affects operations and results.
How do you fix it? Here is a 6-question FAQ to clarify the fundamentals behind quality customer data that is accessible to all users, that can be used with a 360° view of customers.
1. Where does the need to centralize customer data come from?
Centralizing customer data is necessary when various customer databases coexist in the information system. Indeed, many companies still operate in an environment with siloed systems which multiply databases, including the marketing / sales CRM database, customer service, ERP, points of sale, and the web portal.
This proliferation of databases makes it impossible to manage customer data according to the same rules and criteria for all of them. What happens in one database is not taken into account in another – updating or adding information in one system is difficult to identify and use elsewhere. Hence the need to group customer data within a unique customer repository – the UCR – to pool management and operations.
2. Where should customer data be centralized?
Centralizing customer data requires the installation of a unique customer repository – UCR – in the company. The UCR is THE reference database for customer data, where it can be centralized, and from which it can be managed, used and made available to all users with the same level of quality and the same characteristics. The UCR applies a unique identifier to each customer that is used as a reference throughout the company. The UCR guarantees the uniformity of the data and its availability to all users.
3. How does the RCU work with other databases and systems?
There are several technological options for setting up a unique customer repository, but regardless of the system chosen, the UCR converses with the company’s databases and systems: on the one hand, it manages data updates from the various customer relations channels. It centralizes and guarantees the creation and modification rights of the reference data, and makes them available to the other systems and databases with a complete and up-to-date view of customers.
Once the data is gathered in the UCR, you still have to manage it and in particular to qualify it.
4. What is the difference between data centralization and data unification?
The coexistence of various customer databases can lead to duplicates. This is the case when, at each point of contact between a customer and the company, the collection of their data triggers the creation of a new customer file. With a purchase at the point of sale, an opening of an account on the e-commerce site, or a call to the after-sales service for a question about a product, a customer can thus be found in several databases, in several files.
However, once these records are gathered in the UCR, they are not associated with the same person. The system may in fact understand that they are different people because of variations from one record to the next, for example in the spelling of the last name or first name, or because of two different addresses if the client has several residences, to cite just a few examples of approximations that are sources of duplication.
Once the data has been collected in the UCR, it still needs to be qualified and unified: identifying the duplicates, in other words, the records that concern the same customer, and then to merge the validated and updated data into a single record that is the reference.
5. What is the Golden Record?
A UCR whose data is qualified, deduplicated and unified becomes the Golden Record, the single source of truth about customers, allowing a true “360° customer view”.
The Golden Record combines the best of both worlds of centralization and data quality of unified data. It provides users with complete, reliable and accurate data, with contact information that is verified as being reachable. That’s why there can be no Golden Record without data quality.
6. Centralize, qualify, unify: what are the concrete benefits?
Data quality applied to centralized data increases the operational efficiency of data users. Examples in three use cases:
Customer service, call center and point of sale: well-managed and qualified data helps to give quick and relevant answers to customers – in other words, it serves as a lever for the main mission of customer representatives! Fast access to reliable data removes many obstacles, including duplicates. No more multiple customer files on the screen when a customer calls! Only one complete and qualified file appears. This provides an immediate 360° view of the customer – orders, after-sales service calls, visits to branches or points of sale, previous claims, etc.
The Marketing and CRM department can rely on verified contact data, which means they can be reached. A first benefit is increased deliverability of campaigns and, in emailing, the assurance of not being blacklisted by ISP servers. Another benefit: complete customer view supports segmentation that is much more relevant, and messages that are adapted to the customer’s stage in the buying process. There is no longer a risk, for example, of mistaking a regular customer for a stranger and sending them a first-time buyer incentive.
The sales department can count on reliable figures. Conversely, when a database contains too many duplicates – as soon as their proportion reaches 10% – several indicators are degraded. In particular, it is impossible to know the exact revenue generated by a given customer and to identify him or her as a high-potential customer if their data is scattered in different databases and on different files. With qualified data, reporting is based on accurate consolidations.
For more info, see also: Unified customer view: what obstacles should be removed to make it happen?
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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