Royal Mail Data Services, the specialist data business of Royal Mail Group, has revealed that poor-quality customer contact data could be costing UK organizations as much as 6% of their annual revenues.
A survey conducted by management consultants DataIQ found that, for the second consecutive year, marketing, data and analytics professionals cited good-quality customer contact data as having the greatest positive impact on campaign response and conversion rates. Approximately 300 marketing professionals were contacted for the survey.
Furthermore, comparative analysis shows that specific data issues have continued to rise since 2014. Notably, duplicate data (which has increased 22% in the last two years), incomplete data (up 13%) and out-of-date data (up 12%).
This year’s survey also revealed that 37% of businesses lack any formal processes for cleansing their data. Nearly one in five (19%) do not validate customer contact data at the point of data capture.
More than a third (38%) of marketing, data and analytics professionals say their efforts to overcome these challenges and improve the quality of customer contact data are thwarted by legacy IT systems. This can also limit or even prevent the level of personalization which marketing is able to deploy.
Jim Conning, managing director, Royal Mail Data Services, said, “Our study has revealed that poor-quality customer contact data directly impacts the bottom line. Especially as one in five customers need to be replaced each year. Marketers need to work harder to build value in the minds of their customers and stop them from moving on to a new brand or provider. Good-quality customer contact data is critical to tackling both these challenges.
“The lack of consensus within organizations about how to approach the data problem is holding them back. Breaking down silos and ensuring that marketing, data and IT work together to tackle the data-quality challenge should be top of the agenda for any business.”
To read more from Royal Mail’s research report, The Six Per Cent Solution = How Better Customer Data Drives Marketing Performance and Business Growth, click here.
December 12, 2016
