Challenge: Multiple Data Sources Diminished Data Quality and Effectiveness of Customer Relationship Management
An international automaker identified a serious problem with the CRM database used by its Mexican business division. Like most automakers, they receive customer information from multiple sources including their dealer network, parts distributors and resellers, their finance division, and service facilities. This makes it difficult to get an accurate picture of the makeup and behaviors of their customer base and to provide a positive experience as customers engage with these outlets. With the advent of industry disrupters that control every aspect of their customer’s journey and are growing in market share, the automaker needed to better manage their customer data to retain their leadership position and protect the customer loyalty they worked so hard to build.
At the time, all the data streams the automaker received were fed directly into their CRM system, creating duplicates and degrading the quality of customer records with misspellings, errors, and omissions. The automaker wanted to create a single, cleansed and standardized “golden record” for each customer in their CRM system – records that were accurate, complete, and up to date. They wanted an “as a service” data quality solution that could handle their daily volume of transactions, was quick to implement, and delivered outstanding performance.
Solution: Improve Data to Ensure Complete and Accurate Contact Information and Run Enlighten DQaaS Daily to Maintain Data Quality
The automaker selected Enlighten Data Quality as a Service (DQaaS) from Innovative Systems due to its proven speed and accuracy. According to Gartner, 80% of data management and integration projects fail due to a lack of knowledge of the source data, so the customer wanted to start with an accurate assessment of each data source.
Profiling the data would identify issues such as null and “dummy” values and common data types and values, as well as produce a count of fields and rows. Enlighten Profiler was used to provide a comprehensive report that allowed the customer to better understand their incoming data and how to address their most prevalent issues. A validation workshop was conducted with Innovative Systems to review and adjust the rules for processing data and add any custom processes that might be required for their specific data types.
“Initial results were impressive,with first name data standardized and improved by 97% and last name data improved by 183%.”
Enlighten Data Quality as a Service was scheduled to run daily, beginning at the close of business when each system automatically exports and uploads data to a secure FTP (SFTP) site provided by Innovative. During the initial processing of data, Enlighten Cleanse imported the data and parsed name elements, placing them into first name, last name, and second last name fields, which are common in Latin America. Enlighten Cleanse then identified names that had been consolidated into one field, and names that were misspelled or in the wrong field, standardizing the data by correcting errors, placing data in the correct fields, and reformatting to field standards. Initial results were impressive, with first name data standardized and improved by 97% and last name data improved by 183%.
“Address data was standardized at a rate of 99% for a dramatic improvement in address completeness and accuracy.”
Parsing and cleansing separated addresses into multiple fields for city, state, municipality, and postal code. PostLocate was used to validate addresses against the official catalog of the Mexican postal service, append latitude/longitude geocoordinates, and add socioeconomic data. Address data was standardized at a rate of 99% for a dramatic improvement in address completeness and accuracy.
“…the number of erroneous phone number entries [were reduced] by 42% and email addresses by 26%, leaving only valid contact information.”
Customer contact information was cleansed and validated against the official IFETEL telephone catalog, and email formatting rules were applied, reducing the number of erroneous phone number entries by 42% and email addresses by 26%, leaving only valid contact information.
To address the automaker’s biggest concern, Enlighten Match was used to identify individuals that appeared more than once within the CRM system. Based on the now complete address and contact information, unique records were imported directly into the CRM database while duplicate records were intelligently combined to form a single “golden” record before being imported. The matching process removed 66% of customer names as duplicates and another 46% of addresses as duplicates.
“The matching process removed 66% of customer names as duplicates and another 46% of addresses as duplicates.”
Results: Improved Customer Data that Improved Relationships and Reduced Costs
Since launching the service and achieving outstanding results in the initial processing, the automaker has processed millions of records, standardizing and cleansing over 80% of its daily transactional data. The marketing department was able to reduce its production and mailing costs by eliminating duplicate records in the CRM database, and it is now able to personalize communications with its customers, build stronger relationships, and maintain its dominant position in the Mexican automotive market. The automaker realizes that keeping their data clean, accurate, and deduplicated is an ongoing process, and for this, they rely on Enlighten DQaaS.
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