In today’s fast-paced world, contact data has taken a central role and has become the foundation of customer experience. Every customer interaction depends on trustworthy contact data and every strategic business decision relies on the insights from it.
We know that 85 percent of organizations see data as one of their most valuable assets, yet we also know that organizations believe almost one-third of the data stored in their CRM is inaccurate. So why is that? It’s clear that we have seen more accelerated change than ever before, and the digital landscape is becoming increasingly complex. The increase of data puts pressure on the processes organizations have in place to ensure the integrity of their data.
Our latest CRM white paper shows this trend very clearly and the steps one can take to improve contact data quality. But before you dive into this report, let’s learn more about data validation services and why it matters to your business.
What is data validation?
Data validation refers to a process that verifies data at the point of capture and can automate the data cleansing process, ensuring data pipelines are squeaky clean with valuable insights. Whatever industry your organization is in, you will be capturing contact data—whether they are customers, clients, or citizens. But if you capture poor quality data, you will end up with poor quality insights.
Simply put, data validation is a necessity for organizations—whether it be for small businesses or multinational corporations. If there aren’t any data quality checks in place, inaccuracies can lead to lost revenue and missed opportunities.
Data validation can be performed to verify contact information like address, email, and phone data:
- Address validation is a process that ensures the accuracy of a mailing address by checking it against an authoritative database. Although you can manually validate addresses, it can be a tedious task and leave room for human error. That’s why many organizations opt for address validation solutions to capture accurate addresses, reduce mailing costs, and improve customer perception.
- Email validation is a procedure that verifies if an email address is deliverable and valid. This service runs a swift spell-check to catch typos, filters out spam traps that could potentially label your organization as an untrustworthy sender, and checks the domains of your email list to ensure they are accepting mail. In other words, it can help your organization in reducing bounce rates, improving sender reputation, and increasing deliverability.
- Phone validation is a helpful way to prove if a phone number is real and active and shows you if a number is connected to a network to receive calls. Like verifying emails, making sure a phone number is valid can have a big impact on your business. With phone validation services, you can spend less time blindly calling invalid numbers and more time getting in touch with customers and business contacts.
3 reasons data validation matters to your business
Becoming a data-driven organization can provide a multitude of benefits—from an improved customer experience to better decision-making. If data is not of high quality, organizations lose trust in their data, which ultimately limits the ability to leverage data insights for daily operations, digital transformation, market segmentation, and more.
To ensure that data is clean and accurate, businesses have started to rely on data validation to improve the quality of their data and to monitor data quality as part of their standard business practices.
Now, let’s dive into the three reasons why data validation matters to your business.
1. Data validation makes it easier for businesses to trust their data
Data is an essential component to many initiatives and can be the source of both opportunity and innovation. But what happens if businesses don’t trust their data? Lack of trust doesn’t happen overnight but rather overtime via inadequate tooling, poorly managed processes, and data decay. Data that was once accurate can be outdated—either due to consumers changing their address or the addition of new data fields that are now incomplete for existing customers. However, with data validation your organization can trust that your data is accurate and up to date and avoid the repercussions caused by data decay.
2. Data validation helps maintain compliance
Over the years there has been a substantial alteration in the volume, variety, and rate data is being produced. To combat potential issues and protect the consumer, regulatory bodies have increased the potency of legislations. As compliance and regulatory requirements continue to evolve, it’s become increasingly important for organizations to uphold the integrity of their data. Data validation can help minimize and solve potential errors, identify systematic inaccuracies, and ultimately protect your reputation and customer experience.
3. Data validation provides deeper customer insight
Accurate marketing data is the bedrock of successful campaigns. And it comes as no surprise that 67 percent of marketers rely on contact data to segment and target customers. When contact data such as address, email, and phone are validated, the opportunities are endless. For starters, you can enrich your data by appending in-depth information to obtain a personalized analysis, allowing you to create customized messaging that helps your business connect and engage with customers. Wither a deeper understanding of your customers and their preferences, your organization can better resonate with and serve those customers and in turn, improve their experience and help increase your bottom line.
Gain a competitive advantage by investing in data services
Your contact database is your biggest asset. It should be well structured, validated, and maintained regularly so that it serves the strategic initiatives you’ve set out for your business. Data validation is the first step towards implementing a data-driven culture and ensuring the effectiveness of your contact data for optimal impact and outreach to prospects and customers.
It’s no secret just how valuable high-quality contact data can be for organizations. High-quality contact data will not only improve the relationships you have with your customers but also set you apart from your competition. Better quality data means that you can use your data more effectively through enrichment and therefore, better serve your customers via personalized messaging tailored to their interests.
Learn more about how Experian can improve your data quality with our data validation services. We have solutions for your most important communication channels.
