When optimizing your omnichannel strategy, you naturally focus on getting and keeping a multitude of channels available for your customer. With the management of those channels however, the management of the data that comes from the many customer interactions through those channels is often overlooked.
There are many data issues though that can be avoided if you tackle data contamination at the source, and get it right the first time. One method is to have customer service employees vet data that comes in through a self-service portal. They can manually check whether the data already exists. That doesn’t, unfortunately, prevent additional user error. It’s also time consuming and expensive. Data entry software, however, will perform validation processes automatically, as well as adjust, supplement and standardize the data. Here’s an example of how that might work:
A call centre employee registers the details of a new customer, contacted through a cold call, in your CRM system, in real time. They type the first letters of the name and the sys- tem presents options from which the employee can select the correct one. The software then automatically enters the gender, based on the name, and the employee starts filling in the address. Thanks to an error-tolerant search function, when your employee enters knig st., the system suggests King St. and capitalizes the street name. Based on the com- bination of the street name and house number, the software automatically generates the correct postal code. Simultaneously, it checks the new contact to make sure there are no duplicate entries. Should a duplicate be found, you may opt to have them both sent to a data steward who can decide whether the records should be merged.
Automation for data entry ensures a high level of data reliability, which, in turn, leads to greater customer satisfaction, increased productivity and higher profits per customer. It provides additional value because with automated data entry you will:
- Prevent contamination of your database(s);
- Quickly find the customer you are looking for,
- Detect fraudulent applications,
- Increase customer confidence,
- Improve the effectiveness of marketing campaigns,
- Discover opportunities for cross- and up-selling, etc,
- Create the right starting point for enriching the information in your database(s).
Getting your data right the first time will lead to demonstrable growth in customer lifetime value; it’s not the availability of omnichannel communications that determine business success. It’s the ability to keep your customer data consistent no matter which channel they use.
Automating data entry is just one aspect of how data quality will help improve the quality of your omnichannel communications. To explore this topic further, and learn what other factors might be of influence, we invite you to download this free whitepaper: “The recipe for success: Consistent customer data and an omnichannel strategy”.