What is data cleansing and why is it important?

Having an up-to-date database is a vital requirement for organizations these days as most of the business comes from marketing. An up-to-date database will ensure contacts are correct and you can connect with customers efficiently while staying up to date with compliance standards. Now, with daily use by different team members, there is a high chance that the data will become corrupted (incorrect or out of order). There is also the possibility that some contacts may become obsolete over time and need to be replaced.

That is where data cleansing comes to the rescue, as with this process you can ensure that any inaccurate data is identified and corrected accordingly. Therefore, the data cleaning process aims to keep the customer database clean (consistent and correct data) by discovering any inaccurate data (incorrect, outdated or incomplete) and removing dirty data, creating a single record for the individual customer with all their related information. While manual maintenance is generally followed, the use of data cleansing tools is also accelerating these days due to the complexity faced by the database administrator. Before we discuss the different methods used for data cleansing, let’s look at why it’s so important to cleanse your data and maintain an accurate customer database.

1. Keeping up with compliance standards i.e. Data Protection Law is an important aspect for any organization and therefore data cleansing plays a vital role here.

2. Periodic data cleansing ensures that there is minimal information waste, ie fewer erroneous emails. This automatically reduces shipping costs, thus helping your business save some resources.

3. Customer data is crucial to any business and therefore you need to make sure that you maintain a clean database that will allow quick remediation of customer information and thus reduce response time.

4. Having all the data in one place not only improves the quality of service, but also offers a better customer experience.

5. Marketing your business to potential customers is the main survival strategy for all businesses and therefore a clean customer database will ensure you have the correct customer information which will help generate better sales targets and proper management.
That said, it is still a difficult task to manage a clean customer database.

Customer information changes frequently and thus becomes outdated very soon. Also, customer databases in many companies may have multiple information based on different parameters, such as purchase history, prospect list, or email list. This can create a lot of confusion as details of the same customer can appear in different databases with significant pieces of information under each parameter.

So, if you are asking about the methods used to clean data, it is important to know that it completely depends on the different software used by the company, such as the type of CRM, marketing automation, and any other software you are using. Regardless of the method you choose, it is usually a big challenge to clean data manually as it will consume a lot of time and effort which will directly affect the overall productivity of the business. But, if you’re looking for a specific method, you’ll first need to identify the type of data cleansing you want to perform. The method adopted will totally depend on whether you want to aggregate data, remove duplicate entries, standardize data, remove unusable contacts, check email list, etc. And that’s the

Therefore, your life is much easier when you outsource the data cleaning process and seek help from different data cleaning tools available in the market. Data Ladder is one such efficient tool that is known for its advanced semantic technology that helps maintain the client’s database by removing any unwarranted errors or duplicate entries that might be creating all the confusion. Thus, it reduces the time spent on the entire data cleansing process and greatly reduces costs, helping to improve business productivity.

Methods used for data cleansing:

Data review
The cardinal step for data cleansing should always be to thoroughly review customer databases from the start. Check for any deviations or inaccurate data by analyzing/auditing the database with the help of statistics and database techniques. The data generated through these methods should help you determine the location and attributes of deviations, helping you get to the root of the problem.

Using different methods
Database review should not be limited to the use of statistical or database techniques. The review process should also include methods such as buying data from outside and then analyzing it against internal data. But, if that’s not enough and the business is facing a challenge with limited staff and time, using an outside telemarketing company is a better idea. However, here it is important for the company to be careful about its brand image and the work standards followed by the external organization (third parties).

data integration
Data cleansing is not just about finding and removing inaccurate data from the customer database, it should be used to the benefit of the business to integrate customer information and aggregate details such as phone numbers, email addresses or any other contact over and over again.

information report
Companies must ensure that there is a strong management system within the organization that can timely and effectively identify and report any incorrect data and update it in the database. This can be achieved through a managed and feedback system designed for emails and any email that was bounced back because it was not the correct address. This anomaly must be reported and the incorrect email address removed from the customer database.

repeat the same process
It’s an ever-advancing world where everything changes so fast that businesses need to be able to keep up with the fast pace, and therefore customer data such as business email address, phone numbers, postal addresses, etc change very often. Therefore, simply running a data cleansing process only once would not be the solution, and therefore repeating the same data cleansing process regularly is extremely important. Filtering out this inaccurate data and regularly updating the customer database is the only way to ensure that the company has a clean database.

Yes, data cleansing is an important process that is critical and time consuming. Since it takes a lot of time, effort and resources, it is a wise decision to use the renowned data cleaning tools available these days. Using data ladder for deduplication or customer database management along with cleanup is one of the best ways to maintain clean records and ensure consistent business growth.