One CIO explained managing customer data quality this way: “When I eat I don’t measure the ROI for food. I simply need to eat or I will starve. The same goes for managing customer data quality—we simply need it. If we don’t manage our customer information well, we are starving our company of potential dollars. For some things I don’t need an ROI calculation. The benefits are obvious.”
Inaccurate customer addresses will increase mailing costs and most businesses are not aware of it. The U.S. Postal Service handles and processes billions of incorrectly addressed pieces of mail every year due to wrong customer names and addresses. The mail is either undeliverable or misdirected; which not only costs excess in USPS handling but also in Postage. Another impact of inaccurate data is duplicated data; sending the same piece of mail several times to the same institution. Either to the same person with different name spellings that are incorrect or to several people within the establishment when perhaps a copy or two may suffice.
Through quality data management, hidden costs can be significantly minimized and lead to increased effectiveness and return on marketing investments. Organizations can be assured of having the most up-to-date information on all customers instead of spending more money for less impact.