Good Data Means More Choice – Haigh Consultancy Services Ltd.

This afternoon I would like to offer you an overview of the benefits of good data and good data maintenance.

In postal terms, how good data can mean more choice of service.

In more general terms, how keeping good data makes good business sense: saving you money, making your mailings more effective and improving your company’s image.

I am going to talk about –
1. Different methods of cleansing your data,
2. Look at the positive impact of correct addressing in terms of mail sortation.
3. Consider some of the obstacles you may come across in trying to achieve good data and
4. Finally look at some of the new channels that good data, and good data practice can open up.

Talking about good data implies you may have bad data! So what is “bad” data and how is it created?

As we are talking mostly about “name and address” data here, bad data can be put as “data in the wrong location”.

It could be correct data in the wrong location or wrong data in the wrong location – but it is still a problem.

For example, a persons name appearing where a postcode should appear!

“Incorrect Spelling” is an obvious problem often caused by poor data entry. Indeed “Inconsistent data entry” is a major cause of bad data.

There is some truth in the old database adage “Rubbish In Rubbish Out”

In our experience the real culprit is merging files together and the clash between file and data formats – and that is where we start the data cleansing processing.

Very often the best place to start is with Data Normalisation.

This is the process of ensuring that data is in the right place and is consistent throughout the file.

You define what the structure needs to be and then start the process of “Restructuring the Data” – searching out the data in the wrong place and moving it into the right place.

That persons name that was in the postcode field? This is where you correct problems like that.

Then format the data ready for the next processing stage.

Which is normally De-duplication.

Again, as we are looking at name & address data, we are looking for duplicate names and addresses.

Removing duplicates saves moneys and help yours image.

Have you ever received two identical mail items in the post? And when that does happens – what’s your impression of the company that sent the mail? Probably not all that good!

You may come across the terms “Exact & Phonetic Matching” and here is a small example of this type of de-duplication.

On your left is how I spell my name and on your right is how everybody else spells my name! If both those names had the same address data – Phonetic matching would recognise it as a duplicate whereas Exact matching would miss it.

Duplication occurs when merging files such as external mailing lists. With multiple files the de-duplication process is sometimes run in a certain hierarchy or order.

After the de-duping process it is normal to run Data Suppression – which is suppressing or removing certain records.

How this works is you run your data against known suppression files looking for matches.

I’ve listed some of the main suppression file types here.

Mail Preference Service where people have registered not to receive certain types of Direct Mail.

A Bereavement file is a list of recently deceased, mailings here can clearly upset the family of the deceased.

Goneaways – Why mail to people who don’t live there anymore.

Clearly suppressing this type of data saves money and upset.

I’ve also added profanity and international as examples.

Scan your data for profanities and remove them – more and more companies are doing this.

If you are doing a UK only mailing remove any international destinations.

There are many different suppression files in the marketplace attracting different charges. I can think of at least three bereavement files. So hierarchy processing is often used to run data against the cheapest suppression files first.

So you’ve restructured your data, removed duplications and suppressed unwanted entries.

Next step is to check your address data.

Still the best way is PAF, with over 27 million UK addresses.

Remember most mail sortation services expect over 90% address accuracy with a full postcode.

I’ve mentioned Goneaways already but just to note that the NCOA file from the Royal Mail can replace goneaway information with a new full address.

But again note that NCOA is not the only type of file in the marketplace that can do this.

Then, after all the data cleansing and preparation you can mailsort your data. This is normally a software process – your software our software, who-ever!

You have heard a lot over the last two days about mail sortation so this slide is only a brief summary of the main types.

There are the standard range of Royal Mail sortations and all the Downstream Access services.

We found that Pricing in Proportion did not have the great impact on data processing as people expected.

Zonal pricing, if it happens, will definitely have an impact. So ensure your mailsort software providers are looking at this development now.

Most of these services tend to have certain common criteria.

Normally there is a minimum volume criteria taking into account type and size of the mailpiece.

As mentioned earlier, a greater than 90% address accuracy.

A Geographical Selection requirement – Royal Mail’s Walksort is a good example of this. Zonal pricing is an other example.

Presentation – both physical and electronic. Remember there are new style electronic reports generated for downstream access services.

But there can be some obstacles to cleansing your data and I’ve listed some here.

Legacy Systems and Applications – These are typical “No Go” areas. Systems that for whatever reasons an IT supplier or data management company cannot access or make changes to your data.

IT Departments can be very reluctant, for very good reasons, to let 3rd parties load their software or install hardware on their networks.

And of course Budgets! Sometimes to save money you have to spend money!

What I would highlight is all the processes I have talked about so far can be applied to print data – which even the most guarded system produces. So you do not always need to access your core systems or databases. Use existing print files!

So Data Cleansing combined with the new mail sortation programs gives you access not only to Royal Mail services but also the new postal operators and services.

But consider these new channels –

Combine all your smaller, ad-hoc mailings to reach mail sort and downstream access volumes through print consolidation. Print consolidation is a new technology and available now, so use it!

Also, let new technology create a complete electronic copy of your mail, even from your print data, and make it available via email or a web portal – let the customer decide how they want to receive your correspondence.

And now you have electronic images of your correspondence, why not store or archive your correspondence electronically. Integrate them with your Electronic Document Management System if you have one. Business compliant images of your correspondence available for internal or external retrieval.

The old database adage of “Rubbish In Rubbish Out” is still strictly true for databases but follow the processes I have outlined today and it could be “Rubbish In Good Data Out!”

Good data practice and new technology can not only
• save you money
• make more effective mailings and
• improve your company’s image

But it can open up new channels and give you more control – Give You More Choice.