Multiple Representations of the Same Organization or Contact Within a Single Data Source

When we initially start a data integration project, most of our clients realize that they have data “all over the place” and are focused on the issues that are caused by the lack of integration of separate data silos.  However, one of the areas that are usually overlooked is the issues that are within the each separate independent data silo.

Typically, a client will have multiple representations of the same organization and same contact within a single data source.  These multiple data representations can be duplicate records, the same organization, but a different location, the same organization, same location, but a different contact, similar, but incomplete information in one or more of the records, and many other possibilities and combinations.

These multiple representations can cause an entity many issues.  A Gartner study says that poor quality customer data costs U.S. business an estimated $611 billion dollars a year in postage, printing, and staff overhead.  When you factor in the many other negatives of poor data quality besides mailing costs, then the costs are much higher.  For example, if I am a sales rep, am I looking at the complete history of communication with the customer or prospect when I am on a specific record in my CRM system?  If I am a marketing person, how do you properly analyze how many accounts and contacts that you have for a certain criteria if you are counting the same organization or contact more than once?  How do you avoid not just the expense but the potential alienation of the contact by not sending out the same communication multiple times to the same contact that is listed multiple times in your database?

The answer is a numbering system that can coordinate the multiple representations of the same organization and same contact so that you know that these multiple records are actually the same organization or the same contact.  Once you can coordinate the data, a single customer view can be set-up so that a representative can see the records that have been matched and linked by the numbering system.  Marketing can count the multiple representations of the same organization or the same contact as being only one organization or one contact for analysis purposes.  Further, marketing can now send just one communication to the one contact.