Maintaining the quality of business contact data is common sense, but so many companies are leaving money on the table by not doing so. A survey by Gartner Research shows that the average company loses about $14.2 million annually because of poor quality data. Is your business part of this worrisome trend?

Quantifying how much is lost when emails bounce or offers don’t reach their desired destination is not easy, but when industry experts cite numbers such as the ones in the paragraph above, business owners should pay attention. Let’s have a closer look at what you should assess to improve the accuracy of your database:

Your Database Hasn’t Received an Update Recently

If any part of a company’s business data has been entered by hand into a physical file and filed into a drawer, it’s almost guaranteed that this data is not up to date, making it practically useless.

However, a business isn’t automatically in the clear if it doesn’t use physical files. When data is entered, it describes factual information about a customer at the moment of entry, but information changes with time. In most cases, businesses prioritize acquiring new customers and using their data for new campaigns. Updating the database of customer contacts with new information should be prioritized, but it is often left by the wayside due to time restraints.

Your Data Entry Policy is to Gather as Much Data as Possible

While gathering all the data you can about a single customer seems like a valuable use of time, data entry is still largely a manual job for companies that don’t outsource data quality services. With human input comes human error. It is always better to have incomplete data than inaccurate data caused by the volume of input being too big for accuracy to be maintained.

You Are Already Noticing Signs of Poor Data Quality

A sure way to know that the accuracy of your database is lacking is when the marketing and sales teams report that emails sent to customers and leads are bouncing at a higher rate than expected. Customers and leads will periodically move or change preferred methods of communication, thus decreasing the accuracy of your database.

At the onset, they will also give their personal addresses instead of their business addresses, which will result in higher bounce rates when change happens. Another byproduct is a lesser interest in the offer that your business has sent. If the offer reaches potential customers at a time when they are not in the business mindset, they will often disregard it. Collecting business addresses instead of personal ones is another way to improve database accuracy – but so many businesses have missed out on the opportunity of nipping that problem in the bud.

In 2015, data quality issues were still cited as the first barrier to business success in a survey from Information Week Analysis. Businesses have much to lose by not analyzing the accuracy of their databases.

Runner EDQ guarantees data accuracy by creating software solutions that are tailor-made for specific industries. Connecting with current vendors and your customer base has been made easy with solutions such as CLEAN_Customer and CLEAN_Industry.