Data isn’t meant to last forever. With time, it will decay, degrade, or turn stale, which simply means it’s outdated and mostly inaccurate, and that could explain why you’re experiencing some bizarre costs. Actually, did you know that poor-quality data can cost an organisation as much as $12.9 million (Approximately £10.4 million) every year?
If you’ve not checked your databases, it’s highly likely that most of the data you have there, including contact information, is only occupying precious space. Don’t believe it? Track your messages and emails and see what percentage of the total is delivered.
The Reality of Data Decay in Business
Most business owners don’t care much about data decay, but the reality is that it can ruin your business silently if you don’t handle it. The most surprising fact about data is that it begins to decay as soon as it’s captured.
You may wonder how: Well, people keep moving houses, others get new jobs not long after you add them to your contact lists, and some upgrade their phone service or change their names.
Luckily, you can handle this issue through advanced data cleansing solutions from a top provider like TrestleIQ. Such solutions are designed to ensure that your data, no matter how complex, remains accurate and actionable.
What Are the Effects of Neglected Data?
It can be quite tempting to ignore data decay, but here’s why you don’t want to do that:
1. It Will Be Expensive
Data decay, as you can expect, will come with serious costs, mostly in the form of a negative impact on revenue. But that’s just one of the main issues data decay presents. The other major loss will be connected to the cost of acquiring leads. Though this figure varies depending on the industry in question and the method you are using to acquire leads, it can be as much as $100 per lead.
Besides, if you’re directing your marketing campaigns towards inactive customers, you are most likely just wasting your marketing funds. It should never get to this point. You want to keep cleaning and enriching your data to ensure you don’t lose your contacts. What’s more, keep the conversation flowing so your loyal customers remember to update their data whenever necessary.
2. Reputation Damage
A reputational damage is one of the most difficult damages to fix in the world of business. Good quality data is the cheat code for healthier relationships with customers, as it evokes trust and promotes a better understanding of customers. On the other hand, decayed data can cause various complications, including compliance violations.
In cases where the personal data of deceased individuals is involved, you will not only ruin your compliance scores, but such situations typically cause immense distress to the affected. Of course, such cases will eat a lot into your annual budget.
3. Ineffective Technology-Based Strategies
More businesses are increasing their reliance on machine learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve business operations and enhance the effectiveness of various strategies. Such strategies rely heavily on personal data, and if you’re reading from the wrong source, you will experience serious inaccuracy in models and unreliable insights.
This means you are losing quite a lot of money yearly from implementing insight-generation methods that aren’t as effective as they ought to be.
Bring the Joy of Accurate Data Closer Home!
Though it’s easy to ignore obsolete data and think it doesn’t affect your business, the reality is that it can do a lot more harm than you think. If this is something you would like to avoid, you should consider implementing data cleansing solutions from a top-rated provider.
As one of the leading providers in this field, Trestle promises to optimise customer identification and contactability, as well as contact data efficiency like you’ve never seen before. So, what excuse will you have going forward?
