Quality Data Helps Keep Customers Loyal

What do you do when you realise you haven't heard from a friend for a couple of months? Before you pick up the phone or send off a note by email or snail mail, wouldn't you evaluate your relationship? Are they worth the effort you'll have to make and the time it will take up in your busy day? Remembering the experiences you've shared, were they mainly good or bad? Do you want more, or would you prefer to spend time with other people you know?

The Business Relationship

It's not that dissimilar to the business/customer relationship. Both parties get something out of the relationship, but can easily lose contact unless someone works at communicating. In this case, the 'someone' is most often the business, especially when it has lots of competition for the customer's attention. But the business can't succeed with its communication attempt unless the data held on the customer is accurate.

Building Customer Loyalty

According to the Customer Loyalty Institute, you build customer loyalty by:

• Treating people how they want to be treated
• Keeping in touch and showing them you care
• Remembering what they like and don't like
• "Truly giving a damn" about them and figuring out what will make them happy and successful

Nothing Works Without Quality Data

For any of this, you must have clean data. Being passionate and energetic about communicating with customers is not enough. You will fail if your databases are littered with duplicates and errors, with addresses that are inconsistent, inaccurate or out of date.

To succeed, you will need to use some form of data quality software. Only when you have clean data that gives you a single customer view will you have the knowledge you need implement your successful customer loyalty programmes and campaigns.