Get rid of your data problems once and for all
Data cleansing is probably one of the most difficult things to do and business owners just ignore this step only because of the amount of time that it takes and the money that it costs to get done. However, now your data problems can be taken care of with the help of the right professionals who not only manage to clean your data effectively but also help you to get it done at an affordable price. Most business owners believe that data cleansing is something that one can do independently, the truth is that this is something that is best left the experts because not only do these experts manage to get it done effectively but also manage to do it in a more precise and streamlined manner. There are a number of things that need to be taken into consideration in data cleansing and if you do not keep these points in mind it will become difficult to maintain good quality data.
There are various ways you can clean your data, but in order for you to have effective and clean data it is essential to follow the right steps. Here are a few things that you should keep in mind when segregating and cleaning data so that you have fresh and effective data which can be used over and over again to generate good results.
Plan
In order for you to get good quality data you first need to plan the segregation and cleaning of the data effectively. Planning simply means to decide what kind of format you are looking for and what priorities are important for you during the segregation. While some business owners are satisfied with the simple name and a number, there are others that need more detailed information such as home address, email address and other confidential information.
If your database contains all of this information then you can always have it sorted out in a neat format depending on your needs, however this may or may not be possible based on the kind of data that you have. If the data that you are feeding into the system does not contain this information it could be difficult for the segregation to take place with the fields completed. You also need to remember that the more information you need, the more difficult it is for the data cleansing company to sort out the files and it could take a longer time.
Analyze to Cleanse
Before you begin a data cleansing process you should always keep in mind the kind of data that you feed into the system. Analyzing the data can definitely help you get better results and it will help you to understand exactly what you can expect from the end result. It also helps you to understand what you can get at the end of it and what format you can expect to be sorted out. When you analyze the data effectively you can also inform the data cleansing companies about the various things that you have noticed that are inconsistent in the data helping them to cut down the amount of time that they would need to figure out what is wrong with the data in the first place.
Monitoring Your Database
One of the most important things that you need to do as a business owner is to continue to monitor your database. While you may think that the data cleansing company will take care of your needs, you need to be on top of things and make sure that you are in control of your database. You need to conduct reviews periodically and make sure that there are no issues that are creeping up. These issues can be in the overall database or even in the database for individual departments.
You also need to look at the results from various marketing campaigns. If a particular customer is not responding to any of your marketing campaigns or the emails are bouncing back, then you need to dig deep and check what the case with that particular customer is. If he or she is still with that email id or still with that particular organisation or is even alive. You need to analyse each and every result from all your marketing campaigns so that you can keep revising your database and make the most out of the leads that you have with you.
Without the right analysis you will just keep running around in circles and get nowhere. If you want your business to grow and head in the right direction, you need to convert most of your leads into customers. This will only happen if you are on top of your database and you are keeping check on what is happening. Only with the help of data cleansing tools you will not be able to get ahead of the competition.
Rectifying Missing Data
This is a crucial step when it comes to following up from the data cleansing tool session. There are a number of companies that just take the database from the data cleansing tool and divide it among their employees. One of the things that you need to also do is check the leads that have been eliminated. Some of these could be eliminated due to missing data. If the data that is missing is the name of the company or the designation or even an email id, you can rectify this data without having to eliminate that particular lead. Today social network has expanded and made the world a smaller place. You will be able to find missing information on just about anybody through any of the social networking sites. You can have a team in place that will help you append the missing data so that you can make the most out of these leads without discarding them. Once you put in the effort to find the missing data for these leads, you will be able to make sure that you are making the most of your database. There are certain pieces of the missing data that you will even be able to find through search engines.
Written by Mohd.Sohel Ather