Mundane but Critical

Once again, data quality has interrupted a very well laid out process intended to reactivate lapsed customers.

This time the house file had two understandable but damaging problems.

1. The address field was used by customer service for adding commentary based on phone conversations.
2. The first name field was appended with nickname in parentheses.

So, without scrubbing what was promised to be a 'clean' file we ended up with things like

Dear Patricia (Pat but not Patty) our records indicate the contact address is:

356 Sycamore -don't call on Fridays
Randolph, ST - Tuesdays are good in afternoon


Power Points:
1. Ensure everyone understands how information is going to be used across the organization.
2. Enforce data validation entries.
3. Add lots of space for comments.