Does messy and inconsistent data drive you mad? It’s harder to work with and chews up valuable time.
Chances are, it is also irritating your prospects more than you realise. I don’t know about you, but I get ruffled if I get a communication and the sentence case on my name is wrong, such as “Hello Andy kyiet”. It’s a small thing but gives a big message about sloppiness.
Messy phone numbers also have an impact. Inconsistent formatting helps to hide invalid numbers and can also impact the effectiveness of automatic dialling functions. As an example, can you easily spot the difference between +61 2 999 9999 and 02 9999 9999? Congratulations to those of you that spotted the missing digit in the first example. Unfortunately, your auto-dialler won’t spot that until it tries to dial, causing you lost time while you figure out the problem.
Inconsistent mobile numbers can also complicate things, especially if they are overseas numbers. Whilst we may be familiar with the format of our own local mobile numbers and readily know that +61 402 456 027 and 0402 456 027 and 0402 456027 and 0402 4560 27 are all the same number, it’s a different challenge for overseas mobile numbers, especially when not pre-fixed by the country code.
DAVE checks the sentence case on things like Contact names and also standardises the formats of all of your phone and mobile numbers. When things are consistent, life is a lot easier and your prospects and clients will sub-consciously appreciate the professionalism of your data.
Next week: No persona segmentation by department and seniority
