Data quality solutions

Departmental data siloes restrict your organisational effectiveness. A true picture of your data’s strengths, weaknesses and the impact it has on your core services comes from organisation-wide analysis. Data profiling brings all of your data into a single searchable repository. It helps highlight patterns and metrics, builds cross-department relationships, and gives both business and technical users opportunities to improve.

Data quality can decay as details change, but how can you tell just how strong your organisational data sets are? Running a data quality assessment can help you discover the rules which define good data, seek out non-conforming items, and present reports clearly defining the steps that need to be taken to bring your data back in line with regulations like GDPR.

It is the era of big data. Manually seeking out poor-quality customer records within massive databases is understandably resource intensive. However, using a system such as Aperture Data Studio to assess your data quality can help automatically tag those records which need work. It can also give you access to custom views that allow you to explore even the largest data sets while proactively identifying issues before they become a problem.

Changes of personal details, data entry errors or even cross-department registrations mean one consumer could have multiple records within your business. Safely merging these means making absolutely sure that they refer to the same customer. This is where a data point like Experian’s ExPin comes in – it’s a unique identifier assigned to everyone in the UK, useful for consolidation and creating effective single customer views.

Validating your data is often the precursor to a major data migration project, so a tool which can both help perform analysis of your data and prepare it for migration can make things far easier. Experian Pandora is one option, offering end-to-end data quality management which puts migration in the hands of business users, not just IT.

Data which does not meet your own quality standards is bad but failing to meet regulatory and compliance standards could be a lot worse. A service such as Experian’s GDPR Data Integrity Assessment and Data Health Check can aid your business in spotting poor data structures or process flows, enabling you to bring your data into line.

With the correct data sets at your disposal, cleansing and updating existing data can be an automatic and relatively simple process. Data management software like Aperture Data Studio can ensure your data is collected, correctly formatted, and validated against widespread global data sources.

According to the Post Office, 9,500 households move every day in the UK and thousands get married or pass away. Comparing your internal data to comprehensive bureau data, like that available through Experian’s Bureau Data Services, offers you the chance to fight back against data decay by cleaning your customer records on a one-off or regular basis.

Your data is unique, and so is the way you store it. Using a tool like Aperture Data Studio can help you apply machine learning techniques to your data cleansing procedures, helping to recognise the way your business stores data to ensure nothing gets missed.

Adding geographic, demographic and lifestyle data to your records can help you build more vivid customer profiles. If you’re looking to enhance your records, finding an easy way to access that data is essential. Experian’s Business and Government Data is one wide-reaching option, and it’s compatible with many of Experian’s other data validation tools for straightforward integration.

Expanding your data stores needn’t be a costly or difficult process. Using an existing platform along the lines of Aperture Data Studio allows you to bring fresh validated data into your existing records without the infrastructure costs of setting up in-house enrichment procedures.

Building business relationships demands a broad depth of knowledge. Enhancing your business records with metrics like financial, performance and firmographic data will offer you a clearer picture of your potential and existing partnerships, giving your marketing efforts extra reach and impact. Making use of Experian’s BusinessView company database is one way to enrich your prospect data and keep it updated over time.

Combining your various data sets into one consolidated view is just as important as improving the data itself. An enriched interface gives your business opportunities to draw new conclusions about your customers, and offers enhanced access across departments and between otherwise siloed databases.

Before you can start improving your data you need to assess it for quality gaps. This process should cover everything from compliance to the cost of lost opportunities or poor inter-department access. Rather than build such a system from scratch, a data quality management platform can do the heavy lifting for you. Experian’s data consultants can help you implement a comprehensive solution that will help you discover, document and analyse your data for gaps.

Profiling enables you to assess the quality, accuracy and integrity of your information and records. Gaps and errors are highlighted to make sure you have all the data you need. Standardising tools like Experian’s Contact Data Validation Solutions then help you quickly transform your data into a consistent format, ready for you to draw meaningful conclusions from it.

Checking data against reference sources, such as those offered by Experian, helps to ensure that your information is accurate, complete and in a valid format. This is particularly useful for verifying addresses, phone numbers and email addresses. Enrichment services can then help fill gaps and resolve quality issues highlighted during data profiling.

A single customer view is a key component in bringing all your customer data into a single, easily accessible location. A solution such as Experian ExPin can help ensure you’re dealing with the right customer. It assigns a fixed ID number to every individual or company in your records, then compares it with Experian’s own extensive records to allow you to match individuals with confidence.

Traditional data migration strategies can be resource-intensive and fraught with peril. Eliminate the risk of leaving gaps in your data by choosing a proven data migration platform, such as that offered by Experian. Its solution covers all stages of the data migration journey from migration scoping to post-migration assurance and archival, with zero administration overhead.