The Fatal Mistake of Using Dirty Data in your BDC

Clean, organized data will help you achieve more productivity and revenue from your BDC. You may not even realize your data is dirty, or disorganized.

That’s because mess and decay happen gradually, over time. For example, it’s estimated that up to 30 percent of the workforce will change careers or jobs every year. That translates to a constant flow of outdated email addresses and phone numbers clogging up business records.

Disorganization is often due to a lack of technology or system capabilities. Storing large amounts of data in spreadsheets or call lists is inefficient and error-prone. 

It’s nearly impossible to follow-up on campaigns and send that next message without combing through thousands of rows of information. That’s a huge waste of time and money – and rarely generates results you can measure. 

If you want a productive and efficient BDC that conducts effective campaigns and gets measurable results, you must clean your data and manage it correctly. Here’s how to get started:

Clean your data. 

More data is not always better. For example, a lead that has been inactive for years is not likely to close. A hundred records with invalid emails aren’t improving your metrics or agent productivity. Duplicate records for the same customer are wasting marketing dollars.

I liken this ‘less is more’ strategy to a lead provider that sends 500 leads per month but the closing ratio is only 2 percent. When you put together the actual cost of the lead, including internal costs such as paying the salaries of BDC agents to follow-up, one deal could cost upwards of $1,500!

It’s better to have fewer qualified leads that close at a higher rate, than spend money for a bunch of leads that may never close. Apply the same logic to your data. Fewer accurate records are vastly preferable to dirty data that hurts productivity and wastes money. 

Define what to purge based on your business goals and record quality. Keep all active leads, current and previous customers, and those within your defined market and region. Purge duplicate records, contacts who have had no activity for years, and those who have unsubscribed. 

A call center marketing automation system can help you automatically clean and verify your data via data appending. Appending your data simply means the system validates the information stored in your database.

The same system can also help you complete any empty fields – like email or phone- for the records you’ve retained in real-time to enrich and complete your lists. Finally, it can help you stay diligent by constantly refreshing your data to remove duplicate records and perform ongoing updates. 

Manage your data.

Clean data won’t do you much good without proper management. Properly managed data increases productivity – agents spend less time finding, digesting and relaying information and more time making calls and running campaigns. 

Properly managed data also spurs informed decision-making – it’s easy to track campaigns and results so you know to repeat the activities that make you money. 

Finally, proper management allows you to send the right communication to the right customer through the right channel and at the proper cadence – actions that create a better customer experience, and again, make you money. 

It’s hard, if not possible, to achieve this level of management through the CRM. Most systems are simply not equipped for the required level of data analysis and automation. 

To get the best results, equip your BDC with a true call center system. This will allow you to load all DMS, CRM, OEM spreadsheets, web leads, and more, into one platform and run all campaigns with one log-in. 

You can manage all outbound communications across your entire dealership with complete visibility into what has gotten done, what needs to be done, what campaigns are generating results, and where agents should spend more time. 

Don’t make the mistake of failing to clean and manage your customer data. Equip your BDC agents with technology that organizes your data and keeps it pristine and you will see higher agent productivity, lower marketing costs, and increased revenue growth.