A recent survey revealed that UK businesses could be losing up to £197 million a year through poor contact data management. The survey was conducted by Experian Data Quality and asserts that 75% of UK businesses could be losing potential revenue through wasted time and resources.

The global research report is commissioned yearly by Experian and measures the quality of data asset management in the UK, Europe, and the US. This year’s report brings together research from over 1,200 organisations of varying size and from a cross-section of industries.

Successful communication strategies could be adversely affected by the issues raised in the global research report. Companies are, understandably, employing more channels to communicate with their customers year on year; this year’s report saw an average of three to four different channels employed per organisation. However, this growth also contributes to an increased likelihood of incorrect or duplicate data entering the organisation. The report goes on to link lack of quality data with cross-channel marketing issues.

The global research report reveals that 94% of companies confess to having a poor quality of data within their databases and that a quarter of businesses still rely on manual forms of data input and management. Call centres and other methods of manual data collection are perceived to be the most unreliable forms of data management since they allow for human error.

Joel Curry, managing director at Experian Data Quality concludes, “More and more channels are becoming available for organisations to communicate with their customers, and being able to link these interactions together sits at the heart of delivering a quality customer experience. Defining a data quality strategy is not a tick box exercise; improvement initiatives need processes and technology, enabled across the organisation, to ensure revenue stream and customer satisfaction are not adversely affected.”

The survey was carried out by research firm Dynamic Markets, for the full infographic, follow this link.