Financial Times has come out with another rant about faulty customer data.
Simon London whined earlier this month that “most of the direct mail I receive is based on information that is inaccurate (I am not, and never have been, a supporter of the Oakland Raiders), out of date (my Honda Accord was written off more than a year ago) or incomplete (since when did British citizenship imply an interest in faux-royal carpet slippers?)”
We get it. Rather than do any original research for this column, London simply looked into his own mailbox, and drew some large conclusions from what he found there. And what he found was an assortment of junk mail sent to out-of-date prospect files.
That may be irritating to London, but we fail to see how it proves that “few organizations seem to know how to use” customer data. Nor does it support his belief in the lack of boardroom interest in customer data.
“Most corporations employ statistics savants, whose job it is to glean ‘insight’ from mountains of raw data,” London writes. “But they are, for the most part, distanced from the real centres of corporate power. It is rare indeed to find a company that has made data analysis a source of genuine competitive advantage.”
Maybe London should attend the next Direct Marketing Association conference. He will find hundreds of direct marketers who have built their businesses on customer data.
And they’re not nearly as flummoxed by hygiene as he thinks they are, at least not in the U.S., where the major service vendors have made major investments in data accuracy.
London weakens his case even further when he tries to find exceptions. One firm he cites Capital One, which he claims was “founded with the explicit intention of using analytics to market first credit cards and now a wider range of banking products.”
Maybe he should look in his mailbox again. Capital One is known for its repetitive mailings, including some that fail to acknowledge when a person is already a cardholder. We’d hardly give it an “A” for analytics.
And London fails to cite survey findings that show how seriously companies are taking this issue. Almost 75% of the firms recently surveyed by Harte-Hanks plan to make substantial database investments. And a new survey by the CMO Council found that half of all companies have set improving their analytics as their main developmental goal.
But look at the positive side. London can always trot the same column out next December, freshening it up with some new junk mail examples. Or maybe he will even do some homework the next time.
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