Snow & Rock

The Challenge

Customer focused, this team of enthusiasts proactively implements a wide variety of marketing activities including events and sponsorships. However, key to brand promotion and revenue generation is its direct marketing  strategy which includes the distribution of its glossy product catalog to its customer base. With over 115k names and addresses to be mailed to, it is important that client contact details are valid without duplications and that only one catalog is distributed per household.

As consumer contact details are collated separately from the ‘bricks and mortar’ business and ecommerce facility, the B2C name and address database was full of inaccuracies, duplicates, inconsistencies and omissions.

With a customer database infected with poor quality data, our current and future marketing activities had limited effectiveness and incurred high costs. Datactics delivered a competent and efficient service. This exercise has been significant in improving customer communications, exploiting sales opportunities and building our brand.

Nigel Heathershaw, Snow & Rock

Data is not static: particularly contact details, which degrade at a rate of 2% per month. Client mobility and human error increases the growth and complexity of data quality. These factors in turn lead to high transactional costs, poor customer communications and potential brand damage. High volumes of data is a key criterion for requiring data quality technology, however equally as important are high transactional costs, both of which have a detrimental effect on business growth and the bottom line.

The Solution

Through its partner Exact Abacus, Datactics delivered professional services. Exact Abacus is committed to working with clients to deliver leading-edge software and service solutions with proven return on investment.

Datactics was selected as an ideal provider due to its industry knowledge and extensive experience together with its highly accurate and powerful data quality solutions.

As part of its professional services, Datactics cleansed, standardized, matched and enriched Snow and Rock’s B2C name and address database, minimizing direct marketing costs, cultivating professional customer communications and increasing sales.

An experienced data analyst carried out a number of operations on the data to ensure the highest level of accuracy and quality. Data was cleansed, invalid records were suppressed, and records were matched and merged to provide the ‘golden record’.

To create and maintain the mailing list and ensure a reduction in the number of returned catalogs the address data was correctly reformatted in line with the Postcode Address File (PAF). PAF is the most up-to-date and complete address database in the UK, containing over 28 million addresses.

Datactics standardized and matched the Snow & Rock client data against this extensive database. By doing so, addresses were validated and enriched with additional critical data such as country details. Furthermore the database adopted the appropriate casing for address details.

To compliment this offering Datactics produced a number of reports detailing its findings, to help Snow  & Rock further understand the data quality issues addressed. The reports highlighted percentages of invalid names and addresses plus duplication.

The Benefits

Every data quality function was paramount in creating a powerful database to be utilized for effectively marketing activities. Now with access to accurate, complete and consistent contact data, Snow & Rock can:

• Increase revenue through effective cross-selling and up-selling
• Improve customer satisfaction by implementing a targeted marketing campaign
• Reduce marketing costs with the distribution of catalogs to ‘valid’ customers
• Safeguard the brand by correcting client details and suppressing records such as ‘decreased’ clients

Nigel Heathershaw, Shop Direct General Manager at Snow & Rock comments:

“Snow & Rock is the ultimate success story. Its brand has become a highly respected household name and a valuable asset to the business. With a customer database infected with poor quality data, our current and future marketing activities had limited effectiveness and incurred high costs. Datactics delivered a competent and efficient service. This exercise has been  significant in improving customer communications, exploiting sales opportunities and building our brand.”