7 Signs and Symptoms of Poor Data Quality

The consequences of poor-quality data are missed opportunities, business inefficiencies, poor decision-making, reputation damage, and lost profits. Without quality data, leaders end up making the wrong decisions on critical issues.

When reports and insights are not accurate and reliable, employees complete tasks and processes without realizing they’ve been performing them inefficiently. And business inefficiencies ultimately lead to a waste of time and money. But how does an organization know that poor data quality is the cause of their business issues? Here are the signs and symptoms:

1. Reporting is an ordeal.

Are you putting in an unusual amount of time and effort to compile weekly and monthly reports on performance, sales, and statistics? The problem is that many companies don’t realize that they’re working longer and harder than they should unless they compare their performance with a competitor.

2. Organizational inconsistencies.

Do employees working on the same or similar tasks get asked the same question but give different answers? This can happen when people don’t retrieve data from a centralized source, such as the cloud, or don’t have access to real-time data – which occurs when companies don’t have a data management strategy.

3. Employees that don’t trust processes and leadership.

When you ask for reports, do employees pull up spreadsheets that they’ve created and maintained on their own time? This happens when employees don’t believe your system and data management practices are reliable.

4. Poor customer relationships.

Do clients or customers tend to make the same complaints? And are one of those common complaints related to staff not knowing about previous complaints or transaction history. This happens when your data management doesn’t give you a single view of the customer, product, service, or asset.

5. Multiple versions of reports.

Without a centralized platform or standard process, there may be various versions of reports around the company. This may lead to inconsistencies and other organizational problems, such as miscommunication, misunderstandings, and even conflicts. It can also lead to duplication of work.

6. Poor performing marketing campaigns.

Do your email marketing campaigns receive poor engagement? This happens when you don’t maintain your contact data’s cleanliness and your database suffers from incorrect and invalid email addresses, along with typos or misspellings.

7. Low email deliverability and inbox rates.

Do you have high rates of email bounces and unsubscribes? Are subscribers on your contact data list marking your emails as spam? Poor email deliverability and inbox rates are symptoms of poor-quality data.

Fixing your data quality issues

If the signs and symptoms of poor data quality are evident in your organization, it’s time to take the necessary steps to fix your issues with data quality and management. It may help to undergo a data quality assessment to identify the severity and nature of your data quality issues.

Allow Runner EDQ to perform a FREE, no obligation CLEAN_Benchmark data analysis of the validity and quality of your current employee, customer, vendor, student, or alumni contact data and see the true accuracy of your database.