Cleaning up your database can be quite time consuming and something many businesses often neglect. So, the question is, is it worth it?

Well, our answer is absolutely!

Clean data is one of the most important processes a business can do when working with data. A data set that is not clean can have disastrous consequences for any business, but if you are working with clients' personal details, as all vet practices do, the process becomes vital.

But what is data cleansing?

Data cleansing is tidying up the information you hold for your clients. It improves the quality of the data you hold and ultimately increases overall business productivity.

Clean data guarantees all outdated or incorrect information is removed from or updated on your practice management system, leaving you with the highest quality information.

To help you on your way, we have put together 5 important reasons why you should keep your data clean.

1. Quicker in the long run

It may take up a few hours of your time to start with, but clean data certainly helps your business gain time in the long run. Just think of how much more time you would have to understand and analyse your data when it mattered. Having an organised, readable database will always be more productive than raw data because it is now much more user-friendly. Everyone will be able to find what they need much faster. It's never time wasted; it is, in fact, time gained.

2. Happy people, happy customers

When you clean your data regularly, rest assured that the information you hold is always accurate and up to date. This is extremely helpful when presenting the end of year figures to company leaders or otherwise, as you will be able to dive straight in and take the information you need, knowing that your findings will be trustworthy.

Not only this, but clean data helps to enhance your company's professional reputation. If you are contacting clients regularly, you'll want to know that your communication is relevant to those you're sending it to. Many businesses, including vet practices, often sign up new clients weekly and say goodbye to others leaving. If your data is clean, new clients won't miss out on important information and old clients won't receive communications they no longer need.

Ultimately, clean data leads to happy clients and a happy team.

3. Accurate information

What's just as important as having organised data? Having accurate data! If the data is incorrect, it's never going to be helpful to your practice and another reason why data cleaning is so vital. Clean data will help you spot and correct false information. If you were to send some messages out to your clients with incorrect data, the message could be entirely wasted at best and sent to the wrong person at worst, potentially leading to unhappy clients and complaints. It's always better to be safe than sorry!

4. Safe and secure

When dealing with data such as clients' personal information, it's important to follow GDPR guidelines and assess the security of your data.

Not only can insecure data get you in trouble with the law, but it could also damage your company's reputation. If people don't trust you with their data, they're not going to do business with you. It's that simple. Make sure that the data is only accessible to the people who need it, and keep it contained in your practice management system so that no data is saved anywhere on your desktop or in your files. You should also refrain from sending personal data via email, even if it is to one of your trusted colleagues. Data should only be accessed from your secure data management system.

To find out more about GDPR, you can visit the government website.

Learn about GDPR

5. More targeted, more sales

Did you know that the more targeted a communications campaign is, the higher your return on investment will be? It's proven time and time again. If your business can be as specific as possible in a campaign's target audience, that campaign will be more successful. However, to make a campaign targeted, it will need to use clean, up to date data. You don't want a cat to receive information on Canine Cushing's!

To target specific parts of your client base, you need first to be able to identify them. The cleaner your data, the more variables you can throw at it, meaning you can target your communications more accurately. Suppose you could pinpoint which of your patients are already on treatment for Arthritis. In that case, you could exclude them from an Arthritis awareness campaign, so only relevant clients receive the information.

In summary, it's no surprise that data cleaning is widely recognised as an essential aspect of a business. It is near mandatory for businesses to keep their data up to date and accurate for many reasons. In the long run, it can:

• save your business loads of time, not having to sift through data to find what you want

• make the presentation of your data much more understandable and useable

• keep your data accurate by being able to identify and correct false information

• help you target your client base, increasing your Return on Investment (ROI)

How will iRecall help with keeping your data clean?

The iRecall software interrogates your database to find to whom we should or shouldn't be sending a message. Unlike your PMS system, iRecall® is able to identify where contact details are incorrect. For example, if a mobile telephone number is inputted into the home phone number field, iRecall will find this and still send a text message to that client, helping you contact 100% of your clients, 100% of the time.

To experience iRecall at its best, a clean database is always preferable. To be accurate about who we are sending communications to, iRecall has tools to keep your data clean automatically.

So, what are you waiting for? Grab your marigolds and get started!