Ricoh has teamed up with Methis Software, a partner in its developer programme, to offer /data.mill, a solution that automatically interrogates and corrects data inaccuracies quickly, simply and affordably, on a global basis.
Companies need clean customer data that is fundamental to engaging, cost-effective, personalised print and digital media campaigns.
Jacques van Wyk, COO of Ricoh SA said, ‘Personalised mail with the wrong details gets quickly binned or annoys customers and potential customers. Manually correcting customer data, which is how much of it was done in the past, is time consuming and often creates new errors. Our partnership with Methis Software makes this an easy, automated operation. You get clean data that’s cross-referenced, automatically double-checked, and enriched. It’s accurate and in the right format.’
/data.mill integrates into existing CRM solutions and the data-cleansing application programming interface (API) can be added to Web forms to prevent incorrect or unclean data making it to the database in the first place.
The solution is a Microsoft Excel plug-in that automatically corrects data such as names, addresses and telephone numbers and applies the correct gender for many global regions. Customers can pay for the cleansing functions using six credit packages. Clients can choose the number of credits they need per campaign, which makes it easier to work within specified budgets. Each option allows customers to easily add credits as required.
‘People can select how many units they want at any time, as well as choose which elements they want and how they want them checked,’ said Van Wyk. ‘It gives a clear view of how much campaigns will cost for accurate cost estimates.’
‘/data.mill draws on many databases to correct inaccuracies, remove typing errors, and enriches data with geo-marketing details. Salutations are applied and standardised text is used to eliminate erroneous capitalisations. It reviews IBAN and BIC numbers, validates e-mail addresses, and identifies phone numbers as fixed line, cellular, and whether or not numbers are still in use,’ said Van Wyk.
Preparing clean data for any business has always been important. With its growing creation, acquisition, and use it will become more so in the future. /data.mill can reduce the time to clean data by as much as 95% while simultaneously reducing the chance of error during capture. Customers can also use it to regularly check and update databases to ensure ongoing data accuracy.
This is a cloud solution with servers in Austria and Germany, and it complies with data privacy legislation.
The solution is currently available in Central Europe and will be rolled out to more regions in future.
