How clean is your database? – Coles Solicitors

Realising that sound business decisions can only be taken based on current and accurate information, Pinpoint client Peter Gibson found an innovative and cost effective way of cleaning up his database.

Peter Gibson is clearly not a man to let the grass grow underneath his feet.  Since taking over an established practice in Northallerton just over two years ago, he promptly took over another, even older, firm and, together with his co-director, has just completed a move to new premises in the North Yorkshire town where they operate as a limited company under the banner of Coles Solicitors.  The practice specialises in personal injury, wills, probate and conveyancing work.

Both original firms held a great deal of valuable business information, such as stored wills and deeds, on index cards.  Peter quickly realised this would have to be computerised for efficiency and in order to use it for marketing and other communications purposes.  They immediately embarked on the huge task of updating the information and entering it onto their Quill Pinpoint Interactive system.

Once the information had been computerised it became apparent that much of it was obsolete, such as wills held for people who had clearly long-since died and addresses of properties which had been demolished, so Peter began to look for ways in which it could be cleaned up.  He explained, “We needed to get the information up to a standard where we could use it on a regular basis.  Clearly it would have been a mammoth task to do it manually and the costs and time involved would have been prohibitive.”

Peter’s research led him to a service provided by Royal Mail called List Cleaner.

After creating an on-line account and securely uploading his Quill Pinpoint data, Peter received a report detailing the numbers of entries who were deceased or had changed addresses.  List Cleaner also advised the numbers of records for which they could supply additional information such as dates of birth, telephone numbers, socio-economic information and ensure that all addresses held are Post Office compliant.

“At this point in the process we had not incurred any charges but had received an order form detailing the costs.  For example, clients’ dates of birth and / or telephone numbers could be purchased for a fee each. This enabled us to pick and choose the information we wanted to buy,” said Peter.

The first clean-up operation undertaken by Coles involved approximately 2,500 records at a cost of around £270.  Said Peter Gibson, “We learned from this first exercise that we had probably been sending out around 1,000 letters to the wrong addresses or to deceased persons, so next time round the cost was more than recouped in postage charges alone.  The costs are relatively small and outweighed by the savings, and the potential for being able to track down clients, particularly those that make and leave their wills with us and then disappear, is a fantastic resource.”

Coles have just transferred the last of the old paper records onto their Quill Pinpoint database and are about to undertake a further data integration exercise before writing to all past clients to inform them of the recent office move.  This commercially focussed practice has created an efficient business intelligence environment from which to market their services.

John Donigan, Sales & Marketing Manager at Quill Pinpoint, adds: “This case study illustrates the way in which Quill Pinpoint can work with its clients to enable business knowledge to be used in the most cost-effective and efficient manner.

"After Coles received the clean database from the Post Office we uploaded it back into their Pinpoint Interactive system enabling Peter to embark upon a series of marketing campaigns.”

http://www.coles-law.co.uk/