THE CASE
Allianz Cornhill has offered customers protection for 100 years and has become one of the UK's largest insurers.
Its direct home and vehicle division, Cornhill Direct, reaches its customers, as well as those of its affinity partners, through two main channels: direct mail and telemarketing activity.
Communications are based on impending renewal dates, which means timing and data accuracy are crucial for achieving high response rates.
"We had duplicates and inaccuracies in our data and obviously communicating with those records uses valuable resources," explains Janet Woodley, affinity manager at Allianz Cornhill.
"Data protection is another key issue," she adds. "With the new legislation we have to be careful we're not contacting people who have said they do not wish to be contacted."
The solution
Cornhill Direct teamed with data specialist UKChanges to deduplicate names and bring the file's accuracy up-to-scratch.
It currently handles more than 300,000-plus records each month which are run against a number of industry suppression files.
UKChanges applies bereavement suppression using Mortascreen Plus - a database built from probate data which holds verified names and addresses of deceased individuals. Records are also screened against the Bereavement Register which offers details of individuals who have more recently passed away.
The bureau also runs the records against the Universal Suppression Service - a file largely based on redirections and returns from Royal Mail which is used to screen goneaways.
The National Change of Address file is also used to secure people who have opted in to receiving DM and provided a forwarding address for redirected mail.
To save time and money on telemarketing calls, UKChanges screens the data against the BT Osis (Operator Services Information System) file.
This is a phone directory of 28 million UK business and residential records that receives daily updates of up to 100,000 additions, amendments and deletions from BT and other telecom providers.
Finally, the affinity partners' customer records are deduped and run against Cornhill's own customer data using UKChanges' internal software.
"A lot of our data is from different affinity partners," explains Woodley, "so there is a chance the same records will appear in more than one list, in which case they must go through a dedupe hierarchy."
The results
"We have actually lost data through the cleansing process because it is more accurate," Woodley says, "but this leads to a higher success rate with the communications we use. We're now more likely to get a positive result."
CLEANING KIT: BT OSIS FILE
Q: What is the BT Osis file?
BT Operator Services Information System (OSIS) is the only official, comprehensive and up-to-date source of UK phone number data. It is the central BT/Oftel database of UK residential and business records and contains more than 28 million numbers.
Q: How does it work?
The file lists residential and business telephone numbers from the UK's main telecom providers, such as BT, Kingston Communications, Cable and Wireless and NTL. Each day there are about 200,000 additions, deletions or amendments which enhance the effectiveness of campaigns.
Q: What are the benefits and any downsides?
One downside is that the licensing of the file is limited only to handpicked companies; there is a strict qualification process. The cost of holding the file in-house is also high. However, if accessing the file through a data bureau it can prove a cost-effective way to find and verify telephone numbers.
- Richard Webster is group data director at Data Locator Group.