The customer journey can be split into three categories: pre-purchase, purchase and post-purchase touchpoints. By understanding these touchpoints and the data ingested at each of them you can make informed decisions about where to invest time and effort to improve. According to a recent ICD whitepaper 77% of brands believe customer experience is a key competitive differentiator. Therefore, the customer journey cannot be ignored, one single negative experience can easily damage the perception and revenue potential of your business. Throughout the customer journey there are three validation tools which can help.

Address validation

This solution delivers accurate address data using auto-complete or ‘lookup’ technology at the on-boarding and checkout stage of the customer journey. Providing a properly formatted, correct address improves the customer experience by reducing the number of keystrokes and therefore time for the customer. By validating addresses, it ensures your customer data is accurate, it reduces the cart abandonment and minimises the risk of failed delivery. It also ensures you have accurate data within your CRM to effectively segment, tailor and target your marketing efforts and to improve the customer experience.

Email validation

If an email address is wrong or out of date, your emails won’t reach the intended inboxes. As with address validation, the optimum time to audit email addresses is when they’re first entered onto your CRM system, website, or online form. By validating emails during this stage of the journey it reduces the likelihood of bounced emails, preserves your sender reputation and increases the chances of successful email marketing campaigns.

Phone validation

Accurate phone numbers are essential to communicate with customers throughout their journey. Phone Validation is the most effective way to ensure only accurate, complete and correctly formatted phone numbers populate your database. This solution checks every part of the landline and mobile number in real time, including format, country code, number length, network provider and existence on the network. Having the correct phone number allows you to send updates about shipping, deliveries, special offers, customer surveys and more. Plus, sending SMS messages are a popular method of multi-factor authentication during customer onboarding.

Data Validation is crucial for improving customer interactions throughout their journey. By reducing friction through address, email and phone data capture you will improve the customer experience across multiple touch points through the customer journey.

How can we help?

Data quality and consistency are crucial for improving customer interactions with your brand across different touchpoints, channels, and stages to make the purchasing process as easy and convenient as possible.

Experian’s range of Data Validation Solutions can integrate across your omnichannel processes to help you verify and validate your customers’ phone, email and address data as it is entered, ensuring the data captured is accurate.

Get in touch https://www.experian.co.uk/business/data-quality/validation#contactform