TrueCommerce, Inc.
Maximizes Marketing Initiatives
with Innovative Systems |
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TrueCommerce, Inc. is a 10-year-old EDI solutions provider whose goal is to “make EDI painless.” By offering the only end-to-end EDI solution in the industry, TrueCommerce provides small- to mid-tier companies with a comprehensive solution that is easy to implement and affordable. Its patent-pending solution is currently used in more than 6 million EDI transactions annually in industries as diverse as healthcare, banking and government.
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The Challenge
When the marketing staff of TrueCommerce decided in early 2004 to transition to a new operating platform to increase efficiency and streamline operations, one of their biggest challenges proved to be the migration of their customer, prospect and value-added resellers (VARs) databases from the old platform to the new. The data were being stored in various applications, in differing formats, and were derived from disparate sources. In addition to the database migrations, TrueCommerce also sought to have their data cleansed, matched, and appended with missing contact information, such as corporate titles and phone numbers, to improve the efficacy of their marketing communications. |
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| The disparate databases, and missing or unclean data, were all obstacles that stood in the way of TrueCommerce’s ultimate goal of comprehensive databases containing complete and accurate information for everyone with whom the company had a relationship. |
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| Three months before a major marketing initiative in which the completed database project was necessary, TrueCommerce contacted a well-known data quality company to handle the data integration and append project. The two companies agreed to the terms of the project, and TrueCommerce began providing their databases to the vendor. |
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| Just two weeks before the completion deadline, the vendor backed out of the project, saying they could not handle the data integration effort because there were too many varying formats. TrueCommerce was left “high and dry,” according to Colleen McDowell, TrueCommerce’s director of marketing. |
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| Quickly running out of time, McDowell contacted Innovative Systems. After discussions with Bill Nolan, an Innovative customer relationship manager, and Steve Trieble, a senior implementation consultant, McDowell decided to proceed with Innovative Systems for the database project; the services were within TrueCommerce’s budget, and Innovative would be able to complete the project within the now two-week timeframe. |
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Innovative Provides the Solution
TrueCommerce immediately began sending data to Innovative
Systems, and the process of cleansing, matching, and appending
the data began. Using their powerful data quality capabilities, Innovative’s implementation staff parsed and cleansed each record – correcting common data quality problems, such as addresses or phone numbers in incorrect fields. |
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| After the databases were cleansed, Innovative’s team then applied a tight set of matching rules to the records. Once all records were subject to Innovative’s matching algorithms, approximately 2% of the total number of records required manual de-duping, something for which McDowell wanted to be personally responsible. As McDowell worked on de-duping the small set of returned records, Innovative appended the demographic data to the file. |
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| Meeting the two-week deadline, Innovative provided to TrueCommerce the integrated and enhanced data that would permit the company to accurately profile and segment their customer and prospect databases and embark upon a new four-part marketing and awareness campaign. |
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Taking Advantage of the Data
TrueCommerce has begun to use their newly consolidated prospect and customer data in marketing campaigns spanning direct mail, email and telemarketing. McDowell says, “We can now market to our client and prospect databases with more conviction and confidence, knowing that we’re reaching the appropriate audiences with the appropriate messages.” McDowell also expects to reap financial rewards from the data clean-up, in the form of reduced production and postal costs for direct mail. |
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| The value of the improved databases is being recognized cross-departmentally, as well. TrueCommerce’s sales staff has experienced increased contact with both prospects and customers as a result of the more accurate and complete information contained in the respective databases. |
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The Relationship Continues
As TrueCommerce continues to expand its sales and marketing initiatives, McDowell plans to turn to Innovative Systems for future cleansing and matching projects. |
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| “Innovative Systems stepped in at the last minute and provided us with an on-time and on-budget solution to our data quality problems. We will definitely rely on Innovative Systems for future assistance with our database quality and demographic appending needs,” said McDowell. |
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