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Clean. Enrich. Maintain. Read the story of how DPD mastered its Data.

Do you enjoy the challenge of a CRM project? Or do you, like many of your colleagues, find the prospect daunting? Then you should definitely read this article. It shows how a project can run smoothly if you approach it in the right way. DPD was about to introduce a new CRM system. Jasmine Zurbuchen and her small team used this opportunity to clean up the company’s customer data and create the optimum basis for future work. This article describes DPD’s journey to perfect customer data.

“It began in the summer of 2017,” recalls Jasmine Zurbuchen, Product Coordinator at DPD. “Our old CRM system was gradually reaching its capacity limits.” In addition, the quality of the data was no longer as good as DPD management would have liked. “We had the customer data in our CRM system,” explains Zurbuchen, “but a lot of the data was either no longer correct or was missing, plus we had a lot duplicates.” Furthermore, no mandatory fields had been defined. As a result, employees were saving new entries without filling in all fields. Gaps in the data were inevitable.

The decision was then taken to introduce a new CRM system. The old system was no longer fit for purpose and had to make way for Salesforce. “To get off to a good start with the new CRM system we needed to first clean up and enrich the data. This was the only way to provide a clean basis.” Jasmine Zurbuchen knew that the existing data wasn’t good enough for the new CRM system and that now was the perfect time to thoroughly clean up the database. For this she needed a data specialist as a partner. 

Cleaning and enriching data 

She found the perfect partner in Bisnode. Bisnode’s database contains information on around 700,000 companies in Switzerland. In addition, Bisnode has access to Dun & Bradstreet’s data universe and thus up-to-date information on 330 million companies worldwide. DPD handed over its customer database to Bisnode for the first step in the process, data cleaning. Bisnode checked whether the existing information, such as postal address, e-mail addresses or phone numbers, was correct and complete and then added any current or missing information where necessary. This step also involved matching using the D&B D-U-N-S® Number, the worldwide unique identification number for companies. This made it possible to eliminate duplicates in the data. 

“It all went without a hitch,” says Jasmine Zurbuchen. 

Enriching data 

It didn’t end there, however. The next step involved enriching the database with additional information. Every company was also given a risk indicator, which indicates the financial risks associated with the respective company. “We added a lot of information, from identification to risk,” recalls Zurbuchen. “We didn’t want to do only what was necessary; we wanted to do the job properly. It was therefore something that we were happy to invest in.” 

Jasmine Zurbuchen
“We recognised the importance of high-quality data, and told ourselves that if we’re going to do something new, then we’re going to do it right.”

Jasmine Zurbuchen, Product Coordinator at DPD

The data was now available in the required form. All gaps were filled, all correct data added, all duplicates eliminated and a risk assessment available. Armed with this data, DPD set about tackling the next step, importing the data into Salesforce. 

The world of DPD

  • DPD is one of the leading providers of express and parcel services in Europe. 
  • DPD Switzerland is the number one private express and parcel service provider in Switzerland. 
  • DPD operates over 800 depots in over 40 countries. 
  • DPD Switzerland employs more than 900 people at 12 locations. 

Read more at www.dpd.com 

Maintaining long-term data quality 

Cleaning up data and migrating it to a new system is one thing. Ensuring that it remains complete and correct in the long term is another. “You have to maintain all of it,” sums up Jasmine Zurbuchen. DPD therefore defined mandatory fields that make it impossible to save an incomplete entry. The express and parcel service provider also linked the Swiss Insight Web Service SIW with Salesforce. “When someone enters a new company in the CRM system, we pull in the current master data via SIW. This is how we maintain the high quality of our data,” explains Zurbuchen.  

So, let’s return to the risk indicator. A current risk assessment for the company in question is received directly in Salesforce via the SIW interface. The Sales team can thus see the financials for potential business partners and determine whether it is necessary to obtain more information before closing a deal. 

The new CRM system is now up and running at DPD, and the data is clean and always up-to-date. DPD is therefore able to respond to customer requests much more quickly and effectively. Salesforce cloud solutions help DPD to achieve its goals. Or, as Jasmine Zurbuchen puts it: “Big Data is the key factor in the global digital revolution.” 

Your journey to perfect data starts here

How good is the quality of your company data? Does it include inactive companies? Are there duplicates? What is the financial risk? Find out with our free, no-obligation fitness check.