Spoof Lewis Hamiltons and Taylor Swifts hit marketing

Brands’ marketing efforts continue to be hampered by inaccurate personal information – with millions of people providing spoof names like Lewis Hamilton and Taylor Swift as well as rogue addresses – although firms that make assumptions are being warned that many seemingly dodgy details can turn out to be genuine.

That is according to a new analysis of 140 million customer records by technology-enabled data consultancy Sagacity, which shows that a massive 28% of them contain errors.

Taking a deep dive on a sample of one million retail customer records that had been flagged as having errors, Sagacity found that 90% of the errors related to the customer’s address – with 15% having multiple errors, while 10% contained errors in the name.

Sagacity CEO Anita Dougall explained: “Small errors can add up to big problems and create real headaches when it comes to linking records. For instance, a customer called Thomas Black may go as both Tom and Thomas – they are the same person, but the system thinks they are two different people. This can lead to duplications, unnecessary costs of contacting the same customer multiple times and a poor customer experience.

“Moreover, if an address is incorrect, communications may not even reach the customer – which can create a debt pile that is hard to recover if bills go unpaid. This is a widespread problem: our recent research found that businesses lose billions of pounds a year due to inaccurate or incomplete data, poor data reconciliation, and having multiple versions of the truth.

“It’s vital that companies have the right processes in place to capture data in a consistent way, and that data is routinely checked and cleansed for accuracy.”

Many of the incorrect names in retailer databases are not mistakes – with customers deliberately giving fake names.

Sagacity says these tend to fall into three categories: 60% tend to be spoof names (often relating to celebrities or popular culture), 35% are profanities, while 5% are gibberish (e.g. First name given as ‘Aaaaa’).

When looking at spoof names, certain names come in and out of vogue based on what is happening in the world. After analysing a separate sample of 100 million customer records and factoring in a small number of genuine cases, Sagacity can reveal the most commonly used suspected ‘spoof names’ are Lewis Hamilton, Harry Potter, Gordon Ramsay, Taylor Swift and Indiana Jones.

Yet Sagacity warns companies against making assumptions. Dougall explained: “Some names may seem like a joke, but you need to be sure – it is not a black and white issue. For instance, there could well be a Mr Smellie, who lives in Shitterton.

“Attempting to delete or correct their records could damage the relationship and cut off a stream of income. Rather than having blanket policies, businesses need to dig a little deeper to check third-party sources, to prevent inadvertently deleting or editing customer data that is perfectly valid.”

Sagacity’s recent “Missing Millions” report, revealed that UK businesses estimate that 5.87% of revenues remain uncollected each year, equating to £244bn in annual losses.

Almost half (45%) of the revenue loss comes from errors with data, controls and oversight. Human error, such as manual data entry into multiple systems, accounts for £37.3bn; lack of oversight, poor processes, governance, and control cost £24.9bn; inaccurate or incomplete data impacting billing cost £24.9bn, while poor data reconciliation or multiple versions of the truth also cost £24.9bn.