Data Migration Project

We recently faced the challenge of how best to migrate customer data from our existing operational system and several supporting databases into a new CRM system. We knew that the data was in a poor way with undisciplined data entry over a number of years and inconsistent use of address fields.

One of the biggest problems was how to consolidate multiple line addresses into a reduced number of fields – made more complex by the fact that we have worldwide addresses and duplication within and across all datasets.

We also had time constraints as the work had to be completed over a weekend and we could not afford to have our system offline for more than 2/3 days

Whilst searching for a suitable company to undertake this project we discovered Tech4T. Having discussed the project with their data technicians, we felt confident that all necessary work could be undertaken within our budget and timescale. We provided them with a test dataset to assess the work involved and then agreed a detailed work plan and schedule.

Tech4T were very proactive in the way they worked, keeping us informed at all stages and highlighting areas of concern which came to light as the job progressed. In this way, small problems were resolved before they became a major issue further down the line.

The output not only met but exceeded our expectations and enabled us to move to our new system without issue.

I would not hesitate in recommending Tech4T for any address cleansing, deduplication and data merge work – however complex – and we will definitely be using their services in the future.

Greville Baghurst, Business Analyst, Miller Insurance Services Limited

Data Enrichment Software and Services from Tech4T

"As a provider of a myriad of data services to our customers, it was important that Mail Solutions were using the best available software. When it came to upgrading our Mailsort, Address Cleaning, merge/purge and data conversion programs we were faced with a minefield of choices.

We started the evaluation by speaking to suppliers and taking evaluation copies of programs. The time required to do this seemed to get longer and longer, which is where Tech4T came in. With their knowledge and experience, they circumvented the evaluation on our behalf running numerous tests across many different packages. They then supplied the results in a way that allowed us to differentiate between the solutions available and come to a best-fit decision. 

As part of the above process, we began talking to Tech4T about the range of services that we offered our clients and Tech4T were able to recommend further software which added to our portfolio. All of the recommended packages are well used and provide a valuable service to our clients in an increasingly competitive marketplace - especially DoubleTake which we have found to be an exceptional and extremely fast tool for accurate de-duplication, merge/purge and data suppression.  

I would not hesitate in recommending Tech4T for any data enrichment software, development or investigation. Their knowledge and expertise continues to be a valuable source of inspiration and reduces the timescales required for new software implementation considerably."

Gary Hazlehurst, Technical Sales Manager, Mail Solutions

Double Take...

"We have now been using Double Take within our marketing database for nine months. We use the product for three purposes:

1. Identifying duplicates within the database that our standard batch merge process misses. Double Take creates an extract file of the duplicates which is fed into a program written by Norwich Union that chooses which of the duplicates is correct and updates the database accordingly.

2. Fine tuning of the merge rules. We can amend the match rules in Double Take to see what effect it will have, which in turn leaded to finding and correcting more duplicates.

3. Measuring the level of duplication. We feed a sample of data into Double Take and measure the current level of duplication on a quarterly basis.

Before Double Take, the level of duplication was around 8%. The current level of duplication is 2.2%. Most of this decrease can be put down to the Double Take process. We find that the software is very efficient (we can process up to 4 million records in around 90 minutes)."

Richard Ellis, Norwich Union (CGNU)