Association of Optometrists: Transforming data quality and member intelligence

The Challenge

The Association of Optometrists (AOP) is the leading optometry membership organisation in the UK. The AOP provides high quality services and benefits to enable 16,000 members to fulfil their professional roles.

To help ensure the success of a campaign to re-launch a number of communications, AOP needed to reach all members and non- members via email, post and phone. Multiple channels would be required to communicate changes to the subscription to Optometry Today, encourage non-members to join the AOP and improve the effectiveness of future marketing activity.

An internal data audit identified that a significant proportion of the database contained records that were incomplete or out of date. Duplicates and older data were removed in-house.

But there was still uncertainty about the accuracy of the remaining core data like names, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses.

Also many records did not contain vital information essential for understanding their audience and personalising communications, for example their mode of practice and qualifications.

The targets set by AOP, were that Chord would telephone cleanse core data including addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses for home, work and term-time and current employer for 70% of reachable contacts. Also then to verify or add to a minimum of 50% of contacts, profiling information relating to individuals’ preferred postal publication address, qualification and mode of practice.

The Solution

Data matching, enhancement & appending

To assess data currency and completion, AOP’s data was securely shared with Chord and a third party data partner under a non-disclosure agreement, so that a free data audit could be provided for just over 16,000 individuals.

Chord arranged for updates and suppression flags to be added to the AOP data, including:

Suppressions – flags for five suppression registers for residency verification, movers and deceased – to reduce marketing costs and increase the accuracy of targeting
New addresses – for individuals that had moved from the address held by AOP
Adding new email addresses, landline and mobile numbers
Postcode Address File (PAF) validation and correction – to maximise postage discounts for mailings
Mailing Preference Service (MPS)– flags to indicate individuals not wanting to receive mail

Cleansing and profiling by phone, web and email

Chord used a multi-channel approach, including outbound and inbound telephone calls, web research and email to achieve the best data quality possible.Different segments within the AOP data were prioritised to achieve the best results.

A four-call process was created, including some calls out-of-hours, to help maximise reach and data collection. This process was enhanced with leaving personalised voicemail messages and emailing individuals who were difficult to reach by phone, both with a specific call to action to increase response rates.

telephone calls made

emails sent

personalised voicemails left

Working closely with the AOP membership team ensured clear lines of communication, to provide individuals with a seamless experience when they contacted AOP directly during the project.

An email was also sent to individuals registered on the Corporate/Telephone Preference Service (C/TPS) registers, who could not be telephoned legally.

The Outcome

The initial data matching and appending stage, ensured that time and budget was not wasted attempting to contact around 3,000 individuals who had moved or were deceased. In addition, more than 2,889 email addresses, landline and mobile phone numbers were added to help the reach of the cleansing and profiling phase. More than 750 new home addresses were provided for individuals that had moved away from the location held by AOP.

Most significantly though, Chord far exceeded the completion targets for valid records cleansed, achieving 99.8% completion for core data against a target of 50% and 99.3% completion for the more valuable profiling information like qualification held and mode of practice against the target of 70%.

It was a big step for AOP to outsource. Chord were quick to understand what we needed and to develop an approach that exceeded our expectations. Their attention to detail and creative ideas were invaluable and our data is now much more accurate and complete. Communications can now be much more accurately targeted and we have better insight about these individuals too, so that we can develop more relevant messaging.
Louise WalpoleHead of Membership, AOP