The most common data quality issue is duplicate data, which can come from importing or exporting errors or mistakes from your team. Duplicate data doesn’t always get the same attention as inaccurate or incomplete data, but it can be just as troublesome. Plus, there are different types of duplicate data, such as partial duplicates and exact duplicates. Understanding duplicate data and its impact is an important part of having a reliable database.
Below are the reasons why duplicate data is a problem, as well as simple steps on how to avoid redundant entries in Microsoft Access.
Duplicate Data Problems
- Wasted marketing budget. Duplicate data wastes your marketing budget because you end up sending multiple messages to the same person. Consider that poor marketing data costs U.S. businesses $611 billion a year.
- Inaccurate personalization. Customers expect personalized offers and communications. But without accurate data, it’s difficult to personalize your interactions. The only thing worse than no personalization is inaccurate personalization.
- Harmed brand reputation. If you send out the same campaign multiple times or address someone by the wrong name, this makes your brand look bad. People might get annoyed and you could lose a loyal customer.
- Lost productivity. When your marketing and sales teams are struggling with duplicate entries, they have to use their time and energy to fix the issue. This is a big waste of time that could be spent growing your business and reaching new clients.
- Difficulty making decisions. Data-driven decisions are always best because they are based on concrete facts. However, if you have duplicate information, your teams can’t trust the data or make confident business decisions.
How to Find and Fix Duplicate Records
Now that you know some of the problems with duplicate data, let’s discuss the steps to finding and removing these records. We recommend using the Query Wizard because it’s fast and easy!
- On the Create tab, click Query Wizard.
- In the New Query dialog, click Find Duplicates Query Wizard > OK.
- Select the table you want to use and click Next.
- Choose the fields you want to match and click Next.
- In the list of fields, choose the ones that contain the data you want to update and click Next.
- Accept the suggested query name or enter a new name and hit Finish.
Once you identify the duplicate records, you can edit or delete them. If you have additional questions on duplicate data and how to protect the integrity of your database, schedule a consultation with Arkware today.