The advancement of technology has allowed for greater detail and access to data. It is easy to see why data has become so important for modern businesses. However, it presents different hazards for organizations. One of which is data accuracy. The volume of data that organizations need to maintain continues to grow. For financial enterprises, there are multiple reasons that an effective data management system is necessary as it impacts everyone from the customer to the marketing teams.
Compliance Issue
For financial enterprises that have a lot of information that need to be managed at the advisor level. Firstly, advisors hold accreditations and licences that can have expired. It is important for the protection of the organization that the information surrounding the licences is kept up to date.
Typically the advisor holds the record the licence and may forget to renew or could renew but forget to advise the organization. From this point, it creates a snowball effect of inaccurate data and possible compliance threats. The advisor may either conduct business that they are no longer licensed to do, or accidentally is removed from a locator tool as certified thus limiting new business opportunities.
Marketing Issue
For enterprise marketers, they are looking to support their advisors by increasing the reach and exposure each advisor has. To help increase the exposure, the marketer can provide the advisor with their own website, place their information on Google MyBusiness and Local Listings, as well as on a locator tool on the corporate website. With all these locations in which the advisors’ information is hosted, there is a large change that some of this information is out of date.
Take for example, if the advisor were to relocate, change their name after getting married, or any other possible event; all this information needs to be updated in many spots and some may be forgotten. Now take this case and multiply it by hundreds or thousands of advisors, it rapidly becomes a problem that is impossible to manage.
Going beyond the logistical issue of inaccurate information, this also will negatively impact the marketing objectives of increasing reach and exposure. With the advisor site, locator tool, corporate site, and Google listings all having different information will impact SEO and search rankings. To better explain this, here is a quick story:
A customer wants to visit a financial advisors location, after a quick google search finds the address and heads over. When they arrive, they find the location has been closed and moved. This negatively impacts that customers view on Google as its information is inaccurate and it risks that person from stop using Google. Because of this Google places a great importance on the accuracy of the NAP(Name, Address, Phone number) and will negatively impact the search ranking of inaccurate businesses as to prevent harm to the User-Google relationship. In addition to people reporting inaccuracies, it automatically checks for other variations, and external sites like government directories, and business listings.
Customer Issue
Ultimately, the persons most impacted by inaccurate information is the customer. They may try to access the information through the advisors’ website, the corporate locator, or Google listings. If any of the information is mismatched, the customer will either take their business elsewhere, or be stuck trying different methods to get in contact that is incorrect.
Data management and data accuracy is a problem for every team in a financial enterprise. The Marketing team will have their set of profile information, the Compliance team will have another, and the advisors another. It is impossible to know which set is accurate or if only pieces are accurate. Furthermore, all this data is not structured and typically stored in spreadsheets. It is crucial that financial enterprises have a system in place that can automatically pull and push data across any platform. In this way there is only one source of truth and is continually maintained. All the data will then be pushed across all the different platforms ensure the best customer experience, marketing effectiveness, and compliance requirements.
