Five Steps for Testing your Data & Contact Validity

Imagine calling into a list of contacts where 10-15% of the numbers are disconnected, 30% of the contacts have left the company, and 30% of the people you actually do reach refer you onto someone else. Numbers like these aren’t out of the ordinary for lists that haven’t been kept up-to-date.  Tele-prospecting is already a challenge even with the cleanest data. Why add the burden of clean up duty to your skilled sales team’s plate?  For their sake, and the sake of the success of your tele-prospecting efforts, you can take a few steps to verify your data.

• Do a quick export of your list and add a filter in Excel
• Make sure all data has a phone number for at least the first and last name of a contact
• Dial a sample of 10-20 numbers to get an idea of what you’re dealing with
• Reverse phone number lookups on 10 random numbers to make sure the number matches the company
• Find 10 random contacts and do a quick Google search or LinkedIn lookup

If you realize that more than 20% of your data is bad, then it could be time for a data refresh project before directing your sales team to the list.  You’ll save yourself time in the long run, and you’ll stave off a lot of frustration and negative feedback from your tele-prospecting team. 

Need a list tested for validity?  Reach out to the TSL Marketing or send a sample along.  Our team will give it a quick check to let you know what you may be dealing with.

We also want to know about your biggest data concerns and challenges. Feel free to give us your feedback in the comments section below!