Mercedes-Benz’s 10-million-name customer database was fragmented and inconsistent. Approximately 20 percent of the customer names were duplicates. This led to inaccurate and costly marketing initiatives and inconsistent customer care.
The Business
Mercedes-Benz USA, headquartered in Montvale, N.J., is responsible for sales, service and marketing of Mercedes-Benz products in the United States. It is among the most venerable companies in automotive history, leading the fields of safety, engineering, innovation and design.
Mercedes-Benz USA maintains an enviable record of lifelong service to its customers. In fact, the automaker’s success has created benchmarks for client care in the automotive industry. However, competition in the luxury auto market has intensified. Continued success depends on Mercedes-Benz’s ability to uphold its own standards of quality and customer care, and intensify its customer loyalty efforts.
The Challenge
Mercedes-Benz’s 10-million-name customer database was fragmented and inconsistent. Approximately 20 percent of the customer names were duplicates. This led to inaccurate and costly marketing initiatives and inconsistent customer care.
The automaker had to cleanse its data using business rules compatible with its various data sources – a task complicated by inconsistencies in the data and the way each source handles it.
The Stakes
Without a single, enterprise-wide view of its customers, Mercedes risked losing its reputation for service and its competitive advantage.
The Solution
eVentive partnered with Trillium Software to produce a data quality architecture and management process over a six-week period. The project entailed cleansing, standardizing and matching Mercedes-Benz’s impressive customer database. Additionally, eVentive designed a data movement process to reload and synchronize cleansed data into the Informix database.
The Benefit
Mercedes-Benz’s clean, standardized operational data store integrates customer information from several sources. As a result, the automaker has a single view of its customers, reducing bulk mailing costs and improving customer service. Additionally, the solution enables real-time, online data quality management so customer data is always cleansed and never duplicated at the point of data entry.
Download Case Study: Mercedes Benz USA |
