The Importance of Data Accuracy in Business Intelligence | IntelliSurvey

Building on the blog post, The Modern Slump in Data Quality, this week we’re highlighting the importance of data accuracy. Data accuracy is a key aspect of our new e-book, Overcoming the Biggest Threats to Market Research: Bad Data & Bad Actors, because of the critical impact inaccurate data can have on business decisions.

Survey data offers a unique lens through which business decision-makers can learn about their customers, competition, and more. Not only can this data help companies better understand who uses their products and services, but it also offers insights into how organizations should proceed with (or halt) marketing campaigns, product launches, customer experience modifications, employee engagement, and much more.

The key to extracting quality insight from survey data is ensuring that insights truly reflect what’s happening in the real world.

From bots to fraudulent survey farming operations, there are many ways that bad data can influence survey results. This influx of tainted data spoils the business intelligence companies rely on to make strategic and thoughtful decisions.

When bad data contaminates survey results, organizations can make several strategic mistakes that only hurt business growth, such as:

Entering an Unsuitable Market

For businesses looking to expand into a new market, perhaps by opening stores in a new geography or by launching a new type of product they’ve never sold before, survey data is often leveraged to drive decisions.

When inauthentic actors participate in survey results, businesses can get incorrect reads on true market demand and desires. If acted upon, this false information can have far-reaching business impact.

Marketing to the Wrong Audience

Designing and executing strong marketing campaigns is all about identifying and targeting an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). Surveys help estimate the demand from different ICPs and can paint a clear picture of how to reach this group.

When fraudulent survey respondents contaminate a sample with inauthentic claims, marketers can be misled to pursue the wrong ICP or to design a campaign that does not resonate with a target ICP. This can result in wasted funds and missed opportunities.

Making a Misguided Customer Experience Tweak

Hearing directly from customers about their experience is a helpful way to guide your organization’s approach to customer retention and acquisition. Customer insights can lead brands to make changes, large and small, in an effort to improve the customer experience. 

Bad data can result in the wrong changes being made, potentially negatively impacting the customer experience. For example, a restaurant may make changes to its menu that might reflect what people say they want but could be inconsistent with why they actually visit, or order from, the restaurant. This can rapidly lead to lost customers.

Adding an Unwanted Product Feature

If survey bots or a coordinated survey farm infiltrate a study, companies can get a warped idea of what potential new features would be popular. Launching a dud feature is a waste of time and resources that could have been leveraged to bring a feature to market that truly resonates with customers.

Taking Bad Data Out of the Equation

Inauthentic actors participating in surveys is a major problem in the research industry. When results are contaminated with data from bad actors, the insights drawn from that data can lead to misguided decision-making.

Fortunately, innovative research organizations have made advances in data-cleaning technologies and techniques, minimizing the impact of bad data on business insights. At IntelliSurvey, we developed our proprietary data-cleaning algorithm, CheatSweep™, to address this very issue. CheatSweep™ gathers extensive metadata as respondents complete surveys and, paired with decades of historical data, is able to catch likely cheaters.

To learn about the latest in modern data cleaning approaches and to find out what steps you can take to increase the dependability of your survey data, check out our e-book Overcoming the Biggest Threats to Market Research: Bad Data & Bad Actors.