Rank Group hits the data quality jackpot with Loqate
Challenges
- Boost the effectiveness of customer communication across Rank Group’s multiple brands
- Embed a safer gambling ethos throughout the business, and identify and interact with vulnerable customers
- Meet stringent industry data regulations
Results
- Improved customer communication and customer experience
- Projected to reduce marketing costs (mainly mailing and SMS) by up to £500,000 per annum
- Worked towards improving fidelity of a single customer view to detect fraudulent accounts faster and reduce gambling harm
- Formulated a data quality dashboard allowing data quality metrics to be shared across the business
Taking a lead in the industry
Established in 1937, Rank Group entertains millions of customers across Britain and around the world through its gaming-based entertainment brands, including Grosvenor Casinos, Mecca Bingo, and a suite of diverse digital brands.
Being a key player in the gaming industry means that maintaining data quality is a standard part of Rank Group’s licensing conditions. Having the ability to identify customers quickly and efficiently is critical in meeting regulations such as Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Counter Terrorism Financing (CTF) requirements. But for Rank Group, regulation is simply a base line. As part of its commitment to deliver the best possible experience to customers, the company strives to provide a service that is not only exciting and entertaining, but safe, fair, and delivered responsibly.
Keeping data regularly cleansed and maintained makes business sense.
The challenge
As well as complying with important industry regulations, Rank Group has committed to embedding a safer gambling ethos across the business to protect customers and build meaningful, sustainable relationships with them. The business, therefore, needed a way of identifying and interacting with customers who showed signs of problems with gambling, or who might have been at risk of playing beyond an affordable level. In order to achieve this, the business needed data that was clean and up to date. But with customer data decaying at a rate of 10-20% per year, like many other companies, the group’s database was in need of some care and attention.
On top of this, Rank Group was dealt a bad hand when the pandemic forced its physical venues to close. Without the venues open, the business couldn’t carry out its manual customer checks, which were useful in verifying identities and collecting more data and information.
Without up-to-date data, customer communication across the group’s multiple brands also wasn’t as effective as it could’ve been. In addition, some of the previous attempts to fix duplicate or fraudulent accounts had been too simplistic, relying on matching rules embedded in some “systems of record”, and teams were finding it a challenge to make business decisions without access to quantitative information to substantiate their ideas.
The solution
The Data Team at Rank Group could see enough symptoms to realise there were problems with the data not just inside a brand, but crucially, across brands, at an enterprise level. They realised that they needed to find a partner who could provide them with the insight to identify and rectify the issues. Having worked with Loqate in the past and been impressed with the level of service, expertise, and its consultative approach, Rank Group decided to once again partner with the location and data specialist.
Quality data from Loqate enables us to be more agile, make decisions quickly based on increased confidence in accurate quantitative figures, and improves overall customer experience.
Step one: the big data cleanse
To kick off proceedings, Loqate undertook a large-scale data cleanse on customers who had interacted with Rank Group over the past 24 months. Checked against Royal Mail PAF – the most up-to-date Postcode Address File – addresses in the database were parsed, standardised, verified, cleansed and formatted.
A suppression cleanse was then carried out to flag any house movers or deceased customers. Deceased suppression is particularly important as mailing deceased individuals could cause further upset to bereaved families, potentially lead to identity fraud, and damage a brand’s reputation.
Finally, Loqate carried out an email and mobile validation cleanse. Both of these cleanses were key in enhancing Rank Group’s communication strategy, improving customer service, and making sure the intervention team could get in touch with customers quickly to provide safeguards if problems arose.
Results
Since working with Loqate and implementing a large-scale data cleanse and monthly maintenance service, Rank Group has been able to improve many data quality issues it previously had.
Great customer data management has put Rank Group in a much better position for re-opening post lockdown. Increased delivery rates have also resulted in more accurate and effective customer communication, improved sender reputation, enhanced customer experience, and better use of marketing budgets. In fact, the business is projected to reduce its marketing expenditure, mainly mailing and SMS costs, by up to £500,000 per annum.
The introduction of a data quality dashboard has allowed the Chief Data Officer to easily track and share data quality metrics with the executive team. And more accurate data has enabled Rank Group to develop a high-fidelity single customer view across its business. Not only does this help to successfully identify fraudulent or duplicate accounts, it also means teams can get in touch with customers quickly and put in place safeguarding measures for those who might be considered vulnerable.
Rank is projected to reduce its marketing expenditure, mainly mailing and SMS costs, by up to £500,000 per annum.
