The 1-10-100 rule

Have you ever sat down to evaluate how much inaccurate data costs your business? How many hours your employees have spent trawling through databases full of incorrect and out of date customer data? Or how many customers you have lost because of it?

Your data is one of the most valuable assets your company has, and yet most organizations overestimate the quality of their data and underestimate the impact that errors and inconsistencies can have on their bottom line.

Inaccurate data creates rework and chaos for everyone who comes into contact with it. Returned mail is a regular reminder that customer records are far from perfect, yet the returns we see are only the tip of the iceberg. With consumer data degrading by 13% and business data by 37% on average every year, it’s a problem all businesses need to address.

Another way to look at the implications of bad data is to use the 1-10-100 rule.

Put simply, the rule indicates that the cost of defect identification goes up exponentially with each phase of development. The increasing cost recognizes the need to go back through various phases, the lost opportunity associated with other work, the amount of people and systems involved in identifying the problem, and end user (or customer) impact.


  • Verifying an address record at source costs $1
  • Allowing an incorrect address to enter, will cost $10 more to cleanse further down the line
  • And it will cost $100 if nothing is done, as the ramifications of the mistake are felt over and over again

This has a snowballing effect with bad data perpetuating into more bad data resulting in poor decisions. This can lead to failed deliveries, missed opportunities, and a lack of compliance – not to mention poor customer service. Failure to keep on top of it is throwing money and relationships down the drain.

While data cleansing is a good step towards ensuring data quality and management, it is far more difficult and time consuming to correct collected data than it is to validate the data at the point and time of collection. Our flagship technology, Capture+ enables you to verify addresses in real-time at the point of entry. Instead of the traditional method of searching for your address by typing in your zipcode, Capture+ allows users to type in any part of an address and the software will provide a list of matching addresses to choose from.

Try Capture+ on your website or in your CRM today.