How long do you keep data on your DMS?

[drapp]

We are on ADP and our name file is a mess. We have the tools to clean it up. The questions are:

1 - How long do you keep customer's name file information?

2 - How long do you keep vehicle information?

I realize storage space is getting cheaper everyday. However, when faced with a mess I must choose a date and draw a line and say here forward we fix it. Behind the line is deleted.

We are leaning toward deleting everything that has had no activity in 36+ months.

[X476]

I would say if the customer has not been in your store in more than a year, drop them out. According to the bean counters at the maker if you haven't seen them 3 to 4 times a year your not retaining them so clean it out. Also Who enters the info when a new vehicle is purchased? I would show them the correct way to search the data base to make sure the customer does not already have a number. We had this issue ended up with customers having 2-5 customer numbers. What a mess.

[TheOne]

Keep it all. Run it through the NCOAA data base to sort the bad from the good and get rid of the bad.....

[jazdale]

This has been an ongoing topic that every dealership needs to address - then adhere to store-wide, go-forward rules.

Somewhere between X476 and TheOne lies the answer for your store.

Ask yourself this - Is your DMS simply a transaction system, or is it also a database for follow-up and marketing campaigns?

Ask those in parts and accounting and the answer will be towards the tranaction side.
Ask sales and service and their answer will be towards the follow-up/campaign side.

CRM and 3rd party data collectors are one way to address this - but regardless of whether you follow-up in-house or out-sourced, there needs to be retained data to work with.

Personally, I like the idea of 'as long as I can" since you never really know what piece of data becomes a marketing campaign home run.
Realistically, you should retain the data for at least as long as the financing note on the sold vehicle. In some cases, that may be 84 or even 96 months.

Using your inhouse system for follow-up just makes good economic sense. To do this, we need to have a store-wide agreement to how we add customers.
Are we adding a new cusotmer number everytime we sell a car to a repeat customer? If so, stop it!!
Otherwise clean-up will be futile.

In ADP, turn on the Dupe rules with function NMS.

As TheOne pointed out, run your name file against the NCOAA (Datafresh) and run the name-consolidation tool (NCT) to merge the dupes. The first time you run NCT will be a huge chore because there are several years of junk to clean up. Thereafter, it should be a very small task to maintain.

Whether your using your system for inquiries, transactions or marketing, you would be amazed at how much easier it is to work with a clean name file. Its definitely worth the effort.

[CARDOCTOR]

What is the ncoaa database?

[robc]

actually NCOA ... National change of address

Most people use Melissa data
http://www.melissadata.com/index.htm

[GENE WHITE]

This is not a simple questio. First as a consultant I recommend keeping information in the files as long as the warranty is in force based on mileage or years. Second after this has played out then if you have no activity within 12 months I would place the information in a "retired file". You also have audit responsibilities for the Factories and IRS to consider. Seek legal council before any final decisions. Make sure that the Service and Body Shops are maintaining current addresses when they write up vehicles. Last run the addresses and vehicle ownership records against the databases available.

[TheOne]

Gene the legal rules are regarding physical documentation, or approved electronic duplication of those documents. The question was in reference to DMS name and history files......

[TheOne]

Jazz makes some very excellent sense relative to the original question. As for deleting tranactional detail 36 months and greater, please burn me a copy of the data prior to deletion. I am sure I can sell it to your competitor down the street for his next sales mail piece........