Data entry – the process of entering data into a database in the required format- is an essential requirement for businesses. Whether it is on paper or in a digital format – every organization deals with large amounts of data on a daily basis and managing this kind of data is a tedious task. It requires extensive time and resources; therefore, to lessen the workload and concentrate on other core business activities, many organizations outsource the data entry work to companies that handle non-core data entry jobs. To ensure professionalism and accuracy in data entry, businesses can utilize dedicated data entry services for the job or else outsource to skilled data entry personnel.
Though outsourcing data entry jobs has many associated benefits, the real struggle is finding the right partner to handle any project given to them at any time. This is because, if you partner with the wrong outsourcing data entry company, it can prove costly. So, when outsourcing, there are some important things to consider right from data capturing for cleansing, verifying, and sorting it – because, after all, data is costly and bad data can have unacceptable repercussions.
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- Services Offered: It’s important that you clearly map out your business needs and check if the outsourcing company has the workforce and infrastructure to handle these different needs related to your data entry works. By doing so, it saves you time, money and resources when you assign your data entry work to an outsourcing provider. Since a long-term relationship is always preferable, do not opt for data entry providers that come cheap but offer inferior quality services.
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- Data Quality: According to Gartner research, poor data quality costs businesses somewhere between $9.7 million & $14.2 million a year – which is a lot of money wasted on lost opportunities. Moreover, apart from the monetary loss, this bad data quality can also negatively impact operating costs, increase overhead costs, impact products and development processes, tank marketing efforts, negatively affect stock prices and most importantly, harm your reputation by causing poor customer experiences.
To ensure data quality while outsourcing to an external provider, consider whether they follow certain practices, such as defining usefulness metrics for data quality, qualitative and quantitative assessment of data validity and accuracy of primary attributes, profiling data, enforcing standards on data, using proper matching and linking techniques and monitoring the entire process to make sure the data and processing standards are up-to-date.
- Data Quality: According to Gartner research, poor data quality costs businesses somewhere between $9.7 million & $14.2 million a year – which is a lot of money wasted on lost opportunities. Moreover, apart from the monetary loss, this bad data quality can also negatively impact operating costs, increase overhead costs, impact products and development processes, tank marketing efforts, negatively affect stock prices and most importantly, harm your reputation by causing poor customer experiences.
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- Data Security: A very important aspect to consider is data security. Always check the protocols and policies followed by the company to ensure data security and check if the company is up-to-date with their data security protocols and uses multiple layers of security while data is transferred from one server to another. This is very important because, you have to make sure that all your data is handled by the right personnel on a need-to-know basis. Go through testimonials of existing and previous clients to take a wise decision.
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- Check for Accuracy: Find out if the outsourcing data entry company regularly carries out audits to detect errors. Check whether a dual keying system is followed by them where a very high degree of accuracy is required. It would be wise to choose a company that has an exclusive quality control system with specialists in error tracking and rectification.
- Experience and Reputation: Hire a reputable and experienced data entry service provider that is capable of facing all sorts of challenges and has all the right resources and personnel to tackle them with ease. Besides, when outsourcing your work to data entry experts that has got exposure to different niches, you can feel comfortable knowing that they know how to handle data in this line of business.
Additionally, to get an idea of the quality of service and the client satisfaction that they provide, check their client testimonials.
As more and more businesses realize that outsourcing data entry is a more viable option, more and more data entry service providers are entering the market. The deal is to find the ideal partner to outsource your data entry requirements to and thereby switch to focusing on the core areas of your business and getting the best out of your organization.
Keep a tab on the above-mentioned things to identify a good data entry service provider. Reliable data entry companies that provide the service of skilled data entry personnel would conduct extensive audits and multi-level QA to ensure data accuracy and meet the highest standards.
