What is Golden Record in master data management?

A Golden Record combines meaningful and reliable master data from multiple systems into a single view that is ideally more accurate, more complete and more truthful than data from any single source.

Golden Record, a must in data management

The golden record serves as a complete record (as the best of the best, in layman’s terms) or as “the only source of truth.” In this case, the “truth” is a reliable reference for collecting all relevant customer information across the organization that users can turn to when they want to be sure they have the most up-to-date data on a particular customer or prospect.

This idea of a “Golden Record” has particular appeal to marketers, who rely on accurate, timely and reliable data in driving enhanced customer experiences. Closer sellers can reach the gold record, and are more likely to interact with customers through preferred channels with preferred offers.

This helps to think about the Golden Record as a unified customer profileThis includes identifying information about the customer, as well as the channels they use to interact with the organization, their most recent interaction with the organization, and the recent offer to which they reacted positively. The gold record also covers how a customer transacts with the organization, including their most recent purchase, lifetime value and number of days since last purchase, for example. All this information is extracted from different data sources and mixed in the system creating the gold record.

A changing and dynamic database

Because the Golden Record comes from many data sources, it is also dynamic, as customer preferences and/or transaction history change, the record also changes. If a customer interacts with an organization primarily through email, and then changes their interaction primarily through social media, the system underpinning the gold record notices this change and updates their data accordingly. If the customer also decides to purchase something through a mobile app instead of a desktop interface, the gold record will update the relevant information.

As a result of this flexibility, creating and maintaining a Golden Record can be transformational in customer engagement. This means that marketers should look for data management solutions that can streamline data collection, acquisition and analytics to put the organization on track to create a golden history and ultimately enable a 360-degree view.

Credits: Red Point Global