Hi everyone,
We’ve had a customer request that he be completely removed from the database, and it’s been so long since I’ve had one of those requests that I thought I’d poll the forum and see how you all handle it. I was thinking of something along the lines of merging it into an anonymous account, possibly even changing the identifying info on the ‘bad’ record to anonymous first. I don’t like the idea of outright deletion, which could be nearly impossible if there are any transactions on the record. Any suggestions, comments or best practices to share?...
Cheers,
Kathleen
Hi Kathleen,
I've only ever had this request twice, deleting data like the credit card number, email address and mailing preferences, changing the name and merging with an "anonymous" record.
As you say, there could be transactions tied to it preventing a full removal from the database.
That said, if someone wants to remain completely anonymous and still buy tickets, she/he would need to buy tickets in person - with an understanding that he/she will not receive any communication about an event change or cancellation.
Kevin
You can inactivate the record – your organization can create various reasons for the inactivation. If there is any possibility that the inactivation could be reversed you might want to add an Attribute that alerts folks that the record should never be activated without customer’s permission or the like.
From: Tessitura Marketing Forum [mailto:forums-marketing@tessituranetwork.com] On Behalf Of Kathleen Smith Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2014 6:29 PM To: McKinley, Leslie Subject: [Tessitura Marketing Forum] removing customer from database
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We don't do this, and Tessitura makes it difficult, which it (arguably) should. Setting them to Inactive is enough to keep them from being contacted.
When we have been asked to do this, we have used the approach that Kevin described. From reading the customer requests, it was always about a desire for us to no longer have their personal details (name, address, phone, email), and merging with an anon record, then deleting the names and contact details meets that desire.
We have a policy of expunging CC details after the transaction, so we are not concerned about the ticket history and sale data living on in the anon record, which may not be the same for other orgs?
It might be worth investigating a script that expunges CC details for a specific constituent?
I would be hesitant to only mark them as inactive because of the few ways that inactive constituents can still pop up in various reports or legacy lists. Something else to keep in mind would be to check with the marketing team that they always pull in fresh lists/extractions into their e-marketing tool when sending an EDM.
I suppose it is worth mentioning that we interpret "removing from database" very different to "removing from mailing list" in which case we would impose contact restrictions and, perhaps, inactivation if the patron was leaving the country, for example.
There have been amendments to the Australian Privacy Act requiring stricter compliance so we would need to do more than inactivate the record if the request specified *removal from database*.
If you remove someone completely from the database or merge them into an anonymous account, how will you make sure they are suppressed when you acquire list shares and/or rent lists?
From: Tessitura Marketing Forum [mailto:forums-marketing@tessituranetwork.com] On Behalf Of Kevin MadeiraSent: Wednesday, March 19, 2014 6:43 PMTo: llindvall@cfl.rr.comSubject: Re: [Tessitura Marketing Forum] removing customer from database
From: Nicholas Hudson-Ellis <bounce-nicholashudsonellis2615@tessituranetwork.com>Sent: 3/19/2014 9:14:31 AM
You might keep a CSI or some other record in the anonymous account with first name, last name and postcode so you can take out any matches from data you acquire. Technically, that wouldn't be deemed "personal data" because you're not storing the full address that identifies the person.
If you're talking about email and use Mail2, for example, I suppose you could store the email address solely in Mail2 with no name attached to it and add it to the global unsubscribe list so that email address will never receive anything.
As I mentioned, this is in response to a patron request for complete removal from database, not removal from mailing list.