Blog: Jill Dyche

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Table for One: Jill's Identity Crisis

In which Jill explains why getting a table in a restaurant might be overkill for a CDI hub. Or is it?

Ever since I can remember, my last name has been a source of grief for me and various family members. It’s a Gallic last name, the origin of which I have neither the time nor the patience to research, that has been a source for endless familial debate. Without the accent, the name is one syllable, but with the accent it’s two. Phonetically, it’s pronounced “dish-ay” with emphasis on the second syllable. When I make restaurant reservations, I spell it “D-i-s-h-a-y” to avoid the embarrassment of being summoned aloud by an otherwise well-intentioned hostess who might not catch the accent. Let’s just say that I’ve answered to some colorful interpretations of my last name when waiting for a restaurant table.

If you think that’s bad, you should see what shows up on my credit report. There have been at least five different spellings of my last name across reports from Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, and different versions of who I was, where I lived, and where I worked. One of the bureaus had me living with my Dad in northern California. (Message to Dad: Don’t even think about it.) There were three different variations of my southern California address.

Also disconcerting was the missing information. I lived at a prior address for four years, but two of the three bureaus missed that address altogether. It was as if significant areas of my past had been wiped clean, like one of those movies where the protagonist’s friends don’t recognize him and he has to court his wife all over again.

It’s not shocking that different agencies have different information about me, whether that’s the spelling of my name or my current workplace, or my credit score. What is surprising is how off the individual reports themselves are.

Of course, the problem of customer recognition and "individualization" is writ large across companies, industries and market segments. Our companies have more information about our customers than ever before—but we seem to have a more difficult time than ever recognizing individual customers across business divisions, subsidiaries, and sales channels. Some forward-thinking data quality and CDI/MDM vendors--check out Identity Systems, for instance--are leading the charge to address customer identity resolution.

Until companies get this stuff right, put me down for a table for one. As in: D-i-s-h-a-y.

Technorati Tags: identity resolution, CDI, MDM, customer identity resolution

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