In the age of big data, the real key to success lies in better data, not just more data. We understand that your CRM and other essential data are the lifeblood of your business, and ensuring its accuracy is paramount. Research shows that up to 30% of key data degrades annually due to various factors like personnel changes and business events. To help you manage your data effectively and maintain a pristine CRM, we’ve gathered some valuable insights that we believe will be instrumental in keeping your data clean and reliable.
The Impact of Dirty Data
In professional services, effective communication with clients and prospects is essential. However, data issues can pose significant challenges. Missing, incorrect, or incomplete data can lead to wasted time, money, and hinder your ability to reach key audiences. Unfortunately many businesses find themselves in a spiraling loop of confusion due to bad data intake habits. Key data fields are left out because the person responsible for the intake was in a hurry to enter the Customer, the bare minimum required fields are entered and important data such as a secondary contact method is missed.
The Ugly Truth
A lot of times, business owners do not even know their personnel are following bad data organizing – and keeping habits until it is already almost too late. By the time you realize several members of staff each follow their own route to intake customer information and they each store it in a different place where no one else can readily access the information, the problem is most likely already a bigger one than you would have liked it to be.
Facing the Challenge of Dirty Data
Addressing bad data along with bad data entry habits head-on is crucial for your business’s success. We’ve spent over a decade working with businesses in many different industries on CRM and data quality projects, and we’re here to share some practical tips to identify data quality issues and prevent future problems.
Assess the Situation
Begin by understanding the scope of your data challenges, to do this you may want to ask yourself a couple of questions such as “How much bad data do you have?”, “Where is it located?”, “Who is responsible for it?”, etc. At this given point, you might identify that there is little or no consistency thus far in the intake and managing your Customer data. In some cases you may have already started cleaning up the data to some extend. The importance of structuring your process going forward after you have identified the challenges cannot be stressed enough!
Implement a One Truth for Data Intake
There is a universal concept for businesses based on truth. This means that there is ONE TRUTH for information and ONE TRUTH for the accurate intake of information or records in the business. Having a One Truth established for customer records isn’t optional. It is mandatory for your business to succeed. Having a well-established true structure that all parties involved follow, will help flush out any inconsistencies in data intake and keep the process flowing from lead to sale and service/sell. It becomes a full circle with one true way of handling data.
Leverage Technology
Software tools, like GrandCentral, which is a Business Management system, can significantly improve data quality efficiency and save time. There are many tools at the tips of Business Owners fingers, you may need to do some digging to understand what type of Software is the best and what kind of internal processes you can put in place to utilize the Software to the best of its potential.
Remember, data cleaning is an ongoing process. Data degrades rapidly, so maintaining data quality requires constant attention. The good news is that this gives you the opportunity to continually improve your data quality.
If you have any questions, or like to schedule a private demo with Claire of VP of Sales, click here