Is your team struggling to close sales and make profitable decisions because they can’t meet customer needs? Is your company’s data in disarray?
If so, you’re not alone. Several small businesses struggle with organizing and managing their data, which leads to frustrated employees and lost sales.
Hi! My name is AJ! And I recently sold my business for multiple seven figures. After selling my company, I made it my mission to help other entrepreneurs!
Running a business for several years taught me a lot of things. One important lesson was the value of organized CRM data and how it can lead to more sales and efficient employees!
Keep reading if you’re ready to close more deals and finally get your business’s information in order! I’m revealing everything you need to know about CRM data!
Key Takeaways
- CRM data management is organizing and analyzing potential and existing customer data.
- Data quality is crucial because it leads to better business decisions.
- Low-quality data can lead to inefficient operations and poor customer service interactions.
- Creating data management processes ensures everyone in the company is on the same page.
Related Reading: Best Small Business CRM
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What is CRM Data Management?
CRM data management is when a company organizes, analyzes, and utilizes large chunks of customer data.
Companies gather and store information on prospective and current customers in their CRM database.
Some of the customer information businesses include in their CRM system include the following:
- Contact information (name, address, phone number)
- Shopping history with the company
- Effective marketing tactics
- Interactions on the company’s website
- The industry they work in
CRM database management aims to form a complete 360-degree profile of each customer.
That way, your sales and marketing team can rely on this data to form decisions and cater to each prospect’s needs.
You can use CRM analytics to learn more about customer trends and how they interact with your company’s products and services.
Why is CRM Data Management Important?
CRM data management is essential for several reasons.
For instance, proper management ensures your teams can avoid searching through multiple piles of disorganized information.
Instead, CRM software organizes everything in an easy-to-understand way, allowing sales and marketing reps to save time and be more productive.
In addition, CRM data management helps you track customer trends. You can easily see which marketing tactics generate the most leads and sales.
Catering to these needs ensures an increase in retention rates and customer loyalty.
A CRM database also helps teams analyze customer interactions with their business.
As a result, companies enjoy the following things:
- Better client connections
- Higher customer retention rates
- Sales growth
- Accurate, customized marketing campaigns
- Optimized sales processes
Poor data quality can impact businesses significantly (more than most people realize).
In the next section, I’ll explain why good CRM data quality is essential!
How Poor Data Can Affect Your Small Business
Unorganized and missing data impacts your business more than you may realize.
For example, some effects of low-quality data you can encounter include the following:
- Inefficient business processes
- Poor decision making
- Higher costs
- Unnecessary hindrances on business operations
- Impacts on compliance
Let’s look at each of these factors closer.
Disrupts Business Processes
CRM data is a valuable resource that every department in your company utilizes.
Therefore, inaccurate data can disrupt and negatively impact numerous business processes.
Not only that, but poor data has a snowball effect on business processes. Once it starts, it’s hard to stop inaccuracies.
As a result, poor CRM data affects each department and uses several company resources.
How can you stop data discrepancies?
Unfortunately, fixing existing CRM data is an all-hands-on-deck situation, demanding significant time, resources, and money to correct.
Impacts Decision Making
CRM data plays a crucial role in decision-making.
However, poor CRM data can significantly impair how teams make business decisions.
Incorrect or incomplete customer information can lead to misguided strategies and ineffective marketing campaigns.
For instance, if the data points to the wrong customer segment as the most engaged, marketing campaigns might target the wrong audience.
Targeting the wrong audience could lead to declining conversion rates and customer engagement.
Further, decisions based on inaccurate data can lead to the following things:
- Misallocation of resources
- Lost sales opportunities
- Reduced profitability
- Inefficient sales teams
- Poor customer interactions
CRMs help companies make data-driven decisions instead of mere guesses.
However, if the data in a CRM system is inaccurate, the software’s recommendations and reports only hurt a company.
Therefore, maintaining accurate and up-to-date customer data is essential for making informed, strategic decisions that contribute to business growth.
Increased Costs
Poor CRM data leads to higher (and unnecessary) costs.
For instance, poor data management impacts customer segmentation, which can lead to increased marketing expenses.
Inaccurate customer information could also result in your sales team spending more time chasing leads that will never convert or spending more resources on contacting the wrong prospects.
It’s important to note that businesses with inaccurate or missing data risk losing out on revenue opportunities and being unable to measure ROIs (return on investments) accurately.
Finally, companies must spend more money than necessary on customer service due to incorrect or missing data.
Low-quality data leads to higher costs because you’re constantly going back and correcting errors.
But if your data is accurate, you can make the best decision the first time!
Hinders Business Operations
Did you know how poor CRM data can hinder business operations?
Employees must constantly update the data in CRM systems as customers change their information, preferences, etc.
If CRM software has data inconsistencies, outdated information, and missing or duplicate data, it can negatively impact business operations in more ways than you realize.
For example, low-quality information can lead to delays your company simply can’t afford.
Even if a detail as small as a shipping address is wrong, your products must be returned and re-shipped, leading to more costs that aren’t needed.
Effects Regulatory Compliance
One of the top reasons CRM data management is so important is its impact on compliance.
Existing data stored in a CRM system must adhere to data privacy laws.
Companies that don’t handle customer data properly risk incurring hefty fines for not protecting customer information safely.
Still, data privacy laws aren’t the only regulation companies must be aware of.
Depending on the industry, businesses must also consider additional sets of rules and regulations to stay open.
So, if there’s one reason you must take data management seriously, it’s to avoid the high fines!
Best CRM Data Management Strategies
Now that you understand the importance of good CRM database health, it’s time to uncover data management strategies!
These strategies are the best way to ensure your CRM system has accurate data your team can rely on.
Let’s take a look at five excellent data management processes!
Assess Your CRM Database Regularly
The most critical aspect of accurate customer data in a CRM system is regularly checking and analyzing your database.
Customer information changes regularly for several reasons, including the following:
- Change in contact information
- Preferences change
- Customer moves or relocates
- Customer’s needs change because of financial reasons
Schedule times to check your existing data and ensure everything is up to date.
Although this may seem time-consuming and annoying, having accurate and complete records is critical.
Remember, unorganized mass data impacts everything from inefficient business processes to lost sales!
When you think about it that way, taking a little time to keep your existing data clean seems worth it.
Create a CRM Data Management Process
Creating and ensuring a data management process is also essential.
It is best to have rules on how different departments contribute customer information to the CRM system.
Ensuring everyone on the team uses the same method for organizing information and customer-related data helps with accuracy and prevents duplicate entries from happening.
When it comes to creating a data management process, there are a few steps you must take.
First, set standards and guidelines for storing customer data in your CRM system.
For example, create a checklist of best practices that all team members should follow when entering or updating information.
Second, ensure team members understand the importance of accuracy, precision, neatness, and completeness.
Scheduling a meeting to review the importance of clean data is always a good idea!
Third, set rules on how frequently your team must update data and who is responsible for this task.
Finally, ensure all team members can access the system and receive adequate training.
Consistently Clean Your CRM Data
Keeping current data clean is another excellent data management strategy.
Data cleaning ensures your information is accurate.
Also, this process ensures your CRM tools are clear of duplicate pieces of information or unnecessary data that your teams don’t use anymore.
While running my company, I had a designated team responsible for data cleaning.
Now, if your business is small, you may not need to add another department to the mix.
Still, scheduling time to review client data and ensure everything is up to date is essential.
How can you ensure your company’s data is clean? Follow these best practices:
- Utilize CRM features to filter their contact information and see if there are missing phone numbers, emails, etc.
- Create monthly exception reports (you can spot missing essential data easily).
- Merge duplicated information
Validate and Enrich Every Lead Data
Validation and enrichment are two great CRM data management strategies, especially when it comes to creating leads.
First, validation ensures the accuracy of your customer’s information.
For example, if someone enters their work email address incorrectly, this could lead to a lost sale opportunity.
Correcting false data is best so your team immediately takes care of it. Otherwise, it can be easy to forget about.
Further, enrichment helps you understand more about your leads.
For instance, you can use various data resources to learn more about a lead’s job title, industry, and other personal information that helps you understand their needs better.
Teams can validate and enrich data manually when necessary.
However, you must consider an automated process when determining the best way to validate and enrich customer data in your CRM system.
Automate Mundane Data Entry Tasks
Lastly, it’s essential to automate mundane tasks.
Manual data entry is at high risk of mistakes and inaccuracies.
Although your sales reps try their hardest, repetitive tasks quickly get tiring, leading to mistakes
There are CRM data entry solutions that can handle these tasks with ease.
Errors like duplicate, inaccurate, or incomplete data are less likely to happen when you use CRM automation.
CRM Data Management Best Practices for Contact Arrangement
CRM systems are very powerful and capable of several tasks you never thought possible.
However, tailoring and customizing your customer relationship management platform to your business’s needs is critical!
Fortunately, there are several ways you can alter your CRM to make the most of your contacts; these include the following:
- Contact classes
- Categories and subtypes
- Custom fields
- Tags
Contact classes are simple divisions of your contacts into the following lists:
- Leads
- Prospects
- Customers
- Vendors
- Patterns
Further categories and subtypes allow sales and marketing teams to separate contacts into categories such as:
- Industry
- Geo-position
- Company size
- Demographic information
Custom fields allow you to add a client’s criteria-based factors specific to your industry or company.
Lastly, tags categorize records with your database.
Therefore, your team can complete customer profiles and add extra information that you can use for marketing campaigns.
CRM Data Management Closing Thoughts
Always considering data quality is essential within CRM systems.
Poor or duplicate data can lead to inefficient systems, lost sales, and frustrated employees.
Therefore, doing things like ensuring data quality regularly and utilizing CRM data automation is vital for success.
What data management processes does your company practice? Let us know in the comments section below!
Good luck finding the right CRM tool for your business! There are several providers in the industry, so take your time when choosing the best one!