{"id":1759,"date":"2021-07-08T10:27:33","date_gmt":"2021-07-08T07:27:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.byteplant.com\/blog\/?p=1759"},"modified":"2024-05-14T09:51:15","modified_gmt":"2024-05-14T06:51:15","slug":"importance-of-crm-data-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.byteplant.com\/blog\/importance-of-crm-data-management\/","title":{"rendered":"CRM Data Management"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">High-quality data is the key to any company\u2019s decision-making process, strategy, and analytics. However, not everyone understands how poor or inaccurate data in the CRM (customer relationship management) system can have a negative impact on many aspects of business operations.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0The wrong approach to CRM data management could lead to serious consequences, including high marketing costs, ruined reputation, high churn rate, inadequate sales, and much more. Eventually, this data can affect the company\u2019s entire bottom line forcing it to lose market share.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0According to<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/hbr.org\/2016\/09\/bad-data-costs-the-u-s-3-trillion-per-year\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> IBM\u2019s research<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, bad data costs businesses in the United States upwards of $3 trillion per year.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0When it comes to CRM systems, problems that arise from working with bad CRM data can cost the company 1,000% of the prevention price. That\u2019s why it\u2019s imperative to work on the quality of data that enters your CRM system by implementing proper CRM data management techniques.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.hubspot.com\/sales\/crm-data?toc-variant-b=\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Research shows<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that every 30 minutes, 120 business addresses and 75 phone numbers change. Meanwhile, 20 CEOs leave their jobs and 30 new companies are formed. Failing to stay on top of these occurrences causes the data in your CRM system to decay.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>Why Bad CRM Data Needs to Be Addressed ASAP<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The impact of bad data in your customer relationship management system can be severe. Among other things, it can:<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>\u00a01.\u00a0 \u00a0 Cause Potential and Existing Customers Slip Through the Cracks<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0A customer relationship management system doesn\u2019t just help you get sales through. It allows the company to build a fruitful and long-lasting relationship with the customer. Regardless of the stage of the buyer\u2019s journey, you can use this data to gain a full picture of your customers\u2019 needs and learn how to help them achieve their goals.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0If your CRM system doesn\u2019t contain the right data about your prospects, you can miss the opportunity to turn them into customers. Meanwhile, faulty contact data can keep you from contacting the client at the right time and through the right channel.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Eventually, both existing and potential customers start slipping through the cracks, hindering your marketing and sales efforts in the process. With time, poor CRM data management could lead to serious disruptions in the sales cycle.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>\u00a02.\u00a0 \u00a0 Force You to Create Low-Quality Content<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Personalization is the key to successful sales and marketing efforts. CRM data can help you achieve high personalization levels but only if it\u2019s in top shape. When you need to create personalized content for your customers, losing crucial information could cause you to make serious mistakes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For example, when it comes to email marketing, you may make the wrong offer or send it to the wrong person. Doing so would immediately lower your marketing ROI and take a toll on your reputation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0To achieve the desired results, you need to beef up your CRM data management with address, phone number, and<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.byteplant.com\/email-validator\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> email validator<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> tools.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>\u00a03.\u00a0 \u00a0 Waste Your Time<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Time is one of the most valuable assets owned by the company\u2019s employees. Poor CRM data forces your experts to waste their time on dead-end leads. Armed with outdated or invalid data, your sales and marketing departments will spend valuable resources without getting anything in return.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0As a result, they won\u2019t have sufficient time to focus on customers with high potential, wasting money in the process.\u00a0 Eventually, such an approach will affect the company\u2019s reputation, reducing its profitability.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>\u00a04.\u00a0 \u00a0 Lower Employee Satisfaction<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Your sales and marketing experts are geared toward increasing the company\u2019s output. They are armed with the necessary tools to get things done in line with the most efficient strategy. When all of the above doesn\u2019t work out simply because the data is outdated or invalid, it results in substantial frustration.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Frustrated and unhappy employees lose their passionate approach, thus hindering their chances of achieving conversion. Just imagine calling 50 prospects and bumping into \u201cwrong number\u201d messages half of the time. Meanwhile, bounced emails are even more frustrating, considering how much effort is invested in creating them.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>\u00a05.\u00a0 \u00a0 Disrupt Marketing Automation Strategies<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><b>\u00a0<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Automation has become an integral part of any company\u2019s marketing campaign. It takes care of many manual tasks, allowing your teams to focus on what they do best. However, the majority of automation tools depend on the quality of CRM data. As soon as poor data enters the system, the output falters.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0You may not notice the problem immediately. However, with time, entire segments of your marketing automation strategy can be rendered useless.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>\u00a06.\u00a0 \u00a0 Ruin Your Digital Reputation<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you work with poor CRM data, you are bound to ruin your digital reputation. For example, sending emails to the wrong addresses ups your bounce rate. If emails sent to the wrong address end up in the spam folder, you<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.byteplant.com\/blog\/how-to-get-removed-from-email-blacklists\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> could be blacklisted<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and the sender\u2019s reputation will falter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0The same may happen if you keep calling the wrong people with your offer. They can eventually blacklist your number, thus raising a red flag to the phone service provider.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0Working with clean data is integral to proper digital reputation. Fixing errors caused by improper and invalid data is usually costly and time-consuming.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>\u00a0Main Causes of Bad CRM Data<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Proper CRM data management begins with discovering and eliminating the key causes of bad CRM data. Such causes include:<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>1.<\/b> <b>Duplicate Data<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you aren\u2019t using high-quality CRM and data validation tools, you are bound to face data duplicates. When data duplicates occur, you waste time on duplicate efforts like sending a message to the same email addresses twice or calling the same clients repeatedly. This doesn\u2019t just take a toll on your sales team, it ruins your company\u2019s reputation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Duplicate customer data also affects reporting. When the sales team works with the same contacts over and over again, it can lead to inaccurate analytics and poor decision-making.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With time, duplicate customer data can cost your company thousands of dollars, lowering marketing ROI tremendously.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>2.<\/b> <b>Invalid Email Addresses<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you enter an invalid or undeliverable email address in your CRM software, your CRM data management suffers. So does your sales and marketing team.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.byteplant.com\/blog\/how-to-check-if-an-email-address-is-valid\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Invalid email addresses<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> show up when customers intentionally give you the wrong address or make typos when entering contact information into an online form. Additionally, your sales team can make a typo when entering the information into CRM software.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Each invalid address on your list hinders your sender\u2019s reputation, forces your teams to work with inaccurate data, and demands extra expenses.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dealing with invalid email contacts is easy. You simply need to run your list through an email validator regularly.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>3.<\/b> <b>Temporary Addresses<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Many customers and decision-makers in large companies don\u2019t like sharing contact information. One of the tactics they employ is creating temporary email addresses for interacting with sales reps or downloading useful materials online. When some of these addresses make their way into your CRM database, your customer data suffers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With time, these addresses become invalid or abandoned. If your sales teams continue using them, the expenses rise while ROI decreases.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>4.<\/b> <b>Data Decay<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gartner.com\/en\/documents\/2857722\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Gartner<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, every month, 3% of data in the world gets decayed. The B2B data decay rate is over 70% per year. These numbers are impressive. For example, if a decision-maker in the company is promoted or chooses to retire, their old contact data decays. By continuing to use their data, your sales teams are losing time and money.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s imperative to know your data decay potential and monitor contact details closely. You can fight data decay by:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Eliminating manual data entry.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Engaging with your target audience regularly.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Using email, phone number, and address validators.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Asking customers to update their contact details regularly.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By minimizing the consequences of data decay, you can improve your company\u2019s profitability and raise marketing ROI.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>5.<\/b> <b>Bad Forms<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When setting up forms that integrate with a CRM system, companies often forget to check how well these forms actually interact with the software. A poorly designed form ends up sending incomplete data to the system. You may be facing missing data and inaccurate contact information.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s imperative to beef up your forms and make sure they are clear to the customer. Data entry is always prone to errors. Even if the customer genuinely wants to share information, data fields that are hard to decipher force them to make unfortunate mistakes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Data management starts with making it easy for users to provide contact records, be it in web forms, on social media, or over the phone. By focusing on data quality, it\u2019s possible to streamline your marketing campaigns.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>How to Fix Bad Data and Streamline Your CRM Data Management<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To make sure you have access to accurate data when working with a CRM system, you need to design a good data hygiene strategy. Here are a few tips to consider for improving your data management practices. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>1.<\/b> <b>Control Your Data Collection<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">While a big volume of data can be good for the company, overwhelming data collection practices may cause problems. Focus on collecting information you need to improve customer relationships. Anything extra can only confuse your team instead of assisting it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When you create contacts, add only the most necessary data. You can always add more as you go. This can eliminate tedious manual data entry and improve your data quality.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>2.<\/b> <b>Clean Your Data<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With data decay in mind, it\u2019s imperative to clean your data regularly. This involves taking care of such contact information as email addresses, phone numbers, and postal addresses. While it\u2019s possible to do the cleaning manually, it\u2019s less time-consuming and tedious to use validator software.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Validators are designed specifically to catch bad contact details and make sure your CRM databases contain the right tools to build customer relationships.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Maintaining high data quality by cleaning it is an integral part of the data management process.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>3.<\/b> <b> Train CRM System Users<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">To make sure your data management for your CRM system is always in top shape, you need to train its users. Regular training sessions can help your team understand how to keep data clean and usable for different sales processes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Employees that use CRM systems must excel in high-quality data collection, cleaning, and distribution. Anything from data entry to analytics must be done with data quality in mind.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>4.<\/b> <b>Automate Data Entry<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Manual data entry is the key enemy of proper CRM data management. If you want your CRM database to have top chances of containing clean data, you need to automate the entering process.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Numerous tools exist that allow your team to avoid continuous data entry. Most importantly, your programs must interact with each other to share customer data.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>5.<\/b> <b>Communicate Your Goals<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When it comes to CRM data management, your entire team should be on the same page. Make sure your sales reps and marketing experts understand the importance of data accuracy and know exactly what to do to maintain it.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>The Takeaway<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The accuracy and quality of CRM data are the keys to your company\u2019s success. It\u2019s hard to build strong customer relationships, create marketing campaigns, and push clients through the sales funnel unless you are working with top-notch data.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Take the time to design a CRM data hygiene system for your business and make sure everyone on the team knows how to maintain it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>High-quality data is the key to any company\u2019s decision-making process, strategy, and analytics. However, not everyone understands how poor or inaccurate data in the CRM (customer relationship management) system can have a negative impact on many aspects of business operations. \u00a0The wrong approach to CRM data management could lead to serious consequences, including high marketing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1760,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.byteplant.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1759"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.byteplant.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.byteplant.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.byteplant.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.byteplant.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1759"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.byteplant.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2087,"href":"https:\/\/www.byteplant.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1759\/revisions\/2087"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.byteplant.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.byteplant.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.byteplant.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.byteplant.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}