When low-quality data creeps into CRMs, forecasts are off, quotas aren’t met, and nobody wins – least of all the business. Which means if a company’s data management program isn’t up to scratch, small-scale issues grow into large-scale challenges that most teams don’t recognize until customer relationships are strained and the company starts suffering.

Ignoring these data problems can cost businesses to the tune of 10% of annual revenue. So, how can sales and marketing professionals better care for their CRM data?

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Here are three data management challenges that sales and marketing professionals should be on the lookout for and tactics to help fix them:

Malformed Content

Malformed content includes unusable or corrupt data values, like phone numbers with too many numbers or errors preventing certain records from populating in a search. When it’s in a contact field, the malformed content can prevent sales reps from following up on hot leads in a timely manner— or at all.

Simple data entry mistakes can prevent customers from appearing in a search that identifies who should receive renewal reminders that month. This slows down a business’s ability to start the renewal conversation — and inadvertently leaves the door open for competitors to sneak in.

Missing Engagement Points

It’s critical for teams to have a complete view of engagement points like names, phone numbers, email addresses, and billing addresses to engage with customers and prospects effectively. When records lack key engagement points, even the best sales and marketing folks miss opportunities to communicate effectively with clients, nurture leads, increase demand, and prevent customer churn.

For example, some contacts may be unresponsive to phone calls and prefer to do business over email, or vice versa. Failure to collect multiple contact options severely hurts a team’s chances of closing the deal.

Unnecessary Data

Conversely ensuring only the collection of ‘appropriate’ data points is equally important. Collecting useless data points will only bog down the CRM and make it harder to navigate. Especially as consumers grow increasingly wary of sharing personal information, teams should only request the information that will actually be used.

For example, most businesses probably don’t need a prospect’s date of birth unless they plan on marking the occasion in some way. What’s more, by streamlining long, detailed forms on a website, businesses also prevent visitors from getting fed up and entering false information that’ll further degrade the data quality.

The Solution? An Always-on Data Quality Solution

There are real costs to neglecting CRM data management and much to gain from managing it well, which is why it’s essential to regularly assess the CRM to identify errors and data quality issues before they drain the bottom line.

Potential benefits for sales and marketing teams include the most sought-after outcome of improved CRM data quality: the ability to make better business decisions. With access to high-quality data as they make decisions, CRM users can realize a myriad of benefits.

To achieve this, teams should consider the following actions:

• Obtain Leadership Buy-In: When it comes to maintaining data quality, many CRM users report their organization’s leadership takes a hands-off approach. Only 19% said CRM data quality is a high-priority initiative for leadership. The first step toward clean data is ensuring leadership is aware of how data quality impacts the organization as a whole. When leadership prioritizes data management, it will become easier to obtain the resources needed for necessary organizational changes and investments.
• Appoint someone dedicated to CRM data quality: Poor data quality can also result from teams passing the buck. When no person or team within the organization officially ‘owns’ data management, quality suffers.

In a recent study, the lack of ownership for CRM data directly correlated with the quality of data. Those who rated their data quality unfavorably were 450% more likely to say there is nobody responsible for managing the data in their CRM system than those who related their data favorably. To realize the full benefits of high-quality CRM data, companies need to appoint a full-time guardian of the CRM and its data.

• Automate data management processes: Over half (51%) of CRM users report using manual processes to identify and correct data quality issues. However, using manual processes often ends up in creating more errors. As the amount of data points generated each day grows exponentially, the volume and velocity of incoming data is too much for humans to process effectively.

What’s more, attempting to scale a manual process to meet the needs of a growing organization rarely succeeds. With leadership support, teams can leverage tools and automation to make maintaining CRM data quality more user friendly.

By investing in data quality and automating the data management process, sales and marketing teams are empowered to organize their systems and successfully engage with customers.

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About Chris Hyde

As Senior Vice President and Global Head of Data Solutions at Validity, Chris Hyde is responsible for executive direction, roadmap, and overall management of Validity’s data solutions. He works closely with industry operators, customers, and data analytics to drive an informed product strategy. Chris brings 25+ years experience as an individual contributor and leader in Pre-Sales, Product, and Customer Success roles across multiple startup and large enterprise software companies.