Bad Data Quality Wrecking Your Salesforce? Here’s the Fix.

Inconsistent, inaccurate and dirty are four-letter words in the world of data. Corporate data grows at a rate of about 40% a year but not all of it is fit or profitable for businesses. The Data Warehousing Institute estimates that dirty data costs U.S. businesses more than $600 billion each year (as much as 10% to 25% of a company’s revenue!). Revenue loss results from wasted marketing spend, resources and employee time.

Sure, you could ignore your company’s data fitness. But just like your own fitness, it’s to your own peril! According to D&B, every 30 minutes

• 11 companies go bankrupt
• 12 CEOs leave their jobs
• 74 business phone numbers change or are disconnected

That means a lot of changes are happening in Salesforce at all times. Sales and marketing departments are crammed with misinformation. Bad data is a hidden reason for CRM failure, and it requires just as much attention as implementation. Follow our steps and you’ll find yourself in data quality heaven in no time.

1. Revisit your architecture.

What data points are you currently collecting? Are these absolutely necessary? Identify your needs and plan out the data architecture strategically. Follow the KISS principle, and pay special attention to required and optional fields. Make sure required data is readily available since this may encourage falsification to bypass the system. Design a solution that is workable and easy to understand for your sales, marketing and admin teams.

2. Clean up your data.

Next you’ll need to start lifting and shifting. Getting data quality requires going through the data periodically and scrubbing it. Generally this involves updating, standardizing and deduping records to create a single view of data.

Although essential, this step can be time-consuming. It may not be affordable or the best use of time for your current team to clean up the database. One solution is to turn to Rich Schulte and his team of human data clerks at Salesbroom for a turn-key data department. The clerks check data for inconsistencies. They’ll even find and correct minuscule deviations such as “Fort Worth” vs. “Ft. Worth.” Rich likens a database to a warehouse with messy aisles that need cleaning and organizing. Salesbroom brings in a cleaning crew (data clerks) to fix up the warehouse. Once the job is done, the warehouse is tidy, the aisles are clear and the items are in their designated places. Clean data yields better quality data, and that’s the goal. Quality data operates more efficiently, closes the loop on wasted resources and makes your company more money.

3. Keep it spic ’n span.

Data comes in all day every day so that beautiful clean data won’t stay that way. You’ll need to keep cleaning it but how? Establishing quarterly, semi-annual or annual time intervals to cleanse will ensure that it gets done. After all, data points are constantly changing because many people are touching it at the same time. Ongoing Salesforce data entry requires an organized and ongoing cleaning process.

How can you help teams keep up with data accurately? The Clean Your Room! Dashboard pits salespeople against each other and encourages them to accurately input data for pipeline sales opportunities. Any missing Opportunities information gets reported to everyone on the team. Data viability and visibility encourage a second set of eyes to get a blessing on a deal and sales can concentrate on deals that will actually close.

You know, you wouldn’t have to go back and do all this if you set your Salesforce up right in the first place. Give Endiem a call, and we’ll get your Salesforce back in tip-top shape.