How to keep Customer Database in CRM

Integrate Customer Database in CRM, how and when a guide. How often have you made a follow-up call only to find out that another member of your team has already contacted the lead? Many times indeed! According to the sales experts, repeated follow-up on the same contact is one of the most embarrassing situations. In spite of using the CRM software, sales reps have been often found facing such type of awkwardness in front of their customers.

So where is the confusion? Is there no use of having feature-rich CRM software? Does the customer relationship management software not perform always? Do you have second thoughts about your CRM investment?

Wait…

Before you raise a finger at the CRM tool; ensure that your people are maintaining clean and accurate customer information in the CRM database.

Believe it or not, many instances have been reported where sales professionals have found duplicate contacts existing in the CRM database. The presence of duplicate data is the common reason behind many goof-ups which the sales reps make. As a renowned CRM consultant puts it – ‘’Inaccurate CRM data hampers sales and marketing performance. Duplicate/redundant data is one the prominent forms of inaccurate data. Team professionals especially the marketing, sales and customer-support team leaders should ensure the maintenance of accurate information, to get CRM system under control and save headache down the road.’’

Read further as we discuss the 4 EASY ways to maintain accurate information in the CRM:

1. How complete are your records: is the first question you need to ask. Most often it is seen that sales reps neglect proper data entry. Wonder why? Well, this is due to the numerous fields that are mandatory to fill in while feeding data in the CRM. Considering this aspect, it is advisable to set a few fields as mandatory. Let’s say Last Name and Budget can be the two mandatory fields that the sales reps need to fill in while in a hurry. In fact this is precisely what Converge online CRM does.

Its Create Leads/Contacts/Accounts/Deals in Quick View is especially designed for the convenience of the sales, marketing and customer-support professionals on the go. Instead of going through the long process, they can feed in the details within a few seconds.

2. Role-based security: We all realize maintaining an accurate CRM database becomes highly challenging especially when you have data pouring in from multiple sources. The best way to tackle this is to set access levels for different users. Converge CRM has an exclusive feature of creating hierarchy and setting data security rules. As Converge CRM users, you can leverage, edit or restrict access to reports, data view and other features of the CRM based on your company’s hierarchy.

Needless to say, with the use of role-based security, you can easily manage sharing of information and organizing the overall workflow.

3. Eliminate chances of duplicate entries: As mentioned-earlier, duplicate entries has been one of the common problems of the sales reps. Thanks to CRM systems such as Converge, that possess smart duplicate checking intelligence. Inevitably, using the Converge CRM saves team professionals from going through the records for duplicates. They do not have to prevent the rise of duplicate data by manually comparing the details.
4. Style sheet: Uniformity in data entry is one of the most critical aspects. And how you can do it is by maintaining a style sheet. Converge CRM offers the admin the flexibility to set formats for a few fields. Let’s say Quotation Number Format and Invoice Number Format. By setting this, it ensures that all the CRM users will follow standard data entry formats. Inevitably standardized format for important data helps generate accurate reports.

Lastly it can be concluded that maintaining data quality in the CRM is not a one-time event. If not taken care from the beginning, it can become a tedious task ahead.

Patricia is a full time CRM consultant at ConvergeHub and part-time blogger. She has earned herself quite a fame as a specialist and market expert in CRM software. In the last five year she has worked with various companies as CRM consultant to help them move their businesses to cloud. Her expertise lies in offering cloud CRM consultation, CRM customization and integration solutions to small enterprises. For last one she is engaged in building ConvergeHub, cloud-based CRM solution for SMBs, as a consultant.Follow her at Twitter: @convergehub