CRM gets sold as “a critical tool” that stores all your customer data and drives performance for your sales team.
But does it? Nearly half of all companies with CRM would say, “not really...it doesn't live up to the hype.”
Why? The number reason is that the data is inaccurate. Or worse, missing!
The result? We call it “revenue leak.”
Revenue leak represents the money your business could have easily captured—but didn’t.
Think: opportunities in CRM that everyone assumed would be marked “closed - won,” but at the end of the quarter, somehow that wasn’t the case. Or a high-intent sale came in, but a rep forgot to write it down and didn’t follow up. It’s revenue “leaking out” of the pipeline due to breakdowns in the sales process that are tricky to spot and even harder to stop.
Believe it or not, this is a more common problem than you might think. And the consequences can be disastrous. In this blog post, we'll discuss the importance of CRM data quality and how to improve it.
Poor CRM data quality: why businesses should care
- It leads to missed opportunities. If you don't have accurate data in your CRM, you can’t identify and prioritize sales leads appropriately. Instead, you rely on the memories of individuals to perfectly remember every lead, perfectly prioritize the list of opportunities, and perfectly chase them down. Good luck!
- It leads to poor decision-making, wasted time, and lost dollars. When using incomplete information, teams make poor decisions, which can be costly. For example:
- Sales teams wasting time on inaccurate leads
- Marketing teams wasting money by launching campaigns for obsolete contacts
- Operations teams reporting inaccurate sales effectiveness metrics
- Finance teams generating inaccurate sales forecasts
- It damages your relationship with customers. If your customer data is inaccurate, you may alienate or frustrate important accounts. Mistakes lose trust. Using the wrong name in a customer email or sending duplicate communications to the same customer can quickly cause a customer to rethink their relationship with your business.
What’s the impact? The “Quiet Revenue Destroyer”
So we know that poor CRM data quality leads to wasted time, lost sales opportunities, and a failure to pursue new, valuable initiatives for the business.
But how bad is it?
In one survey representing ~1,250 companies in verticals such as professional services, healthcare, and manufacturing, “44% of companies surveyed estimate they lose over 10% in annual revenue due to poor-quality CRM data.”
Let that sink in. 10%+ in lost revenue annually because of something as “simple” as bad CRM data quality.
In that same survey, “64% of CRM users say they would consider leaving their current role if additional resources are not allocated to a robust CRM data quality plan.”
That’s right. Nearly two-thirds of CRM users could resign due to poor CRM data quality.
Simply put, poor CRM data quality results in lost revenue and headcount. So why aren’t more businesses in industries like professional services, healthcare, and manufacturing thinking about ways to solve this problem?
Let’s discuss one simple fix to improving CRM data quality—automation.
Ways to improve CRM data quality
- The first step is to automate data entry and management. Stop trying to convince your teams to do rote, mindless, manual data entry. By automating the data entry and management processes, you can ensure that your data is always accurate and up-to-date. And it gives time back to your team to focus on higher-value activities!
- Second, consider investing in a CRM data cleansing tool. These tools can help you identify and correct errors in your data. Additionally, using a CRM data cleansing tool saves your company time, is cost-effective, and will ensure the cleanse is done properly. When choosing a CRM data cleansing tool, look for tools that provide smart duplicate data detection, bulk data formatting, and data cleansing automation. For more: 13 best data cleaning tools for your customer data.
- Finally, make sure the data gets used frequently in an easy-to-use format. Stale, ugly, private data is of no use to anyone. Get it in front of decision-makers, show the value, and gather immediate feedback. This ensures that the CRM data is invested in and made central to your business.
Improving your CRM data quality is critical to the success of your business. Taking the steps outlined above ensures that your data is accurate, up-to-date, and readily available when you need it most.
And it's really only the first step of the journey.
Clari’s Revenue Platform does more than just enhance CRM data quality. Clari lets you organize and strengthen your sales process. We help all your revenue-critical teams—from marketing to sales to customer success—work together to manage opportunities through all stages of the sales cycle, spot at-risk deals, forecast accurately, and close more deals.
Don't wait any longer - start improving your CRM data quality today with Clari.
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