Quality diminishes over time. This is especially true for databases containing customer data. That may sound like a problem for another day, but the truth is, the data decay that will impede your entire organisation is happening as we speak. This is why B2B businesses should invest in top-tier CRM software. In doing so, they protect the data they expended precious resources to acquire while protecting the most important part of any business — their customers.
What is CRM Data Decay?
CRM data decay happens naturally and under the radar. Causes include — but are not limited to — customer data becoming outdated, unreliable or inconsistent data sources, and data being inaccurately entered. The result? Poor targeting, difficulty pursuing leads, and a leaky sales funnel. All of these things introduce the risk of losing clientele and making business decisions based on bad data.
Ways to improve customer data quality
Maintain Consistent, Meaningful Customer Engagement
So, how can businesses protect themselves from data decay? By consistently engaging their audience with meaningful content to gain up-to-date information. This can look like asking your consumers to opt-in to newsletters, requiring an email address for white papers, or offering quizzes and polls. These are light-hearted, natural ways to keep CRM data consistent. Furthermore, it also enables the company to cultivate more meaningful customer engagement.
Consistent and updated CRM data is critical to business success. It helps the sales team create unique sales propositions that genuinely interest customers. This, in turn, enables the sales team to be more productive by not wasting time on low-quality leads. Marketing teams are also empowered to take more strategic, targeted approaches in their campaigns. When data decay is managed well and regularly, businesses can rest assured that they are basing their decisions on sound, relevant data.
Another great way to ensure that niche customer data is current and not affected by data decay is by utilizing third-party data. Data providers can provide robust data that is refreshed regularly and covers both citywide and countrywide demographics. Customers are real people balancing a million moving parts throughout their everyday lives. Things change! To ensure you have access to their most points of contact, consider subscribing to a third-party data service.
Using technology as a method of maintaining consistent, meaningful customer engagement can reduce the time and cost of doing so manually.
‘Reboot’ Inactive Leads
‘Rebooting’ inactive leads is part of maintaining consistent, meaningful customer engagement, and having good customer data makes this possible. Although the quality of leads may decline over time, rebooting inactive leads to try and bring them back to life can help maintain the quality of your database.
Inactive leads are the predecessor of customer loss. Determine how you can best reengage with leads to reestablish your connection before getting back to business. To do this, you must learn who they are now and then position your business as a solution from that new angle.
Implement a data hygiene strategy to clean up bad customer data and breathe life into inactive leads. Prevention is always the most effective measure in combating data decay. In conjunction with diligent sales and marketing teams, a stellar CRM tool can do just that.
Invest in The Right CRM Tool
Choosing the right sales CRM tool is step number one in the fight against data decay. Further ensuring that the one you pick works intuitively will make data cleansing a breeze.
Another feature businesses should consider when investing in CRM software is data from a third-party data provider. This guarantees that niche data is up to date without the headache of having to retrieve and input it manually. Moreover, integrating third-party data into the business’s B2B database can help save valuable time. It also helps alleviate the slew of problems that arise from inaccurate data.
Your organization should be sure to designate best practices to get the most out of your CRM software. The less ambiguous your operations, the more productively your team can use quality data analytics to achieve business success.
In turn, your CRM software should facilitate these best practices, rather than hinder them. Consider a tool that supports high-quality customer data with features like:
- Data quality assurance
- Database hygiene
- Duplicate identification
- Removal of unresponsive leads
- Checks for data relevance and formatting
Diligently choosing a CRM tool equipped with these features will ensure your investment remains protected and beneficial for years to come.
Fight Data Decay with Skynamo All-In-One Sales CRM
Don’t go into the fight against data decay alone. Invest in the right CRM tool to maintain customer relationships, reboot inactive leads, and stop data decay in its tracks. As always, Skynamo has your back! It’s our mission to help manufacturers, wholesalers, and distributors achieve sales success – and it all starts with access to clean, up-to-date data. You can’t sell to someone you can’t contact, after all.
Curious to know what Skynamo can do for your business? Book a demo to learn what Skynamo has to offer so your business can avoid the costly tolls of poor-quality data today.
