CRM Database Quality and Maintenance
Posted by Jay Rivard on Thu, Jan 07, 2010
As a Salesforce CRM consultant who deals with customer databases on a regular basis, I tend to think in terms of data quality and completeness. One of the key drivers to a successful CRM implementation is to develop meaningful reports for forecasting and other productivity gains your company is looking to realize. But how can you ensure data quality when there are many users using one system?
It would be easy for me to suggest making all fields on a record required and to put in some validation rules in place to ensure that the information is complete. However, this is not realistic because there is a fine line between being able to capture information and being a productive user. So the question then becomes, "How do you get to the point where you can have productivity and complete information?"
The answer lies in coming to a compromise. Management and users need to discuss what is important to them and what is truly practical. Let's take the typical sales role -- sales reps are required to make as many calls as possible but yet still enter information into the database. Ultimately, they're judged by the the amount of business that they bring in during a given period of time. Having said this, you do not want to make the data entry requirements in Salesforce so stringent that they can't be out there face-to-face with your prospects and customers. What you need to do is strike a compromise by having a meeting between management and users. Sometimes these meetings become very heated but they are necessary to get to a point where not only do you get the information that you need but the sales reps also take ownership of the systems because they been involve in the design process.
Harvest Solutions
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