Better Customer Conversion and Retention Require the Highest Quality Salesforce Data

Much has been written and said about the need for businesses to properly address “the buyer’s journey.” The journey consists of many different stages, through awareness, consideration, purchase, retention, and advocacy. Ultimately, the path to business success requires buyers, often with the aid of the seller, to complete each stage and move on to the next.

To maximize the efficacy of this process and generate lifetime value from a customer relationship, businesses have invested, developed, and deployed digital tools and best practices in the form of customer relationship management (CRM) platforms. Today, CRM platforms are table stakes for business success and business transformation. An enterprise really can’t compete without it.

Salesforce is the most popular CRM in the world because the platform is considered comprehensive. It provides ready access to data—the foundation of managing lead, prospect, and customer relations. But this begs the question: What if the data is of poor quality?

Is Bad Data Holding Back Business Potential

“The goal is to turn data into information and information into insight.” – Carly Fiorina, former chief executive officer, Hewlett Packard

The quality of relationship management absolutely depends on the quality of the data. Ready access to bad data can ruin relationships. It is also detrimental to other important business activities:

• High quality information and analysis generates the insights for decision making and strategy
• Solid internal (business) data is required to achieve optimum operational performance
• People in the business want to be successful; if they don’t have the tools to succeed because of the lack of data quality, they underachieve or move on
• Using Salesforce consumes a business’s capital, time, and energy—poor data quality will not maximize investment and optimize the platform

Clearly, data that is inconsistent, incomplete, and scattered in the platform is detrimental to business health.

High Data Quality is an All-of-Business Effort Led by Salesforce Admins

The Salesforce Administrator is responsible for the health of a company’s Salesforce org. Among many duties, the Admin needs to manage and maintain data quality. This can be a thankless task, given that the Salesforce users are the ones closest to the actual data—primarily, they create it and use it. So to achieve the best results, data quality should be a team effort between Admins and users.

Data quality consists of accuracy, depth, and centralization. Incorrect, incomplete, or invalid data as well as duplicate data must be eliminated. Admins need to lead by developing a data plan for Salesforce users that leverages tools and processes for better quality outcomes.

It should address two sources of poor data quality:

• No two Salesforce users are alike, these users are adding new records affecting data quality everyday, and they may not be doing it uniformly 
• Change is rapid, existing data ages quickly, or it may become invalid or fragmented by incompleteness or duplicity—existing records also require a plan for repair and maintenance

Once a comprehensive plan is created, users must buy-in to improving the health of the data on the platform. Only then will data evolve into insights that can serve the buyer’s journey. Execution is the key. To help accomplish this, a Lightning Web Component can be set up to provide an org-wide view of all identified data problems in need of attention. 

Data Quality Helper App: A First Step Toward Elevated Customer Relationship Management

The app Data Quality Helper, from Passage Technology, is well positioned to help Admins execute a program for improving data quality. This free app is Salesforce-native, so it operates within the platform. It helps prevent the creation of non-ideal records as well as clean existing records. Also, Admins are provided with much more flexibility and customization than current default Salesforce functionality. The app operates in two ways:

• Enhanced Validation Rules — By establishing data validation rules for creating or updating records, a more uniform process takes place and higher quality data is achieved. Admins can custom-set each rule’s triggering criteria; whether each rule runs before or after a save, or prevents or allows a save; and the warning message when each rule is not followed—whatever set-up the Admin prefers. Then, users are notified and empowered to create or update the records under the Admin’s preferred data rule parameters. Learn more >
• Duplicate Data Identification and Resolution — By eliminating and/or merging duplicate records, a more complete and valid data set is available, avoiding confusion and errors by users relying on the data. Admins can custom-set the sensitivity matching for duplicates and the criteria triggering duplicate identification. Then, users are notified and empowered to choose and merge the correct data from any of the duplicate records into one cleaner, updated record.  Learn more >

Both of these data quality features elevate CRM activities and customer interactions with better data, information, and insights. It is said the buyers are the true owners of the buyer’s journey, not the sellers. This has raised expectations for buyers, and brands must respond. Knowledge is power for those serving in customer-facing roles. 

Meanwhile, the app helps Admins deliver on the promise of the Salesforce platform, by giving them greater control, flexibility, and customization. In addition, this solution streamlines their workload, by empowering users to improve data quality and become more productive as a result. The app is available on the Salesforce AppExchange.

Job #1 for businesses is serving their customers. Poor data quality can drive down customer conversion and retention. This means lower revenue and higher churn. Fewer and fewer dollars to chase bigger and bigger needs—a vicious cycle. How much longer are you willing to let the poor data quality go unaddressed? Before it’s too late?

Learn more about Data Quality Helper or schedule a demo/consult today.

Data Quality Helper Premium features

Upgrade to Data Quality Helper Premium Edition for unlimited enhanced data validation rules, unlimited duplicate resolution rules, and priority support, plus all of the features in the Free Edition.