Who should own the responsibility for data accuracy – sales, marketing, or IT?
It’s one of the debates that organizations tend to want to avoid. Who, exactly, owns the CRM data? It’s an important question that deserves an answer – after all, poor prospect data quality affects a business’s ability to produce conversions and make sales.
Prospect data entropy is a real concern that affects every business. Annual turnover, internal personnel changes, and generally inaccurate or incomplete data plagues not only the data that currently sits in a CRM system but any new data that’s being purchased from third parties as well.
It’s therefore incumbent on the CRM data owner to keep a mindful eye on that data to make sure prospect data accuracy in under control.
So, here comes the real question – who should own the responsibility for data accuracy?
Who can keep the data clean and up-to-date?
The blame-game of who has the responsibility for prospect data governance seems like a never-ending discussion, and as a result, day-to-day maintenance suffers and prospect quality degrades. Whatever person ultimately has the responsibility for the CRM’s data integrity will need to be constantly importing new, updated data into the system. Because of this, the most likely candidates for this responsibility are sales administrators/operators, marketing administrators, and IT.
A sales administrator may appear to be a great choice for the job, already having a decent amount of familiarity with the data itself. However, the biggest challenge to a salesperson accepting the responsibility is that they tend to want to prioritize their time on sales activities and lead follow-up rather than maintenance of the data.
Marketing administrators are another great choice for the job and probably have a familiarity with the data on-par with sales administrators, touching much of the same data for marketing campaigns. Marketing departments, however, tend to be much smaller than sales organizations and it may be a challenge to find a marketer with the bandwidth to take on prospect data maintenance responsibilities on top of their existing duties.
Improving the efficiency of the functionality of your CRM also means improving your business results. This is why the argument that an IT administrator should be the one that holds the responsibility for maintaining the CRM system is so attractive. Since 65% of people that interact with the CRM say they want the experience to be easier, IT appears the best pick for this job because it relates to the technical aspects of data import and workflow creation.
Speaking the Language of Sales – Prospect Data
91% of organizations that use a CRM see an all-time conversion rate of 300%. When the CRM is monitored and maintained, the average purchase value increases by 40%. The CRM business is booming, and forecast estimates that CRM revenue is expected to reach $80 billion US Dollars by 2025.
The obvious reason for that is because data plays a very important role in the sales revenue of every business. But without making sure that the data retains its accuracy, businesses are sure to see the ROI on that data constantly decreasing.
Organizations that validate and cleanse their data see a 41% increase in their revenue and companies that have dedicated staff responsible for the continuous monitoring and updating of the prospect data in their CRM also saw a boost in their sales. With those data governance processes in place, the inside sales team productivity increased by 50% and the consultation time decreased by 10%.
Prospect Data Governance is the Solutions
Prospect data governance consumes plenty of resources and takes a lot of time and money to maintain.
Completely avoiding bad data from a third-party source is virtually impossible. Data management is the only key to keep that data clean.
Luckily, Flobile can verify third-party data for up to 99% accuracy! Flobile uses an AI-driven system developed by data scientists to close loopholes, purge errors, and ensure businesses are only using the best data to inform their decisions.
