We use cookies on our website to provide you with the best user experience. If you're happy with this please continue to use the site as normal.
For more information please see our Privacy Policy.
In this diary, we are sharing our Top 10 actionable suggestions that can help you improve your data quality. These Data Quality tips will help you with your data management strategies and improve business insights to drive effective decision making.
Having an agreed set of guidelines, for adding data into a CRM system is a key starting place for any company wanting to improve data quality. Some of the tips below are ways that might be set out in a typical set of Data Entry Standard guidelines. However, the specifics of your actual data requirements to complete a new record in the system will be business-specific.
For those fields where there is a defined list of values, don’t leave the user to enter the value in a text box! Just think how many variants of “United Kingdom” you could end up with.
For personnel in a customer-facing role, time is critical. Determining what data is needed as a minimum to proceed with a relevant transaction can reduce the need for users to have to add extraneous data. To ensure that this essential data is gathered (and entered) the relevant fields should be made mandatory.
High-quality address management tools are available for businesses to deploy. By incorporating these into the business system, consistency in address format and validity is established.
If you are aware of duplicates in your system, then take action. Duplicates are like cockroaches, for every duplicate you’ve spotted there are probably a dozen more lurking! There are tools to assist in identifying potential duplicates and some provide a means to merge records thus eliminating the duplication. QWare has a solution: Paribus 365 will identify and cure duplicates.
Ideally, you want to prevent duplicates from getting into the system. Some CRMs will provide assistance here, for example with Dynamics 365 there are Duplicate Detection Rules which can be set up and go some way to avoiding the obvious duplicates. However, this is only for exact matches and the difficulty is that users may enter companies and contacts slightly differently to existing records. For example, using acronyms on some occasions, in full on others and differing names. For example, Bill or William; University College London or UCL; Abbott Limited or Abbott Ltd. Again, Paribus 365 can help you prevent duplicates, even the non-exact matches, from entering your CRM.
Most, if not all, businesses are running with multiple systems, and often decisions about which system provides all the bells and whistles for one department might be made in isolation from the rest of the business. Potentially a new customer brought on board through successful Marketing may exist as a record within that system but might have to be re-keyed into the Accounts system when an invoice must be raised. When this happens, it may cause errors. To avoid miskeying of data, there are integration tools available to enable the record creation. The record insert can be automated which will speed up processes and also provide continuity in information across the business.
Whilst you may have put in place good practice to maintain a high standard in the quality of data, it is still important to carry out periodic reviews. Capturing and correcting problems early will make for a faster resolution. You can ensure that any rules/guidelines deployed are still valid and being used. For example, it may be worth verifying that the mandatory fields for record entry are still valid. As the business evolves, some of those fields may now be redundant and/or users are having to carry out workarounds to get past a mandatory field.
Whether your data entry standards are formalized or not, everyone should be made aware of the procedures that the company wishes to follow. The adoption of procedures will be enhanced if personnel can appreciate the benefits to themselves and the business – so highlight the benefits. Include education on these procedures in the training plan of new personnel and provide feedback, to all concerned, following your scheduled data quality reviews.
The list above provides guidance on improving and maintaining high-quality data. But who is going to carry out the work? Having a nominated Data Steward demonstrates an investment in good-quality data and will raise the profile of this subject within the business.
I hope that these Data Quality tips will help you with your data management strategies, reducing the duplicates in your CRM and the instances of adding duplicate data will give you the confidence that you have a single view of your customers.
Paribus 365™ is revolutionizing the way Microsoft Dynamics 365 users manage their data – as the proven DQ for Dynamics solution, your data quality guardian for Microsoft Dynamics 365. Saving users precious time and empowering organizations to finally realize the true potential of their customer data.
See Paribus 365™, the Dynamics 365 data deduplication solution, in action by requesting a free 30-day trial, or contact us for a demo.