CRM Data Entry Standards

Introduction to CRM Data Entry Standards

The success of a CRM system will be greatly enhanced by considering how your business is best served by its customer data and educating your users on how you would like this important data handled.

This article highlights some of the factors to be considered, and we also share some of the data entry standards that we use ourselves, as an example.

If your CRM system is already in place, then some effort may be required to get your data into the most efficient format, but carrying out this task and setting up data entry standards should yield results in terms of enhanced performance and cost savings.

Additionally, with the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) being used to analyze data to help make important decisions regarding the direction of your business, it is imperative to ensure your organization's data entry standards are well-defined.
See our AI and CRM need Clean Data article for more details on why this is even more important now.

Benefits of Using CRM Data Entry Standards

The effect of putting in place a set of data entry standards will be consistency and that will result in:

• Saving time
• Cost savings
• Ensuring accuracy in reporting, for example, forecasting and trend analysis, especially with Artificial Intelligence
• Facilitating integration with other business systems
• Reducing the likelihood of duplication

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CRM Data Entry Standards to Consider

1. Compulsory fields

• What is the minimum information (in the first instance) you require to be able to process communications with a potential customer?
• Under what circumstances will users be adding new records, will it be a time-sensitive activity?

2. Approach to multiple offices

• Should a separate account record be established for each location of a company?
• How do you interact with company branches? Could different sales person be responsible for local branches?
• Will you be using security to segregate records by geography?
• What will be the reporting requirements for companies with multiple locations?

3. Account hierarchy

• Is the legal relationship between companies relevant to your own business?
• Will you want to identify parent accounts in any reporting?

4. International data

• Does your business deal with companies internationally now or is it possible in for seeable future?
• Should language symbols be available and used?
• Which language should be used?

5. Address data

• Will you rely on location information to generate marketing lists? Consistency in field usage will be important i.e. City in City field and not Address Line 3.
• Do you need a mechanism to ensure cities/counties/countries are entered consistently? For example, a picklist or option set.

6. Third party Add-ons

• Does any of the third-party software being utilized have data format requirements?

7. How to manage account name changes

• Checking the account does not already exist in the new name.
• How to ensure users are aware of a name change?

8. Process to follow if a contact leaves a company

• Has the contact moved to another company? Is the new contact information known and available to the company under data protection regulations?
• Does the contact have any future activities that should be closed? For example, meeting or newsletter subscriptions.

9. Process to follow for deletion of records

• Are there any legal requirements to maintain records?
• Will users be given permission to delete records?
• Is there a designated person available to administer deletions?

10. How to manage duplicate accounts/contacts

• Will the merge functionality be provided to users?
• Is there a designated person available to administer duplicate merges?

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CRM Data Entry Standards Example

This is how we have set up our CRM data entry standards.

Account Naming Convention

We create Accounts according to the following convention: One head office in each country, with contacts at regional offices with alternative addresses.

Account Name Guidelines

• Check if Account exists before entering a new account using Paribus 365
• Use Full Company Name
• Do not Abbreviate (for example, PWC)
• If abbreviations are acceptable, for example, IBM, then do not put spaces between the letters.
• Including country / division at end is acceptable (IBM (Ireland), BT Ignite)
• Beware of spaces, hyphens, etc.
• Beware of case (for example, QWARE not QWare)
• Beware of misspelling / typing errors
• Where possible, take the precise company name from business cards or stationery

Account Address Guidelines

• Correct City, State and Country (drop down list)
• Correct postal address
• Use address management software wherever possible.
• City names should be entered in the national language (Munchen not Munich)

Telephone Number Format

Please use the following format for all new and updated telephone numbers: +COUNTRY_CODE (FULL_AREA_CODE) MAIN_NUMBER

NOTE:

• COUNTRY_CODE is important, even for UK numbers, to ensure dialing from international locations will succeed.
• FULL_AREA_CODE must include the leading zero (0), if applicable, even though you are also specifying the Country Code (intelli-CTi will correct the number when dialing as appropriate).
• MAIN_NUMBER can *optionally* contain separators (such as dashes “-“) but it is not necessary.
• Extension numbers *can* be included after the main number (such as “ ext. 111” or “x111”), but it will be ignored by intelli-CTi when dialing.

Examples of numbers in the correct format:

• +44 (01329) 222800
• +353 (1) 8537245
• +1 (517) 853-1214 x114

Third-Party Add-ons to Support CRM Data Standards

In addition to a set of guidelines for data entry, software is available to correct or ensure consistency of entry. For example, some vendors offer software for address management or enhancing data. We have our Paribus 365 software solution that prevents duplication of Accounts/Contacts/Leads and can cure duplication in bulk.

Read our What is Data Cleansing and Why it is Important? and 10 Top Tips to Improve CRM Data Quality articles to find out more about good quality CRM data.

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