What is CRM Data Maintenance? Key Steps and Procedures to Follow

91% of companies with more than 11 employees use a CRM system. The benefits of CRM software for B2B businesses are undeniable: it strengthens customer relationships, automates workflows, provides actionable data, improves collaboration, manages the sales pipeline, and more.

However, a CRM will not boost your revenue on its own. Success depends on your strategy and how you manage the data within your CRM.

Moreover, approximately 30% of CRM data becomes outdated after one year, making data maintenance critical. In this article, you'll learn how to keep your CRM data up-to-date and the critical maintenance procedures to follow.

What is CRM Data Maintenance?

CRM data maintenance is the ongoing process of managing and updating data within a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. This includes ensuring customer information is accurate, complete, and up-to-date, removing duplicates, correcting errors, and periodically verifying data integrity. Effective CRM data maintenance ensures the reliability of the CRM system for informed decision-making and effective customer interactions.

Why is CRM Data Maintenance Important?

CRM data maintenance is essential for ensuring customer information's accuracy, completeness, and currency within your CRM system. This reliability in data helps achieve broader goals such as:

• Improving Customer Relations: Accurate data allows for personalized and effective communication, enhancing customer experience and satisfaction.

• Increasing Sales Efficiency: Up-to-date information helps sales teams focus on qualified leads, reducing wasted time and improving conversion rates.

• Enhancing Marketing Campaigns: Clean, segmented data enables more targeted and successful marketing efforts, increasing ROI.

• Supporting Informed Decision-Making: Reliable, comprehensive data allows managers and business leaders to make better strategic decisions.

• Reducing Operational Costs: Clean data helps avoid errors and unnecessary processes, saving time and reducing costs associated with data correction and missed opportunities.

CRM data maintenance directly impacts the efficiency and effectiveness of your customer-related operations, leading to better business outcomes.

5 Key Steps in CRM Data Maintenance

Lucas Perret, Sales Operations Manager at Lemlist, shares his framework for keeping CRM data up-to-date.

1. Avoid Duplicates During Import

   • Use email or LinkedIn URL as unique IDs for contacts, and domain and company LinkedIn URL for companies.

   • Normalize domain format to avoid duplicates (e.g., lemlist.com vs. https://lemlist.com).

2. Delete Old Data

   • If a lead hasn't been used for more than a year and there's no interaction, delete it from your CRM.

3. Verify Email Addresses Before Outreach

   • Before sending a sequence, verify the email addresses of CRM contacts.

4. Ensure Complete Data Entry

   • Create reports to ensure the sales team fills in all required fields (e.g., tool stack, pain points).

   • Use dashboards to display records with incomplete data for weekly review by managers.

5. Automate Processes

   • Automate tasks to avoid human errors, such as lead enrichment, meeting logs, deal creation, lead source completion, and contact import. Monitor job changes automatically.

Neglecting CRM Data Maintenance Leads to Lost Revenue

Neglecting CRM data maintenance can result in:

• Outdated data

• High bounce rates

• Numerous duplicates

• Inaccurate reporting

These issues lead to inefficiencies and missed revenue opportunities.

Main Benefits of CRM Data Maintenance

Regular CRM data maintenance offers several benefits:

1. Data Cleansing: Prevents duplicate communications and streamlines sales efforts.

2. Data Validation: Maintains effective communication channels and prevents errors.

3. Data Enrichment: Provides a comprehensive customer view for personalized marketing and service.

4. Regular Updates: Keeps contact information current, reducing bounced emails and delivery failures.

5. Data Segmentation: Targets specific customer groups with tailored marketing campaigns or sales strategies.

6. Handling Inactive Contacts: Keeps the CRM database lean and focuses on engaged customers.

7. Automating Workflows: Ensures consistent data maintenance tasks and reduces manual effort.

8. Audits and Regular Reviews: Identifies long-term trends or recurring data entry issues for strategic improvements.

By maintaining the quality and reliability of your CRM data, you can enhance customer interactions and make more informed business decisions, ultimately improving overall business performance.

Key Takeaways

CRM data maintenance is crucial for the successful use of a CRM system. It ensures customer information is accurate, complete, and up-to-date, impacting customer relations, sales efficiency, marketing effectiveness, decision-making, and operational costs. Effective data maintenance leads to better customer interactions and business decisions, enhancing overall performance.