May 14, 2014 By Amanda Nelson

6 Ways to Grow Your Business Faster with Quality Data

in Cloud, Featured

The Salesforce1 World Tour in Chicago featured many great speakers and sessions, and it seemed that everyone was talking about data. Data, data, data. During one session, Salesforce customer, Joseph Morgan, President and CEO of Standard Register, remarked, "If you have the right data at the right time, we can absolutely accelerate our business."

Unfortunately, good customer data can be hard to find and maintain. 21% of B2B sales reps' time is consumed doing research, the number one issue with customer relationship management (CRM) systems is consolidating customer data, and 75 phone numbers change every thirty minutes. (Sources: CIO Insights, Forrester Research, CustomerThink, Dun and Bradstreet)

There's also the issue of CRM adoption and getting the most out of your CRM. Data quality is just as essential to Salesforce for peak CRM performance as the right gasoline is to an Indy car. As one speaker at the Salesforce1 event said, "It all comes down to the right data at the right moment." Real-time, clean, constantly-changing data will get you ahead of the curve so your business can focus on success versus setbacks.

Here are six ways to grow your business faster with quality data:

1. Work Smarter with Quality Data

If your sales reps are spending more time researching than selling, you're going to lose revenue. According to the session mentioned above, CareerBuilder was wasting four hours per sales rep per week because they didn't have the resources to search information accurately. By having access to the right contact's name, email address, title, etc., quickly and efficiently, reps can focus on their job.

2. Quality Data Delivers Competitive Intelligence

Quality data gives you access to information that goes beyond your customers. You'll know more about your customers' market, including prospect data, location data, future opportunities, competitive intelligence, etc.

3. Know Your Customers with Quality Data

Quality data ensures detailed, accurate analytics to understand many aspects of your business. This information can include customer spend, buyer personas, industry types, and more. This will help you determine the most profitable segments for better product development, stronger customer service, and new business opportunities.

4. Understand Your Sales Reps' Performance with Quality Data

Do you know how your sales reps are performing? Setting your sales reps up for success starts with quality data. By understanding the number of leads they contact, how many deals they close, etc., you'll be able to gauge their overall performance and hone in on the areas in need of improvement.

5. Quality Data Helps Marketers with Lead Generation

For lead generation, the more fields you require, the less likely a prospect is to fill out the form. According to this session, one company increased form fills by 3.4% by reducing the number of fields from nine to four fields. So while this is great for conversions, it reduces the amount of information provided on the lead. This is where quality data comes in. With the few fields you have, you need to make sure they're accurate. This plays into your lead routing rules. You want to ensure leads go to the right people within your organization. In doing this, the lead process will be streamlined and leads will closed faster.

6. Revenue Roll Up from Quality Data

Who are your best customers? What is your revenue by customer? If you lost a customer, what would the impact be on your business? Quality data enables you to organize this information quickly and accurately. You will know more about your customers from an accounts receivable perspective so you can make smart business decisions going forward.

Learn more about the importance of quality data and how to get started with this free RingLead white paper. This post originally appeared on the RingLead Blog.

About the author

Amanda Nelson is Director of Marketing at RingLead where she leads the content marketing strategy and execution. She has spent the last three years in content marketing and community management at salesforce.com and Radian6, and has a background in account management for interactive and full service advertising agencies. Follow her on Twitter at @amandalnelson.

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