Can The Quality Of Data Impact on Sales?

The quality of data in sales is often overlooked, with many companies aiming to send as many campaigns out as possible rather than target their marketing strategies using up-to–date, clean data.

Compare it to food. If you are making a cake, you follow the recipe and use the ingredients mentioned in order to have a wonderfully scrummy result. Whereas if you threw in any old ingredients for the sake of having more of them; a few breadcrumbs here, too much vanilla essence and out of date milk, you’d have a disastrous result. The same goes for data. Databases need to be up to date, relevant and have no duplicate contacts. A bread crumbed, gone off, overly-vanilla cake wouldn’t win the Great British Bake Off, so why should bad data win you any sales?

Speaking of sales, they can be highly influenced by data. Having contacts on the database that are up-to-date without any elements missing or incomplete, means sales teams will not be wasting time trying to contact the wrong people. This means their time can be spent on more constructive activities.

Furthermore, bad data can almost certainly lead to inaccurate sales recording. If metrics aren’t accurately reported, sales teams will have unrepresentative reports compared to what they actually achieved. This could be extremely demoralising and every good businessman knows that unmotivated and unhappy staff can be detrimental to a company.

The company’s reputation can also be affected by bad data. Sales professionals will struggle to form efficient starter conversations with customers if they are unsure of their name or even if they still live at the property recorded if their database is old and incomplete. This would lead them to look unprofessional and unprepared and may impact on the amount of sales that they are able to make. If sales teams rely on poor quality data, it can really frustrate customers especially if they are asked repeatedly for the same information, or if they are given the same information. Customers won’t stick around for this, they’d simply up and take their business elsewhere.

Debbie Sweeney, Sales Trainer and Business Coach at Solutions2Success said “To keep your sales team motivated and productive you need accurate data. We recommend companies use Data8 for address and telephone number level data cleansing, this will correct and enhance data quality quickly and cost effectively. Your sales team can make more calls, generate more appointments and sales instead of wasting time conducting demotivating admin tasks which deflects them from where they add the most value. As contact names change daily we recommend all sales professionals keep contact level data up to date and accurate at all times and enter this information into their CRM system after every call. When we deliver the ISMM endorsed Generating Leads and Appointments course the subject of poor data quality is a common challenge to sales reps and they appreciate the value of correct data and how professional they present themselves when data is accurate and correct.”

Back to food. Like you have special bakers for delightful cakes, you have data companies to cleanse and validate your data so your sales can be taken to the next level.

Cleansing your data ensures your database is up-to-date enabling you to reduce unnecessary costs, deliver targeted campaigns, and stay compliant with the Data Protection Act. Data can also be validated, using a real-time validation suite ensures lead details are valid at point of entry.