How to optimise the power of CRM Dynamics with automation and data quality tools. Part1 - Putting data at the heart of your CRM Strategy

15/04/2015 by Emmy Lippold

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege to speak to two Microsoft Dynamics CRM user groups, in Edinburgh and in Reading. The audience came to hear how to optimise the power of CRM Dynamics with automation and data quality tools. I was able to share our story of what we have accomplished at Data8 to get the desired results we need, using CRM and Data Quality tools.

Data and technology are allied, when one is treated badly they both suffer. In this first of the three part blog series, I will share with you our readers best practices and real examples of how data and technology, together, can have an impact on how we understand our customers, market our products and services, and how we make decisions to support business growth.

Famous American engineer, Edward Deming said “Your system is perfectly designed to give you the results you’re getting.” Jim Collins expanded upon this concept in his famous work: Good to Great. He equated business systems to ‘bridges’ to get us where we need to be. “The best companies” he said “can never transform to greatness in ‘one fell swoop’. There is no defining action, no one grand program, no one killer innovation, no solitary lucky break and no one miracle moment. Sustainable transformation to greatness follow a predictable pattern of build-up and break-through. Like pushing on a giant, heavy flywheel. It takes a lot of effort to get the thing moving. But with consistent effort and persistent pushing in the same direction, the flywheel builds momentum eventually hitting a point of breakthrough.

So the story of Data8 and how we use CRM is not one of a company that has reached a moment of breakthrough but one that is on its way to transformation to greatness.

We had some great systems in place but we were only half way there because they weren’t giving us the results we desired. Our marketing and sales funnel was clogged!

The first thing we put in place were processes to track, measure, and report on a monthly basis on key information throughout the funnel.

From website visits to won sales opportunities and everything in between.

Initially the processes were manual. But we put a rigid prequalification process in place and started collaborating with sales and our technical team to ensure that automation replaced manual processing wherever possible.

Since then we have created the CRM technology to report on the information that we desired and we report on it in real-time and every month. This has led to increased user adoption, where the marketing, sales, operations, and executive teams get the information they need in a matter of seconds. It has also enhanced collaboration between the teams within the company.

The next blog in this series looks at how CRM automation and optimisation enable you to get results. You will be able to see the series of dashboards we have developed to monitor the effectiveness of the marketing and sales efforts.

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