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Sales teams can't thrive on bad data. When your Salesforce is clogged with duplicates, outdated contacts, and incomplete records, it slows everything down—from decision-making to revenue growth. Revenue operations teams know this pain all too well.
The good news? Implementing the right data hygiene tools and processes can help you clean up your data and keep it that way. Read on to find out how!
What Are Data Hygiene Tools?
Bad data can seriously impact your revenue, reducing it by a whopping 15% to 25%, according to a report from MIT. And if your B2B data is poor, your sales funnels are likely broken as well.
Data hygiene tools are your first line of defense against the chaos that dirty data creates. These tools help you identify, clean, and maintain high-quality data in Salesforce, ensuring that your sales teams are working with accurate and up-to-date information.
For revenue operations, the importance of these tools cannot be overstated. Clean data leads to better decision-making, more accurate forecasting, and ultimately, more closed deals.
3 Big Reasons to Keep Your Data Clean in Salesforce
Maintaining clean CRM data offers countless benefits. While we won't cover them all, it's crucial to understand the key reasons why keeping your data tidy should be at the top of your priority list:
1. Your Data is Your Most Important Asset
Your CRM data is the backbone of your sales operations. But when it’s cluttered with errors and outdated information, it’s more of a liability than an asset.
Clean data empowers your sales team to work smarter, not harder, by giving them access to accurate information that helps them close deals faster and more effectively. On the flip side, dirty data leads to missed opportunities, wasted time, and frustrated reps.
2. Clean Data Boosts Sales Efficiency
When you're in sales, every minute counts.
The time spent digging through messy data or hunting down the right contact information is time not spent closing deals.
Research shows that sales reps can end up spending as much as 72% of their time on non-selling tasks, often because of poor data quality and the overwhelming amount of administrative work they need to tackle.
Imagine a sales rep is about to pitch to a promising lead, only to discover that the company has merged with another and their point of contact is no longer with the business. The pitch gets delayed while they scramble to find the right person. With accurate data, the rep could’ve quickly connected with the correct decision-maker and advanced the deal without a hitch.
3. Data Integrity Leads to Predictable Revenue Growth
Revenue operations thrive on predictability, which begins with clean data. Accurate forecasting is only possible when the underlying data is reliable. Data hygiene tools help maintain the integrity of your Salesforce data, making it easier to predict revenue trends and plan accordingly.
With robust data, you can:
- Set realistic targets
- Manage internal resources effectively
- Drive consistent growth.
Key Data Hygiene Tools and Processes
To maintain the quality of your Salesforce data, you'll likely need a few tools to cover all aspects of data hygiene. Here's a handy table that summarizes each type of tool and how it can enhance your database hygiene:
How to Effectively Implement Data Hygiene Tools in Your Sales Processes
Practice shows that data quality is primarily a people-and-process problem rather than a technological issue. Of course, technical aspects are still important, but perhaps not as much as you might think.
Let’s explore a few strategies that can help you implement data hygiene tools with minimal friction:
Assess Your Current Data Health
Before implementing any tools, conduct a thorough audit of your current data. Identify the common issues—like duplicates, missing information, or outdated records—that are plaguing your Salesforce database. This will help you understand where your data hygiene needs the most attention.
Pick Tools that Solve Your Biggest Problems
Duplicate management tools, data cleansing solutions, validation software—you name it. There are plenty of options out there, but you don’t need them all. Focus on choosing the one that can tackle your biggest data challenge.
Don’t Overlook Integrations
Don’t just get any tool. Get one that works with your current CRM setup. Your sales reps are already using 10 tools to close deals. You don’t want to add more to their tech stack.
Plus, integrated tools keep all your information in sync. This ensures your team can work with accurate and complete data.
Rolling Out Data Hygiene Tools and Processes to Sales Reps
Introducing new processes to your sales team can be challenging, especially when it comes to data hygiene. But clean data is essential for success down the road.
Here’s how to introduce these changes without your reps feeling like it’s just another boring admin task:
Step 1: Communicate the Value Clearly
Start by explaining the “why” behind the new data hygiene tools and processes. Sales reps need to understand how clean data directly benefits them—whether it’s fewer dead leads, more accurate reports, or a smoother sales process.
When they see how these tools can make their jobs easier and help them close more deals, they’ll be more likely to get on board.
Step 2: Provide Hands-On Training
Sales reps are often pressed for time, so make training as practical and relevant as possible.
Offer hands-on sessions where they can see the tools in action within Salesforce. Walk them through common scenarios they’ll encounter, showing them exactly how to use the tools to clean up data, avoid duplicates, or enrich records.
Step 3: Integrate into Daily Workflows
Data hygiene tools, whichever ones you choose to use, should be integrated into your sales reps' workflows. They won't use them if they have to jump from one tool to another.
Make data hygiene a natural part of their daily activities rather than an extra chore. This way, it's more likely to stick.
Step 4: Establish Accountability
How are you planning to make sure your team sticks to good data hygiene practices?
One idea might be to set specific goals for data quality, like asking each rep to keep their records 95% accurate. You could also regularly check their data entries or tie data hygiene to their performance evaluations. Make data their responsibility and help them understand why it matters so much.
Step 5: Offer Continuous Support and Feedback
Even after the initial rollout, continue to support your sales team as they adapt to the new tools and processes. Provide ongoing training sessions, offer practical resources, and regularly gather feedback from the reps.
Tips for Ensuring Your Team Follows Best Practices for Salesforce Data Quality
Maintaining Salesforce data quality isn’t something your team can do once and then forget. You’ll likely need to remind them repeatedly how important it is to keep data clean.
Here are a few creative ways to help educate your employees about the importance of good data management practices:
- Integrate data quality checks into daily standups.
- Gamify data hygiene by creating leaderboards or offering rewards to team members who consistently maintain clean, accurate data.
- Host interactive workshops where employees can learn and practice data management skills in a hands-on way.
Fix Bad Salesforce Data with Momentum
Maintaining clean data in Salesforce—or any CRM for that matter—can be tough. The key to making it all work? It’s the combination of the right tools, ongoing training, and a commitment to data quality.
Neglecting data hygiene can seriously hurt your bottom line, and that's something no one can afford.
If you're struggling with dirty Salesforce data, Momentum could be the solution you need.
Momentum makes it easy to keep your Salesforce data clean and accurate without a lot of manual work. It automatically updates your Salesforce records with important details from sales calls and past interactions, so you don’t have to worry about mistakes or outdated information. By using Momentum, your sales team can always trust that their data is up-to-date and ready to help them close more deals.
Want to learn more? Jump on a call with our team to see how we can help you!