Have you ever built a house from scratch? Upon choosing the land, you wouldn’t ask your general contractor to pull up the dump truck with cement and start pouring for a foundation. The next step after land selection is to create a blueprint or a set of plans. This becomes your guide before laying your foundation. Comparatively, you would need to figure out a plan & structure for your data and which tools you need for your project before you begin to redo your technology stack or add in a CRM system for optimal success. The foundation for a home is the same as the data foundation that feeds into your CRM system.
Unfortunately, the majority of companies do not take the time to invest in creating a set of data standards and a system to maintain high-quality processing of incoming data.
Data at the Core
Your data is the foundation of your business. Your data feeds into everything else within your technology stack. If it isn’t clean and organized, you run into more issues down the road. By taking the time to organize structure your data, you will save you time in the long run.
Organize Your Data
If you do not have a technical database architect on staff, hire an expert to organize your data and help you create a plan for data quality upon entry into your systems.
Data Entry & Validation Rules
Example of required data entry:
- Requiring field with an entry, for example, first name, last name and email address. If a field is not filled in, it will not process creating a new record.
Example of validation of data on a field:
Sending an entered email address to a validation service to providing a response before adding it to the database. With twist, we have created automated validation of email address entry and also provide email quality scores to use with email marketing and email list health.
Team Training – Train to a Data Standard
Training is vital to maintaining your data cleanliness level. Expressing your expectations for entry and data quality helps improve your overall data quality and the amount of data you have in your system.
Questions:
- What are your current data quality and standard?
- Do you have a training guide or standard outline that your company is following for data entry?
- Are you training to your data quality standard?
Article by: Lindsey Leemis, CEO & Founder of Twist
