Your customer data is a treasure trove of valuable information you can utilize to increase revenue and drive business growth. Centralizing your data in a customer relationship management platform (CRM) is an effective way to manage data from multiple channels and ensure everyone on your team can access the information they need to close sales. Yet your CRM data is only helpful if it’s organized and accessible.
When it comes to getting the most out of your CRM data, effective data management and organization are two of the most important practices you can implement. Data management and organization is the process of arranging and systematizing your CRM data to make it easier for your team to find the information they’re looking for.
Your business can effectively manage and organize its data by following a few best practices. Read on to learn how to successfully manage and organize your CRM data.
Data management and organization are crucial for making sure your CRM is a source of truth for your customer data.
Whether your sales representatives are working valuable leads through the pipeline or your marketing team is strengthening customer relationships through email campaigns, everyone at your company depends on your CRM data being organized and accessible.
If it isn’t, team members could waste valuable time searching for information—and your CRM won’t live up to its potential.
How to manage and organize your CRM data
Although CRMs operate differently, there are a few processes your team can implement regardless of what platform you’re using. Follow these steps to make sure your CRM data is properly organized and usable for your entire team:
1. Create data views
The first step in managing your CRM data is creating data views. Data views are visual representations of data that allow you to drill down into specific subsets of information, helping you translate the hard numbers into meaningful insights. By creating data views, your business can easily access and analyze subgroups of data.
Creating data views is especially valuable when multiple teams or departments need access to different information. For example, information like where leads are in the sales pipeline might be more helpful to your sales team, while your marketing team needs access to customer demographics and purchasing history.
How to create data views
Creating data views is relatively simple, though the process will vary based on what CRM your company is using. Here are a few tips for creating data views in your platform:
Customize your dashboard: Your CRM dashboard is the central location where you can access all your data and reports. Look for a CRM that will let your team customize their dashboards with the data they need to see, like sales and marketing metrics and the leads in your pipelines.
Generate reports: Another way to create data views is with reports. Creating reports lets you quickly see all types of data, including sales, new leads, losses, forecasts, and more!
2. Set up data filters
The next step in managing your CRM data is setting up data filters. Data filters help your team quickly find the data they’re looking for so they can take action. Whether your team needs to locate customer information, send bulk emails, or run a report, data filters help you get the job done faster.
Having data filters is especially important when creating reports from your CRM data. Reports are useful for seeing where your team is succeeding and where they could use improvement.
But reports are only helpful if they’re analytical and actionable. That’s where data filters come in.
Need to see how well your sales reps are doing since implementing a new sales tool? Want to analyze whether new marketing strategies are making a difference? Data filters can help.
How to set up data filters
Some CRMs have a limited list of filters your team can use to segment and analyze data. Depending on your team’s needs, having a handful of data filters might be sufficient.
However, creating custom reports based on filters related to customer demographics, email engagement metrics, or purchase history can help you dive even deeper into your data. Look for a CRM that lets you add your own filters or create additional tags.
Here are a few examples of data filters you might want to add to your CRM:
Company industry
Company territory
Open date
Close date
Outcome
Source
Created by
Confidence
Products
Assignee
Status in your pipeline
3. Create searchable fields
Finally, add searchable fields to your CRM to make your data even more accessible. As with filters, searchable fields make your data easier to search and sort through, so you can spend less time sifting through information and more time actually working leads through your pipeline.
Unlike filters, which only let you search according to set rules, searchable fields give you more flexibility in how you look for information.
How to create searchable fields
Unless you have some control over what you can do in your CRM, you’ll have to work with the tools available to you.
The best way to make your CRM data searchable is to find a CRM that makes it easy. Generally, searchable fields allow you to sift through your data based on specific data fields, like:
Customer or lead name
Lead description
Email address
Account number
Phone number
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Nutshell makes data management and organization easy
Managing and organizing your CRM data is essential for making your team’s work easier. When finding the data they need is a piece of cake, your team members can work more efficiently and focus on the work that matters most—building customer relationships.
When it comes to making your data as organized as possible for your team, using the right CRM is crucial. After all, better data management is one of the reasons why you started using a CRM in the first place.
With Nutshell, managing and organizing your data is a breeze. Nutshell’s customizable dashboard, easy-to-use search and filter features, and robust reports make it easy for your team to quickly access all the data they need. Besides that, Nutshell also has powerful features like:
