Importance of accuracy when having prospect lists

What is the critical most aspect of lead marketing? It is nothing but understanding the target market and then identifying the decision makers.

More than that, it is important to maintain your own list of prospects. Don’t rely on the list offered by so-called agencies. They may have sold the same to several other companies, including your competitors.

Do you think it would help you in achieving great sales? Not at all!

Experts say that it is not enough to maintain your personal list of prospects. It is more important that the list is accurate and complete. Then only you can expect higher success rate.

Organize the records of the prospects well

Keeping prospects records organized is always good from the business perspective. It is kind of wealth of information that helps in quickly identifying and meeting the requirements of your prospects.

When you interact with every prospect, it greatly helps. You get the contact details fast, understand their issues and decisions and know what they want.

It becomes pretty easy to derive strategies for achieving good sales. The system must store data about every correspondence related to the leads and prospects.

Typical data points that you should maintain:

• Date and time of contacting the prospect
• Details of the representative who contacted the prospect
• Mode of contact
• Summary of the interaction
• Status (Completed, pending, denied)
• Schedule of appointment
• Follow-up if any

When all these details are maintained properly in the database, then just by looking at the report, the sales representatives will know to whom to contact.

Also, they know about the long pending cases or denied cases so that appropriate action can be taken.

Demographic data helps in planning the schedule of appointment. For example, people living in a certain area can be contacted in one go.

Prospects that prefer telecom can be contacted by hiring an out calling agency. 

Four ways you can keep high levels of accuracy in the prospects list

When you maintain a list of prospective customers, it is very important to keep it accurate and complete.

Inaccurate and incomplete data not only impacts the productivity but also hampers the performance of your sales and marketing team.

They end up with contacting incorrect customers (or no customers) because many of the contacts have either changed their contact details or left the organization.

Here are five easy and practical ways of keeping your prospects list clean and accurate.

Always keep the complete information

It is the question you should ask yourself; how complete are the client records? If there are more than five percent incomplete records in the contact list, then it indicates your negligence towards quality.

Yes, it is a time-consuming and daunting task indeed, but it is inevitable and mandatory as well. Though CRM forces you to enter a lot of data by making the fields mandatory, still a lot of information remains unfilled.

Find out what relevant fields you haven’t entered just because they are not mandatory. Fill in the important details.

Get rid of duplicates

Redundant information is a common problem. If you use a CRM system for data entry, then the problem gets avoided as the CRM offers front-end validation.

The real trouble is there when you port in the data from legacy systems into the CRM.

 If the uploading script uses validation checks, then many legitimate records also get filtered. Hence, the script has to be made lenient which brings duplicate entries in the system.

The aim should be to minimize (ideally to eliminate) the duplicate records. It is a difficult task, but not impossible!

Existing duplicate records can be merged by consolidating the information that is mismatching. For example, you have five records of the same client where all fields are identical except the contact number which is different.

Since they are not exactly identical, the system passes it and allows in the CRM system. From data sanitation perspective, it is better merging these records into one. Different contact numbers can be accommodated in other fields if required.

 Make a list of data legends

Experts say that accuracy of the prospects list can be maintained when standard templates are used for data entry. Making a list of drop down is a good idea.

For example, if INR has to be written in the currency column, then the field should not be a free text field. It has to be a drop down where you can select from the available choices only.  It brings consistency and accuracy to the data.

Developing a standardized data entry format is a good idea to avoid errors during data entry.

Restrict the data entry rights to a few persons

The more data entry points you open, the greater is the risk of invalid data. Experts recommend making roles in the CRM with data entry rights. These roles should be assigned to very few people in the organization.

Also, data update rights can be extended to designated employees on the role basis. Thus, they can modify records that are relevant to them.

It is not a one-time event to maintain the data accuracy, but an ongoing process. When the records are clean and error-free, the prospects list generates good business.

It is important to update and prune the list of prospects based on the interaction with the individual. Thus, it remains relevant and useful for the sales team.

Conclusion

Accuracy is a pivotal aspect when you maintain the list of prospects. Experts say that it is always beneficial to keep the list accurate. It reduces redundancy in the system and helps in targeting the right audience at the appropriate time.

The efforts of your sales and marketing team do not go waste because they focus towards the more appropriate audience. When the key decision makers and influencers are tapped, there is a high probability of getting success.

Use the tips and tricks in the article to keep the prospects list clean.

By putting some efforts, you can achieve it for sure.