CRM – the most potent tool in a salesperson’s arsenal. With growing digitization, it’s bound to get better and stronger. The reality, though, is far from it!
According to Dun & Bradstreet:
- 70% of CRM data goes bad each year.
- 91% of data in CRM systems is incomplete.
- The average cost of a manual system with bad data is £50,000 a year!
The impact on sales reps is terrible. They’re left combing through multiple tools to extract one gem of insight for just one deal. And the time they have to spend making sure all information in the CRM is accurate and up-to-date adds a lot more to their never-ending task list.
Could better CRM data help improve sales productivity? Let’s find out in this blog.
Enriched CRM Data = Better Data
For an effective sales deal, reps like to have as much visibility on a prospect as possible. This means filling out fields like first and last names, email ID, deal size, phone number, and more. For sellers who are multithreading, this information needs to be entered for multiple stakeholders.
In short, information is collected from several sources in a pool of raw data, which may or may not be accurate. So, how can sales reps use it to their advantage?
It’s a rather complicated process. And not every seller is well-equipped to use technology to extract insights. In fact, 50% of salespersons feel a more effective CRM system will allow them to be more productive.
That’s where CRM data enrichment comes in. It improves the accuracy of raw customer data by verifying information and adding supplemental information crucial to closing deals.
While the concept may seem similar to data cleansing, data enrichment works differently. Data cleansing eliminates wrong or unusable information. On the other hand, data enrichment verifies accurate information and adds it to the CRM, enriching it.
So then, who performs this data enrichment task? Is there a particular sales rep assigned for this?
Not when there’s AI.
AI Plays a Key Role in Data Enrichment
According to Gartner, CRM data entry is the perfect role for AI.
AI enriches CRM data by automating the process of structuring and filtering through raw data, which is highly time-consuming for a human. It can perform complex actions of predicting, forecasting, recommending, transcribing conversations, qualifying leads, and automatically feeding them into the CRM for better sales.
As the CRM market grows, so will the need for AI. In fact, by 2023, 79% of organizations will be using AI for customer or prospect automation and enrichment. Executives are, at present, prioritizing AI-powered automation as the top CRM system use case for the next 24 months.
But how does this help sales reps?
How Enriched CRM Data Improves Sales Productivity
Nearly half of all sales reps feel their processes and workflows are too complicated, bringing up productivity challenges.
Here are ten ways AI can help.
1. Automate Sales Tasks
Today, sales professionals spend 17% of their precious time entering data into the CRM. What’s worrying? It adds up to nearly one full day of work every week.
With data enrichment, reps can easily perform several tasks:
- Send prospects automated yet personalized emails to nurture leads and move them down the funnel.
- Allocate leads to other reps or managers when the rep in charge isn’t available or needs the manager to step in beyond a certain point.
- Create scheduled follow-ups and meetings to ensure reps don’t miss out on opportunities.
- Track prospect engagement levels with your reps through email open or sent rates, scheduling of tasks, and deal closure.
- Manage the sales pipeline by adding first-party contact details and flag deals that cross the feasible length of time to convert.
It’s universally understood. Time management improves productivity.
And when sales reps have the tools to make the process easier, they can continue their tasks uninterrupted and completely commit to it.
For example, Nektar’s AI-powered solution automates CRM data entry from multiple first-party sources, sets up appointments, manages the sales pipeline, and frees up time for reps to focus on what they love doing – selling.
2. Get Higher Quality Lead Capture & Predictive Scoring
It’s challenging to track stakeholders when there are multiple buyers involved. The champion may leave the deal mid-way, owing to a role or job change. And if sales reps haven’t tracked all the stakeholders involved, the process only gets longer when they have to nurture each stakeholder once again.
That’s not the case when AI is involved.
AI-powered data enrichment updates contact details in real-time. For instance, your rep is in conversation with the champion (say, the Marketing Manager), and the champion loops in X (the CMO) as well as Y (the CFO) and Z (the IT head) on email chains at different points of time. Now if the champion leaves the conversation, the rep doesn’t have to comb through endless emails to find each stakeholder’s contact.
AI will have entered it into the CRM before you know it!
Contact data enrichment could also include other information like demographic, geographic, and financial data, which is helpful for high-quality predictive lead scoring. Reps don’t need to assign values manually. They can focus more on engaged prospects or fall within the ICP based on AI-extracted data.
Marketers are already seeing success in the real world. About 28% say using additional account-level fields improves their lead scoring abilities.
Nektar knows this process helps close deals. That’s why it built the Unified Data Activity Capture Solution, which automatically captures contact data from multiple first-level sources (including Zoom, phone calls, Slack, and more) for valuable lead capture and scoring.
3. Understand Buyer Intent
There’s little insight to extract from CRM data with single-level information about contacts. It will never have enough transactional, demographic, or behavioral data for a comprehensive understanding.
For reps to develop high-level trust and rapport, they need to dive deep into buyer intent. Qualitative and complete data sets help reps explore the customer base for patterns, needs and buyer personas. Enriched CRM data also highlights other factors like transactions, brand competitors, business models, and purchase triggers.
Reps can use these insights to segment accounts, personalize interactions and drive targeted campaigns for closing deals more successfully.
4. Enable Personalized Experiences
Missing data, incomplete contacts, non-exhaustive lead scoring, and data mismatch are only some of the problems plaguing traditional CRM systems and sales reps. Conventionally, these systems were considered data repositories. With AI, they’re moving beyond that role and acting as a personalization guide.
The customer of today wants brands to customize their experiences by understanding their priorities deeply. But only 6% of organizations are confident in their ability to personalize sales and marketing activities. Add to that, only 15% of CMOs trust their company is on the right track with personalization.
These numbers are unexpectedly low!
AI-enriched CRM has capabilities to analyze large data sets and come up with recommendations for closing deals. It helps improve customer engagement by setting up a customer journey for each user with targeted segments. Reps can customize each interaction and share content relevant to a buyer at specific times.
With more accurate and complete information, reps get recommendations on tailoring selling interactions to keep buyers interested. Nearly 60% of employees feel a more effective CRM system would allow them to interact better with customers, improving their satisfaction.
5. Avoid Missed Opportunities
Current CRM systems tell reps whom to target but don’t explain the “why” behind these recommendations. The result? 40% of all media spending is wasted. That’s a missed opportunity for CRM data providers.
Talking about a missed opportunity inside missed opportunities is a little meta, we know!
But it’s good to know AI is solving this problem.
At any given time, reps need to engage with multiple buyers and maintain trusted relationships. How is that possible if they don’t have complete information about the buyers?
AI organizes CRM data, avoiding duplication and ensuring reps don’t miss out on even the tiniest details that speed up deal closure. Data enrichment also digs up cross-selling and upselling opportunities by adding data points reps may have initially missed.
When reps have this information, they can shift focus to deals with a higher potential of conversion. That’s what Nektar helps with, too. It tells you which prospects are more likely to purchase while mitigating any risks associated with the deal (by adding verified information) and recommends the next steps.
6. Refer to a Single Source of Truth
These are times when social media feeds and news platforms update instantaneously. But 54% of prospect teams still cannot access actionable insights in real-time. Instead, they move back and forth between multiple tools to gather one piece of analysis on a customer.
And the effort needed for a complete breakdown? Extensive, burdensome, and unimaginable.
Data enrichment gathers all data points under one roof so that reps can see real-time and quick updates. They can also filter through multiple details for better visibility and personalized insights.
Sometimes, it can be as simple as a rep distinguishing between Laura S., from company X for a $150,000 deal, and Laura T., from company Y for a $200,000 one. The rep will know which deal each Laura is associated with, who has higher purchase potential, and who needs additional nurturing.
Moreover, the rep can also measure each interaction, from lead generation to deal closure. And get specific insights on what worked and areas to improve.
7. Enhance Data Quality
By 2025, we’ll have generated nearly 180 zettabytes of data. But while we’re constantly creating data, not all of it is accurate. In the business world, only 5% of organizations are highly confident in the accuracy of their CRM data.
With the extent of data available and the constant state of flux it’s in, businesses may be unsure of data that’s useful or redundant. And if it’s even accurate.
Inaccurate or missing data can disrupt sales deals. For instance, the rep is in touch with Ben (CTO), who loops Paul (CEO) and Adam (CMO) in the conversation. Over the course of the deal, the rep doesn’t notice that Fiona replaced Adam. On the next sales call, the rep doesn’t acknowledge Fiona and instead asks about Adam. The rep’s interaction with Fiona (a key stakeholder in the buying committee) is off to a shaky start.
While this fallout may not be significant, other misses could have more severe repercussions.
With AI’s help, data enrichment makes the CRM more qualitative by sorting through it, scouring first-party conversations, and updating the system with missing data. It also detects irregularities, anomalies, duplicates, and other errors that compromise CRM data and, in turn, customer relationships.
Nektar aims to resolve these issues by updating the CRM with real-time, accurate and verified data captured from first-party sources.
8. Improve Seller Focus
Enriched CRM data makes the selling process simpler for reps by giving them all the data they need in one place. This lets them focus on sales without worrying about collecting large chunks of data. And focused attention is key to productivity.
A single-page view lets reps easily visualize ongoing and upcoming work. They don’t have to check multiple tools and screens for updates on deals.
Then there’s manual data entry that takes up precious selling time, and it doesn’t help when it increases the possibility of errors, too. Enriched CRM data uses AI for automatically centralizing information with integrations. This avoids missing or incorrect data and provides complete visibility on necessary documentation like proposals, email templates, and contracts.
Information on an enriched CRM isn’t just visible to reps but everyone on the concerned teams, making cross-team collaboration easier.
9. Achieve GTM Alignment
When teams across an organization use a shared CRM, they’re 14% more likely to provide exceptional customer experience to their buyers. This becomes highly significant for closing the gap between sales, marketing, and customer success teams, who may be otherwise unaligned.
Reps don’t have to follow up with multiple persons and departments for updates. They can easily view updates on the CRM, entered in real-time. This is key, specifically in an environment that needs to be agile.
If the sales team has to take a prospect conversation from marketing forward, they automatically have access to all the information. It ensures that marketing doesn’t miss out on sending information and that sales can effectively cater to the prospect without asking them for repetitive details.
Data coming in from different departments has an added benefit – it gives teams new perspectives on a prospect.
With Nektar’s solution, your team can view deals in a single dashboard, assign tasks to cross-functional teams in minutes, have updated information at your fingertips, and collaborate without interruptions!
10. Grow Revenue Predictably
Data enrichment impacts the one reason businesses stay in the race – revenue. Unbelievable, right? But 21% of companies did report a loss in revenue due to poor data quality.
AI-enriched CRM data prevents the storage of information that’s unhelpful and saves money by improving data quality and redirecting sales efforts to deals having better chances of closure.
It also improves sales efficiency through intelligent recommendations on next steps, clean contact details, and deeper insights into each deal. That’s not all. It targets customer churn, too, by analyzing churn patterns and helping reps come up with corrective actions.
The result? Better ROI and predictable growth in revenue.
With a host of benefits for sales productivity, an AI-powered enriched CRM is an inevitable upgrade for business.
Level Up With Automated CRM Data Enrichment
For a whopping 94% of employees and 90% of executives, a single source of truth creates value for their organization. But 43% say their teams lack the right set of skills to produce actionable customer insights from CRM data.
Fortunately, AI is helping organizations by taking over time-consuming and exhausting sales tasks, giving reps a much-needed productivity boost. As a leader, you can improve your team’s productivity by implementing enriched CRM data and investing in the right tool for your sales tech stack.
Nektar’s Unified Data Activity Capture Solution gives you an intelligent CRM data enrichment setup for better sales visibility, productivity, and revenue. Check your CRM health score and let our experts show you what’s currently missing.
