From the course: Salesforce for Sales Managers

The importance of rules and quality data - Salesforce Tutorial

From the course: Salesforce for Sales Managers

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The importance of rules and quality data

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- [Instructor] One of the things that makes Salesforce so valuable to companies is that they're able to take your sales data and give you actionable information that you can use to generate more sales and do it quickly and easily. But in order for Salesforce to do that, you need to provide good quality data. And to control the quality of your data, you need rules in place. So how is good data defined. Completeness, accuracy, and usage. First Completeness. Are your Salesforce users entering all of their account information in to Salesforce? Or only a portion of it? Are you capturing revenue numbers for all accounts? What rules do you have in place for your sales team to ensure that this data is being entered? For data to be useful, you need to see the whole picture, not just part of it. Next, data needs to be accurate. Are you forecasting close dates with a good estimate? Or are they just a filler that each sales person is entering into opportunities? Do you have rules or standards in place for your team around close dates? And is the data updated regularly? How consistent is your team? Do you have accurate naming conventions and rules around how to deal with regional offices, for example? If not, you may have duplicate accounts that could throw off your data. Some simple rules around how to deal with these types of issues can do a lot to increase the quality of your data. I've put a list of data qualifiers in the exercise files. Use it as a starting point to develop your own rules. Finally, usage. Data is only useful if it's actionable. If you are not using all of the data you're collecting, you may want to reconsider what you're asking for. Salesforce is a great tool, but if your sales people feel like they are spending more time in Salesforce than they are selling, it can cause a lot of frustration. Bad data can really affect your company in negative ways, and Salesforce really emphasizes this in their own trainings. One step that Salesforce cites about bad data is that inaccurate or incomplete data can lead to a 20% drop in productivity. Salesforce is a great tool. But it is only as good as the data that has been entered. The better quality data you put into Salesforce, the better results you will see.

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