Contact data is the lifeblood of sales. Without it, sales people can’t execute their roles effectively. This is why it’s so important to get the contact data they need. But most businesses aren’t able to keep track of their contacts, because they don’t have an integrated approach to contact data. Data isolation is pretty common in many organizations, data integration is the exception. There are different reasons for this, but the result is that if you need to get data from another group that is not your own it can be a very lengthy process. This means that it’s very hard to build an accurate picture of a customer. You either need to get the data through a few different people and involve a lot of manual processes and wait a long time for it.
Disparate Solutions that don’t talk to each other are a problem in todays competitive world
Finding relevant contact data shouldn’t be difficult, but most companies make it hard for their sales people to get the contact data they need to support the sales process. This is because they don’t have an integrated approach to contact data, using disparate solutions that don’t talk to each other. Without that data shared and integrated, it is impossible to build a single customer view. This data isolation leads to incomplete customer profiles, duplicate sales opportunities, ineffective customer service, loss of productivity and poor decision making.
Why is data integration important?
Most companies don’t have an integrated approach to contact data, using disparate customer relationship management solutions that don’t talk to each other. They may use one program to manage their leads, another to manage actual customers, and another to manage their sales pipeline or marketing campaigns with it. Most of these solutions don’t talk to each other, so businesses have to manually enter the same information into each program. As more and more data is spread across different solutions, it is crucial to have a good strategy for handling that data. Poor data integration can cause information to be lost, duplicated, or inconsistent.
How to stop spending time on repeatable tasks?
With customer data integration you will be able to design the process of syncing the data you need into one place and making all your tools, teams, and data work seamlessly together. Data integration connects different silos in a coherent manner so that data is shared across systems for trend analysis, better decisions and greater customer satisfaction.
Finding the right integration strategy for your data.
As the number of tools radically increases, the old fashioned models of data integration breaks down. The old way of native integrations was designed mostly as pairwise, two-way integrations. You connect the tools one-by-one. But not every API or integration can support every type of data type in both directions, even if the tool can. You will end up with a lot of complexity to manage. Remind yourself: It’s not about integration the tools. It’s about integrating the data.
Instead of connecting everything to everything else, you need to centralize your customer data – and its management. Putting customer data into the cloud is the best way to centralize customer data management. The market for SaaS data integration tools is growing. You need to look for the one that is easy to use and offers the features required to manage data effectively. Therefore, opt in for an intuitive tool with a user-friendly interface that can easily be used by people with no or minimal programming knowledge
Is data integration worth it?
Data integration is a very important factor when it comes to keeping your business as efficient as possible. Whether you’re a large company or a small business, data needs to be shared and exchanged between all of the people who need it. As a result, companies can unlock the value of their data.
The customer profile is the key to building an effective sales strategy, driving targeted marketing campaigns, creating better customer service, increasing sales and creating happier customers. By isolating your data, you are throwing away opportunities to learn more about your customers, which can make it difficult to deliver more of what your customers want and need, leading to increased customer churn and lower customer satisfaction.
Data gets messy, get it tidy with Snazzy Contacts
SnazzyContacts is a powerful contact management system that is a low-cost enterprise-class solution for businesses of all sizes. It is a good solution for companies who want to seamlessly integrate with cloud-based services, while providing a user-friendly interface that is very easy to learn and use. SnazzyContacts helps businesses to create, update and store their contact data and share it with other tools.