Data Quality Do’s and Don’ts – Part 5: Herding the CRM Cats

The beauty of a CRM system is that by relying on the collective information of all of the CRM users, contacts should be kept updated across the organization. If anyone gets updated information and simply modifies their contact information in Outlook, updated information should flow out to everyone who shares that contact. Everyone wins. That is, everyone who participates.  

But as we all know, getting everyone to participate in CRM can sometimes be like herding cats… very smart cats… with opposable thumbs. If users don't participate, if they don't share their contacts and relationships, if they don't update information or if they don't regularly review contact updates, then nobody benefits and CRM becomes just another piece of overpriced and underutilized software – aka, the glorified rolodex. So the question becomes, how do we keep this from prevent this from happening…