12 Days of CRM: Day Eight – Managing Data with a Digital First Strategy

On the eighth day of CRM Chris “Kringle” Fritsch told me, how law firms are managing data with a digital-first strategy!

As more and more law firms transition to a digital-first strategy, firms are trying to maintain their competitive edge by utilizing new platforms that have the potential to streamline operations and improve efficiency. Yet, many firms are behind the curve in adopting new technology to improve operations and automate various manual, time-consuming tasks. Some firms manage their data in silos, disconnected spreadsheets stuffed away in a hard drive.

These disconnected silos can be filled with hundreds or thousands of outdated contact data, leaving the attorneys at an extreme disadvantage when pursuing business development opportunities. In order to utilize technology, firms have to have a solid foundation of clean data. Only then can they begin to develop successful strategies and harness the full potential of their systems.

Here are a few tips that can help firms manage their data with a digital-first strategy:

Create Consistent Data Entry Practices

Inconsistent data entry can lead to a great deal of confusion within a firm. If one practice area abbreviates a contact’s first name, while another spells it out. This can make it very difficult to maintain clean and consistent records, and can disrupt the buyer’s journey.

To help create consistent data entry practices, we recommend establishing clear guidelines for data entry that help inform users how data should be entered and implement data validation rules to enforce standardization. Some firms may benefit from regular data quality audits and ongoing data stewardship to help maintain long-term data integrity.

Regularly De-Duplicate Records

Duplicate data occurs when customer information appears more than once in the database or multiple variations of the same individual appear.

In the era of cutting-edge technology, modern software harnesses advanced algorithms to seamlessly detect and merge duplicate records, relieving your professionals of the burden of manual updates and markedly enhancing data precision.

Data Capture Protocols

Incomplete data can be caused by many things. Whatever the cause, incomplete or missing data can cause firms to miss out on important opportunities to connect with customers and create lasting relationships.

To ensure data is entered in its entirety, firms should have data capture protocols that ensure all required fields are consistently populated. Firms can also utilize algorithms or integrated tools to identify and finalize incomplete records which can have a huge impact on data accuracy.

Data Integration Strategy

Achieving marketing technology success is nearly impossible with siloed data. Data silos are databases scattered across multiple departments making the information within them effectively useless and extremely difficult to manage.

Implementing a robust data integration strategy, utilizing appropriate integration tools and establishing data transformation rules can help streamline data integration processes. Regular data reconciliation and validation checks will ensure data integrity is maintained throughout the integration process.

Dedicate Resources

Far too often we hear about a firm who invested thousands or tens of thousands of dollars into a data quality project, just for the data to go bad within the next few weeks. The resources you dedicate can vary depending on the number of contacts in your system. But regardless, you must commit a certain number of resources to maintain the integrity of your data, whether that be data stewards who regularly go into your system and update records, or implementing processes and procedures to help maintain uniformity when data is being entered.

Watch as Chris Fritsch explains the various tactics firms can follow to improve their data management practices with a digital-first strategy:

For almost 20 years, the team at CLIENTSFirst Consulting has been helping professional services firms and other organizations with data cleansing and successfully selecting and implement CRM and eMarketing systems to maximize value, adoption and return on investment. If you need help with CRM Success, please contact us at 404-249-9914 or Info@ClientsFirstConsulting.com.