How to Elevate CRM User Experience with Your Data Strategy

Consider the dynamic world of Wall Street, an environment of fast trades, big money, and advanced technology. In its epicenter, envision a state-of-the-art CRM tool with the potential to transform business operations. However, without a proper data strategy, this potential could remain untapped, resulting in wasted effort and resources.

Data, the lifeblood of your CRM and the digital world, is critical to its success. Without accurate and trusted client and contact information, even the most functionally adept CRM serves a limited purpose. Despite the envisioned seamless integrations and analytics by leaders in top banking institutions, CRM projects frequently fall short rapidly post-launch due to a prevalent user mistrust of the data.

Ideally, CRM data should be sourced by a trusted, industry-leading data provider specializing in capital markets and continually managed by the salespeople covering them: the primary relationship owners. However, the industry often complicates this process through intricate validation rules, cryptic error messages, and limited entitlements, inadvertently prioritizing flawless data over user satisfaction.

Let's envision a different scenario where the user experience anchors your data strategy. Here's the roadmap:

1. Empower users: Grant users the autonomy to edit Contact data. Retain centralization of Client and Account records for legal reasons but ensure regulations don't stifle users’ workflow.
   
   
2. Simplify reporting of bad data: Facilitate users to flag faulty data with ease.
   
   
3. Leverage third-party data: Refinitiv, S&P CapIQ, and Pitchbook, among others, are excellent resources to get you started with a clean set of data that, when coupled with an update service, regularly update contact attributes including phone numbers, addresses, and employment changes.
   
   
4. Handle employment changes properly: When a contact moves firms, rather than creating the contact in the new client or account record, maintain the historical interactions associated with the previous company.
   
   
5. Ease validations: Limit error alerts to the essentials needed for integration and obvious items; otherwise, the user experience will suffer.
   
   
6. Streamline workflow: Although the control of account and client data should be designated to a select few individuals, allow users to create prospects with a limited set of fields so they can continue their work and delegate data cleanup to data stewards.
   
   
7. Use coverage: Cleaning up every client and contact record can be an uphill task. Instead, focus on presenting the users with their covered clients and contacts - their universe - in a clean, inviting manner. This will bubble up the most useful information to the top for the user and foster trust in your system.
   
   
8. Regular maintenance: Implement persistent data-cleansing tools and assign a dedicated professional for ongoing data stewardship.

By following these guidelines, users will not only use the CRM but champion it, unlocking its true potential.

Find out how TIER1 includes all of these workflows and more out of the box. Explore our products at www.tier1fin.com and book a demo today.