Any business executive knows that there can be no successful business without proper data management. Both customer and project data are vital to the eventual success of a company. Customer data helps marketing and sales teams learn about their potential customers and come up with ways of approaching them. Project data plays a crucial role in enabling the project managers to make informed decisions and complete tasks.

However, with mountains of data that each business collects today, data management is often not a natural process. Errors creep in, incorrect information gets added, and before you know it, you’re making decisions based on something that isn’t true. Fortunately, there are ways of preventing that outcome. Let’s review our four tricks for managing customer and project data:

Use a Database

For large projects, creating a database is a better choice than using Excel or similar programs. While Excel is great at crunching numbers and presenting them, it’s only good for small amounts of data. On the other hand, databases can handle a ton of data efficiently, can be used by multiple users and have specific data entry forms. What’s more, you can easily access and use that data for future projects. Your project management team will have all the necessary information at their fingertips in a centralized location.

Avoid Duplicate Data

One thing to note when it comes to customer data management is the pitfall of duplicate data. It frustrates your employees, wastes space and time, and could be a source of irritation for your potential customers. If they’re receiving multiple inquiries as of the result of data duplication, it can make them quickly lose interest in your business. Additionally, it can make your sales teams look uninformed. To avoid that, make sure you eliminate duplicate data by continually updating and verifying it.

Manage Your Customer Data with Interactive Software Solutions

Since every aspect of the customer lifecycle relies on having accurate customer contact data, it’s essential to make the management process straightforward and reliable. Implementing customer data management solutions that can integrate with the software you’re already using can be a great time-saver and also help keep your customer contact data clean. With Runner EDQ’s Clean_CUSTOMER, you can connect with your customers by using their preferred contact method. It also enables you to create each customer’s contact data profile, which allows you to make an informed decision on how best to retain them.

Keep Your Data Secure

With the number of cybersecurity threats and the frequency of data hacks, both project data and customer data security are paramount. If your customers can’t trust you to protect their information, they’ll stop being your customers. Make sure you backup all the critical data on an external drive that can’t be accessed online. Also, consider encrypting your data and restricting the access to sensitive information to a few people only. Make every effort to protect your data from any cyber threats.

Customer and project data management can be made more accessible by implementing some of these practices. Prevent unfavorable business outcomes by always staying on top of your data and keeping it clean and secure.