Information about a client, prospect, employee, tenant, property owner, anything or any one is always hard to keep current.  It's the holy grail of good records for communication and just plain good business.  But boy, it sure is hard.  Oh, and by the way, no one that is assigned to do it will see any value in the job.  That's because it's tedious and monotonous.  So what to do?  Do it anyway.

I'm still surprised when I run across commercial real estate firms that don't have a decent CRM (Customer Relationship Manager). Yes, Outlook does contain "contacts", but it's not a CRM. We know the goal...a single view of the customer, opportunity, or project. To have a useful CRM, you have to keep the information correct and current. There's no other way. If the base of information isn't accurate, you've lost a lot of the benefit. Think back to a time when you got a "personal" email or direct mail piece that had your name spelled wrong...there's nothing worse.

People tend to want the whole enchilada in CRM solutions, but it's not really necessary. The real key is simplicity and the ability to grow into what you find you need, therefore, flexibility is key. While the best systems handle everything from sales cycle management, lead conversion, sales forecasting, account planning, activity management, territory management, routing of leads, sales performance analysis, e-mail campaigns, knowledge management, complaint management, contract management and agent performance, the list goes on and on, just starting somewhere and having something is the right plan. Make sure you build into the plan the time and cost of reviewing the information that is captured on a scheduled basis. Only when everybody recognizes how important the accuracy is, will the system produce the return everybody is hoping for. In regards to tracking, I suggest you really only track these three things...sales metrics, service metrics and marketing metrics. If you e-mail me, I'll send you a chart and you can check off which metrics make the most sense in your business.

Bottom line is, don't spend too much time measuring and not enough time "doing"... avoid analysis paralysis by identifying the fewest number of performance metrics that can still get the job done based on your objectives.  When identifying your objectives, you have to know where you are as a company or as an individual. For example, a new company with a little known product will need to invest in marketing campaigns to solicit customers, build product awareness and establish its brand, so you'd want to keep close track of metrics such as new leads per marketing campaign, sales opportunities per campaign, and opportunities closed per campaign. If you feel that you have a more established customer base and brand, you want to focus on metrics that help identify its most profitable customers and show which programs further increase your customer's spending and ensure loyalty. So you'd be tracking up-sells and cross-sells, the number of opportunities or product purchases per customer and average profit per customer.

Just keep in mind that the primary goal is to have accurate information that anybody within your organization or the appropriate people within your organization can access to give great customer service.  The ability to track and measure with metrics is the icing on the cake.  Now I don't know about you, but I don't want to eat a cake without any icing, so I'm not saying that it's not important.  I'm just saying that if you don't start at the beginning and make sure the information is right, it's probably not worth your caloric intake.