initial loading of data into new CRM

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Hi,

I just posted a question about user/account administration which stemmed from concerns regarding the consulting business my company is using to support our new Microsoft CRM.

In addition to the user admin question, I am concerned about the initial upload to data to our new CRM.

Members of different departments were asked to supply spreadsheets with contact data for upload into the CRM. This business uploaded all of the data without any kind of advice or clarification about duplicates or any other clean data issues. What resulted was an unusable contact directory. We did clean up the data after that, but we were still charged for the initial upload and then the subsequent "clean" upload.

Making sure you import clean data into a system seems very basic. I was surprised and dismayed to learn that this step had been ignored. Of course our people should have known better, but in the absence of a technology-oriented person on staff (yes that is another issue), my company was relying solely on good direction from this consulting business.

Am I being unreasonable to hold this against the consultants? Or is this indeed a no-brainer and they could (and should) have prevented the time and money loss.

My company is contemplating signing a longer-term contract with them but I have concerns.

Thoughts?

Thank you!

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Wayne Walton 13,730 on at

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Yes, data cleanup absolutely should have been planned for, but some people prefer to do the work inside the CRM app itself. I think that's more a matter of personal preference. Excel and the like are faster at bulk data edits, but merging duplicate records in CRM can keep your hierarchy between accounts and contacts more intact.

Sounds to me that the failure was more around a lack of communication from your consultants on when/where they planned on cleaning the data.

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tw0sh3ds 5,600 on at

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Hi,

I'm not sure if you are aware of that, but many of people here (at least people answering questions) are working as consultants for such companies that you describe (maybe even they are reading your posts). That was a little off-topic digression from my side :)

Now, as I'm obviously from the "other side of the force" as you, I can tell you that it's hard to answer your question without a wider perspective to the problem. I don't know what was the communication between you and this consulting company, so I don't know what did you agreed on. When I'm doing procedures like you described I ALWAYS ask client for the "clean" data and tell them that all the data that they will give me will be imported to CRM. Simply because it's CUSTOMER who knows what "clean" means to him, because the customer knows his data the best.

Of course I understand that you can complain that "everybody can see that in this file are multiple contact with the same email, those dummy consultants did not see that?", but if it's so obvious, then why have you given them duplicated data? You say that there is no person "technology-oriented" - really in the world of smarphones, contact books and everything done with a swipe of your finger you are saying that people do not understand what is a duplicated contact? Maybe I'm being subjective here, but I never came across a situation, when customer gives me or anyone from my company a file with data to import to CRM and we ask him - "Does it contain duplicates?". Because really - we assume that maybe customer does not understand technology, but at least understands data that he wants to keep in CRM.

So to sum up - I don't know the full context here, but for what you've described, I can't see the fault on Consultant side - he just assumed you gave him good data and he had every right to assume that.

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Community Member on at

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Thank you. I agree, I think communication was the issue here.

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Community Member on at

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Hi, yes, I was aware that many of the people here were probably consultants... and actually know what they are doing, unlike me and my colleagues. :) You make a good point about general knowledge about clean data -- yes! And I get why there might be an assumption of it. But I do think it was incumbent upon the consultant to make doubly sure that their clients (my company) were aware of the issue (especially when they, my colleagues, surely gave away that they pretty much knew nothing about the process). A quick look at the data would have also shown the problem. But I really appreciate your thoughts here. Thank you.

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tw0sh3ds 5,600 on at

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Hi,

Well basically it's all about the people here. I don't assume that somebody from the consulting company was thinking - "Ha, dummies gave me bad data, I will import it to CRM, they will realize and I will charge them twice". I always try to think good about the people, so I think that they just assumed the data was good because it came from the customer. But it's always like that in everything - when you buy a car, a computer, do a haircut or plan a holidays abroad - you can meet a person that will ask you questions and for example suggest that you are doing something wrong or suggest you to buy something else or you can meet a person that will simply get requirements from you and give you whatever you want even if it's not the best choice. And that also depends not only on the person - but even on a fact that he/she might be having hard day, some personal problems or just be tired or overloaded with tasks in the job. So I would not judge the whole company or even person on such incident. I think you should work on communication and I'm sure it will all turn out all right.

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Community Member on at

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Yes.. I hear you. Thanks! Happy New Year to all.

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