CDI best practices to follow during a CRM migration

CDI best practices to follow during a CRM migration

We are going from a premise-based CRM system to Salesforce.com on-demand CRM. Can you provide any tips for making this a smooth transition in terms of our customer data integration efforts?

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Here's a really good one, if I do say so myself: Identify your business rules up front. In other words, understand the difference between a "lead," a "contact" and an "opportunity." Will leads be eligible to receive your corporate newsletter? Who is authorized to convert their status?

Why are rules like this so important? Because your customer-focused business processes will be very specific about the type of information they need and you should be as well, especially when it comes to the sales associates and others who will be entering new information into Salefsorce.com. The better they understand the definitions and rules involved in data entry, the better the eventual accuracy, meaning, and usability of that data on the back-end. Salesforce.com offers a range of analytic reports, but at the end of the day—as with most reporting tools—they are only as valuable as the data is accurate.

Good luck with your migration effort!

This was first published in March 2009