For service providers, a CRM database is where all the details of the customer are stored. It contains emails, addresses, and all other kinds of relevant data about their customers. But post-General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the usual intensity of acquiring new data for CRMs has reduced a bit. No doubt, business agencies wouldn’t want to attract any penalties due to the violation of the new norms, but at the same time, one cannot simply refrain from capturing new data, because it is more or less the fuel for business strategies. So where do the companies serving EU citizens turn to?

The solution is strict compliance and maintenance of clutter-free databases. The implementation of GDPR is intertwined with maintaining organized data, as we will try to explain below.

Why clean data?

Prior to the GDPR roll out, CRM storage would consist of certain bogus forms of data and not every business would take it seriously. It could be duplicate, incorrect or even obsolete data. However, with the data privacy regulations enforced, the axe falls first on obsolete data. These norms require a company to store customer data for only a limited period of time and that too with their consent, so storing old or obsolete data would mean a threat of attracting a penalty.

As far as incorrect data is concerned, organizations truly need to ensure that the data capture companies providing them CRM data maintain the utmost quality. GDPR is applicable to them too as much as it is to you. To be ready for any inspections, you need to have neatly structured and accurate data as opposed to untraceable data that may raise unwanted questions. The best practice would be to collaborate with a trustworthy agency, in order to escape sanctions and also to ensure a favorable business strategy.

Similarly, duplicate entries in your CRM, can also be the reason for attracting GDPR penalties. Let us say, your team removed customer data after receiving a non-sharing request, but a duplicate entry of the same particular individual is still present somewhere in your database. Upon inspection, it is found out that despite the customer opting out of data sharing, your company continued to store their details in the system making it a privacy offense on your part.

Prevention is, after all, better than cure. So, it is really important to put your data through a full-fledged assessment and deal with inaccurate, outdated and repetitive data for good.

The importance of partnership scrutiny

There are several outsourcing vendors catering to the EU audience, some involved in data entry and capturing services, while others providing support for a wide range of business processes. If your company bears the mark of a non-compliant agency, it can escalate and possibly land you in trouble as well.

After the arrival of GDPR, it is high time to implement data cleansing in your CRM data entries as well as to reconsider your collaborations with agencies yet to comply with it.

Get in touch!

Are you hesitant to proceed with outsourcing projects post-GDPR? We can help you capture reliable data and make your business processes sail through smoothly. Feel free to post your queries at info@suntecdata.com

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