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The power of your CRM data can’t be understated—it drives deals, informs firmwide decisions, and streamlines operational efficiencies. For it to work, though, it needs to be inputted. With CRM data entry taking team members an average of four hours a week, it’s no wonder that more and more organizations are seeing their internal CRM adoption rates drop.*
By automating CRM data entry, you can save your organization over 200 hours per year and tap into invaluable insights. But what else can automation of your data entry processes do for your organization? And how can you implement a data automation strategy?
Read on as we answer those questions and more related to CRM data entry automation.
What is data entry automation?
Data entry automation involves using software to eliminate the manual work involved in data entry tasks. Many different types of data can be automated, which helps to save time and money by eliminating the human dependency from manual data entry processes.
Reasons why your organization should automate data entry
We all hate manual data entry. It’s a time-consuming challenge that causes our productivity levels to take a nosedive. Here are six reasons that it’s time to implement automated systems for data entry.
Free up time for your team members
Data entry saps time. Nearly 60% of workers estimate they could save six or more hours a week, the equivalent of an entire workday, if repetitive aspects of their jobs were automated.* Manual data entry can negatively affect productivity, quality of support for prospective deals and portfolio companies, and profitability.
Time spent manually logging activities and tasks is time spent away from finding and closing deals. By eliminating the need for manual data entry, firms can allocate more time to engaging with their network, meeting prospective investments, and driving deals.
The repetitive nature of adding emails and contact information into CRM systems and spreadsheets also damages morale. Manual entry is tedious and unfulfilling and causes engagement to plummet. Low engagement can increase turnover and harm interactions with others.
Get the full picture
It’s tiring to update CRMs and spreadsheets constantly. Affinity research found that almost three-quarters of business leaders believe that their CRM takes too much of their team’s time and that they have a productivity issue.* When asked to quantify, 69% said their team spends four or more hours updating their CRM weekly.
That’s a lot of work! Making sure that all these updates are entered can feel like pulling teeth.
Given the tedious nature of manual CRM entry, it’s not surprising that many people avoid the task. Only 40% of all updates are ever entered into a CRM. When entering deal information, dealmakers may prioritize some over others. This causes significant blindspots and inaccurate data.
For example, it hurts a firm’s ability to track deal source, deal flow, and ROI of the deal accurately. It also jeopardizes future interactions with that startup. Without logs of a prospect’s past interactions (for example, pain points, objectives, and/or objections), dealmakers are at a disadvantage.
Even when contact details and updates are entered, they tend to be entered after a deal is closed—when we know it is “real.” But without notes of customer meetings and schedules of future engagements, dealmakers are more likely to drop the ball on interactions and lose deals.
Eliminate dirty data
Humans are prone to error, which is a top cause of CRM and spreadsheet data inaccuracy. Human error can take many forms, including typos, spelling mistakes, and entering data into the wrong fields. For example, inputting a “7” instead of a “6” in a startup or customer’s email can cause you to lose contact with a key member of your network.
Human inaccuracy carries a lofty price tag. According to Sirius Decisions, each “dirty” CRM record costs a company $100. The cost quickly adds up. Dirty data wreaks particular havoc on relations with prospective startups. Something as simple as misspelling a founder’s name can compromise personalization efforts and result in a negative experience.
The negative effects of manual CRM data entry only become worse over time. Research by Sirius Decisions also found that the average company’s contact data volume doubles every 12-18 months. Don’t let manual data entry impair your firm’s ability to succeed.
By automating data entry processes, you can ensure your data is clean and that your organization adheres to data hygiene best practices.
Enhance efficiency
When you use intelligent data entry automation software powered by machine learning, artificial intelligence, or even a sophisticated algorithm, you can accelerate the data entry process compared to manual methods. By saving time and assigning data entry jobs to a software program, you free up your team to be more efficient.
Improve your scalability
As your fund evolves and you speak to more potential investments, having an up-to-date CRM with the latest information allows you to scale easily. With a single source of data in your organization, it’s easy to onboard new team members, move deals through the pipeline, and make more investments.
Gain greater insight into your data
Automated systems can help you track and analyze your data more efficiently, giving you more insight into your firm’s performance. For example, with Affinity, you can uncover warm introduction paths when your entire organization is connected and sharing data. This is just one example of how data automation can help you improve operations and reduce the work each team member needs to complete.
What technologies are used in data entry automation?
There have been considerable advancements in automation in recent years. New technologies have helped to create robust tools that help organizations take advantage of the benefits of data entry automation. Two of the most popular data entry automation technologies are:
- Robotic Process Automation (RPA): This technology copies human interactions, such as keystrokes and navigation, to help automate repetitive tasks.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI): While the world has come to know AI as the technology that can do almost anything, it’s particularly effective for simple tasks like automated data entry. For example, AI-powered optical character recognition (OCR) tools use document processing technology to read a scanned document and automatically input the data into a database. See how Affinity is developing in this area by downloading the guide to how AI will transform dealmaking.
How to automate data entry in your CRM
Automating data entry in your CRM is a great way to optimize organizational efficiency and get more from your data. The process is more than simply implementing a new technology or software solution. It’s about streamlining your data management processes at every step and using automation software to help.
This step-by-step guide will help you start automating your data management using data entry automation software.
1. Identify repetitive tasks within your CRM
The first step to streamline your data entry process is to identify the repetitive data entry tasks within your workflows. Look for tasks that take a large amount of time but are simple enough that they could be automated. For example, logging interactions into your CRM is a repetitive task that can take four hours a week to complete.* Tasks like this are excellent candidates for automation.
2. Find the right automation tool
Once you’ve identified your tasks, it’s time to look for a CRM automation tool that supports your needs. Some CRMs have their own automation functionality, including:
- Automated CRM records: Turn every customer interaction—email, meeting, phone call, and more—into a CRM record.
- Data enrichment: Get more from your CRM records with automated data enrichment that drives deals.
- Task assignment: Configure workflows to assign contacts and deals to the correct team member as tasks.
- Notifications: Get notified if you need to re-engage with a contact, or about upcoming tasks or meetings.
3. Implement your CRM data entry automation solution
When you determine which CRM or CRM data entry automation tool you’ll use, it’s time to implement it into your workflow. You’ll need to integrate the tool within your existing systems and set up the software.
Additionally, you’ll need to onboard and train team members to use the new tool(s). This is essential to ensure your organization has a high adoption rate. As mentioned above, Only 40% of all updates are ever entered into a CRM—if team members find the tool tedious or hard to use, odds are they won’t use it. And that results in your organization losing out on important data. Training your team on all CRM tools helps to ensure they use the tool and gives your organization access to the data that enables better decision-making.
4. Test, refine, and test again
After implementation:
- Keep a close eye on the performance of your recently added automation tools.
- Monitor for any issues that arise or potential problems that create bottlenecks in the process.
- Refine the process as needed and continue testing and improving.
You may need to tweak workflows, change software settings, provide additional training to team members, or reevaluate specific business processes.
5. Scale your automation processes
Once you’ve automated a task and refined the process, you can look for other areas in your business processes that can benefit from data entry automation. Eventually, you can automate more tasks across various teams in your firm.
6. Continue to monitor and improve your automation
An established data entry automation process is not the end of the road. You must continue monitoring the automation processes you’ve created to ensure they run efficiently. Continue to look for areas of improvement and invest in new technologies that could enhance your organization’s data entry automation process.
Make data entry automation second nature with Affinity
A CRM that brings automation to the forefront, Affinity automatically captures and manages your network across founders, investors, and others who can get you that warm introduction while giving you the data to source your next deal.
Save 200+ hours of manual data entry and updates per year. Every person or company you interact with automatically creates a CRM record enriched with the data you need to build deals. All interactions are captured, giving everyone the visibility to move deals forward quickly and confidently.
Learn more about how Affinity can help you close more deals faster.
Already using Salesforce? You can gain these same benefits by using the Affinity for Salesforce add-in.
Data entry automation FAQs
What is CRM data entry?
CRM data entry is the process of creating a detailed database of each contact’s history with your organization, including their contact information, behavior, and preferences. It involves entering all relevant data into your CRM.
Is data entry becoming obsolete?
Manual data entry completed by a human is becoming obsolete as more data entry automation tools become readily available for organizations worldwide.
Is manual entry or automatic data extraction more reliable?
While it may seem like having a human touch would make data extraction or entry more reliable, automated data entry tools have superior accuracy as they minimize human error. When automatically extracted data from Excel, CSV, Google Sheets, or another data source is entered into a CRM or database, it’s more likely to be accurate.
Which tool is best for data entry automation?
While you can automate data entry in an Excel spreadsheet, the best way to automate CRM data entry is to use a CRM with built-in automation capabilities. Tools like Affinity make it easy to track your deal flow while giving you access to automation tools that provide additional insights into your potential investments as well as portfolio companies.
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*Data from Affinity’s 2024 survey of 250+ business leaders across investment banking, media and communications, real estate, professional services, healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, and enterprise technology.
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