Why Your B2B CRM Needs Customer Codes and How To Implement Them

Table of Contents

Why Not Use System IDs?

Almost every software that tracks company data has a unique identifier via an internal code. However, these codes are too bulky with 10-20 digit alpha-numerical values. Customer Codes should be 4-5 characters so they are conversational. “Can you check out customer 1422 and let me know their ARR?” This is much easier than writing or remembering customer 190a56m22rt98.

I Think My Customer Data is Fine

You may think that your B2B CRM has the correct list of customers, and while you might, other teams may not. Companies use various systems across several departments, which are maintained by different people. It’s quite easy for customer lists to quickly become outdated if you don’t have a single source of truth. Even if you have clean data today, there’s still a good chance that it’s difficult for your systems to “talk” to each other. Here’s an example:

Imagine that Sales tracks the list of customers in their CRM while Finance tracks their data in their Financial Software tool. When a new customer signs a contract, sales might have their name as “ABC Company.” However, Finance may track companies using their legal entity name, such as “ABC Co., Inc.” In this example, we already have two different names for the same company. This is extremely common.

Where Problems Can Begin

Now imagine that ABC Company is up for renewal, but churns. It may be that Sales forgets to update their data while Finance remembers. If you haven’t personally seen this, I can assure you that it’s extremely common for systems to get outdated quickly due to poor processes or a simple lack of resources to maintain databases. 

Now, extrapolate this out a few years, toss in a score of customers that churned, and include a half dozen other systems for Professional Services, Customer Success, Legal, and Marketing, and we can quickly understand how our data will not match across tools. 

I Am Ready To Clean Up My Data

Perhaps you’re in this situation right now and are ready to clean up your data. Even though you want to reconcile your data, remember that the company names don’t match, so this won’t be a quick 5 minute clean up. This could take hours of work with help needed from the various system owners who commit to work with you to clean up the official customer lists across the company. The question is, where to begin?

Step 1 – Talk to Finance

While several departments may keep a list of customers, in almost every case, we should work off of Finance’s data. They should have the official list of customers as they invoice and track data for accounting purposes. Of all the departments in your company, it’s the most important for them to be 100% accurate. 

Discuss Your Plan

1. Let them know that you want clean data across systems.
2. Tell them about your plan to add Customer Codes into your B2B CRM and how you would like those same codes added into other departments’ systems as well; theirs included. 
3. Ask for an official list of customers, former customers, partners, etc. This data will likely be given to you in a spreadsheet because Finance generally doesn’t want too many people in their system of record. 

Step 2 – Talk with Other Departments

Be sure to talk with other teams to let them know of your plan with Finance. After we add Customer Codes to the B2B CRM and Finance’s system, we can help other teams do the same. Be sure to handle this systematically and try not to do everything at once.

Step 3 – Get Finance’s Data

When you are ready for the export of Finance’s data, be sure to ask for the Finance System Company ID, Company Name, and Status of all companies. 

• Company ID will enable Finance to load in the newly assigned Customer Codes to each company record
• The Company Name from Finance is what’s used to match up against the Company Name from your B2B CRM
• The Status denotes if the company is a customer, former customer, partner, etc.
• Ask for other data that Finance has, which you need to verify in your CRM

Next, do the same for the CRM data; export it into an Excel spreadsheet or Google Sheet.

Step 4 – Begin to Clean the Data

1. Now that you have all of your B2B CRM and Finance data in one place, assign an ID for all of your CRM companies starting with 1001 and go sequentially. 
2. Match up the CRM data to the Finance data. Part of this will likely be a manual process.
3. Flag the CRM companies that aren’t in Finance’s list, and vice versa.
4. Flag the status of the companies that don’t match (e.g. CRM has ABC Co as Customer and Finance has ABC Company as Former Customer).

Step 5 – Review Data with Finance

Now that you matched up what data you could, set up a time to review your spreadsheet with Finance. The goal of your meeting is to reconcile the differences to get your official list of customers, former customers, partners, and so on.

Step 6 – Import Data

Sales Ops should import this data back into the B2B CRM and Finance should import this data back into the Finance software. Be sure to audit the data as you spot check that Customer Codes match up in both systems.

Step 7 – Help Other Departments

In Step 2, we talked to other departments about our plan. Now that our CRM and Finance data match, it’s time to help others do the same. Sales Ops should reach out and let teams know that the official lists are set in the aforementioned systems. Ask them if they need help to clean up their data.

Step 8 – Create a Process

Work with Finance, and other departments, to create a process which:

1. Keeps customer data up to date across systems
2. Tracks churned customers
3. Adds Customer Codes to new customers as they get signed

We have two options to keep our data clean:

1. Handle manually.  Establish a single place that everyone has access to whereby one department is responsible to keep track of the customer list and Customer Codes. Note that a customer never loses their Customer Code, even if they churn. It’s always kept for reference purposes.
2. Automation. I would recommend that Finance be the official keeper of this data for the same reason we used their official customer list to clean up data in the first place. This could be an entire article on its own but here’s the short version: Finance can automate the creation of a new Customer Code for each new client added into their system, which can then be shared automatically to other team members, who can then add this data into their respective systems.

Wrap Up – B2B CRM & Client Codes

Customer Codes in your B2B CRM are an effective way to enable data to speak to each other across multiple systems. However, the process can be time consuming and requires the buy-in from multiple parties. Remember to share a clear plan of action, who is responsible for what, and be sure to share this article with them so they understand how and why this needs to happen. We can add this to our list of ways Sales Operations can help to optimize your business: Part 1 and Part 2.

---