Company: Data.com
Entry Submitted by: Katie Chastek (ktc) Community Manager
Community: Data.com (community.jigsaw.com)
Lithy Categories: Best Business ROI
The abundance and pace of changing business data has been a long-time issue for companies who struggle to manage and keep their data clean and actionable.
With the proliferation of social data, business data management has become an increasingly important and difficult objective.
After revolutionizing CRM a decade ago, Salesforce has a history of taking on challenging industry problems. Launched last August, Salesforce’s Data.com is setting out to transform the business data industry by making data accessible in the cloud and surrounding the data assets with a strong community to provide real-time intelligence.
The Result Data.com’s 4 million member strong community launched in August and is integral to the solution’s success.
Unlike other data providers that solely rely on an algorithm to update and maintain their data assets, Data.com’s community plays an active role in maintaining data accuracy and uploading new business accounts and contacts. Ultimately, the community not only benefits from Data.com’s solution through rewards and offline events, but it also puts customers in a position to succeed.
Just how much does the community contribute?
Each month, members add over a million new contacts, allowing Data.com to grow and provide quality data to marketing and sales operations. The most dedicated community members are what Data.com labels Rainmakers and Data Defenders.
Rainmakers are Data.com’s most active users who volunteer to add and update over 500+ business data contacts. In The Corner, Rainmakers join other community members in using the community to contact other users worldwide or network to share ideas, exchange tips and best practices.
In addition to the forums, there is an Idea Exchange for members to add suggestions and ideas to improve their Data.com experience.
Data Defenders are a small group of people in the Data.com community and a part of a data quality protector program who clean records and evaluate data quality. Data Defenders are essentially the quality control leaders in the community. The group flags and graveyards stale or inaccurate data and then corrects the discrepancy – allowing Data.com to have the unique approach of combining algorithm technology with human business data smarts.
Community Collaboration = Customer Success
An example of the instant success of Data.com is illustrated through Clairmail, an enterprise-wide mobile banking and payments solution that needed to target new prospects, create a better experience for current customers and reduce time spent on chasing inaccurate data. With Data.com, Clairmail has increased dial effectiveness by 15%, closed 20% more deals and attributed 32% of their overall revenue from business data sourced from Data.com.
What is unique about Data.com for Clairmail is that the community responds in real-time. Clairmail has an advantage over competition with the most up-to-date account and contact information that allows them to find the right people at the right companies at the right time.
Salesforce's Data.com is already accomplishing what it set out to do: build a strong community around business data that allows customers to deliver effective sales and marketing campaigns that grow their businesses. And with over 4 million community members and growing, Data.com has been a tremendous success since launching just six months ago.