Mazes, puzzles, and jigsaws are fun games to play outside of work—but they shouldn't be words you use to describe your CRM data. Piecing together fragmented records and data isn't a productive way to spend your time.
But accurate company-to-company associations are necessary if you want your sales, marketing, and support teams to have the central customer view that is vital to closing deals, offering excellent support, and personalizing communications.
Without accurate associations, team members will waste precious time duplicating efforts. For example, you may end up with two salespeople talking to two different contacts associated with the same company. One negotiates with the consultant, and the other with an employee, but decision-makers on the same deal.
Not only is this embarrassing, but it can lead to a poor customer experience and lost sales opportunities.
The only way around this hurdle is to fix your CRM's company-to-company associations. Connecting companies to consultancy firms, partners, and other companies associated with the business ensures your sales, marketing, and support teams have a complete view of all customer relationships.
Continue reading to learn how you can fix HubSpot company-to-company associations. Then stay tuned for an easier and faster solution.
The Business Impact of Missing Company-to-Company Associations
Missing company-to-company associations cause issues throughout an organization. Missing associations cause lost opportunities that negatively impact revenue, and they distort the information on which decisions are based, which in turn hits a company’s bottom line.
Here's a look at the downsides of not fixing missing company-to-company associations:
- Limited insight into account-based marketing (ABM): ABM strategies thrive on understanding the full scope of an organization's network, including all key influencers and decision-makers. You lack this insight without company-to-company associations, leading to incomplete account profiles and missed engagement opportunities. For example, if you're unaware that the two companies you're targeting are partners, you may miss the chance to leverage this relationship in your pitch.
- Complications in sales processes: When potential clients aren’t properly linked to their contractors or partners in your CRM, reaching out can become problematic. For instance, if you pitch a service to a company without realizing they have a preferred supplier in your CRM, you risk damaging both relationships due to this oversight.
- Missed opportunities in recognizing potential leads: The inability to see associations between companies can lead to missed opportunities. For example, if a client is associated with another company that's a perfect candidate for your services, but this link isn't visible in your CRM, you may never realize the potential for a new lead.
- Disjointed customer experiences: Customer service can suffer when company associations are unclear. If a customer reports an issue involving a partner company and your team is unaware of the connection, resolving the problem can become more complicated and time-consuming.
- Ineffective marketing campaigns: Targeted marketing relies on accurate data. Without proper associations, campaigns might not reach all relevant parties. For example, a marketing campaign aimed at retail companies could fail to include a key retail association that operates under a different industry code in your CRM.
To avoid the above pitfalls, you can add missing company-to-company associations manually using HubSpot.
How to Associate Companies to Companies in HubSpot
Associating companies to other companies within HubSpot is a manual process that can enhance your CRM's data structure and provide a more comprehensive view of your business relationships.
Here's a step-by-step guide to help you navigate this process:
- Step 1: Navigate to companies: Start by logging into your HubSpot account. In the main navigation bar, go to "Contacts" and select "Companies" from the dropdown menu.
- Step 2: Select a company: In the Companies section, browse or search for the company record you want to associate with another company. Click on the company's name to open its record.
- Step 3: Access associations: Look for the "Associations" section on the right sidebar on the company record page. This is where you'll manage all the company's associations.
- Step 4: Add an association: Click on the "Add" button in the “Companies” box. A dialog box will appear, prompting you to search for the company you want to associate with.
- Step 5: Search for the company: In the dialog box, start typing the name of the other company you wish to associate. HubSpot will suggest matches based on what you type.
- Step 6: Select and associate: From the suggested matches, click on the correct company to select it. Then, confirm the association by clicking the "Association" button.
- Step 7: Review the association: After associating the companies, the related company will now appear in the Associations section of the company record. You can click on the associated company to navigate to its record and verify the reciprocal association.
Remember, in HubSpot, you must manage associations between companies manually. So whenever you or your team interacts with a contact or company, you must remember to create these associations since HubSpot Workflows can't automatically add them for you.
Manually associating companies in HubSpot can be an arduous and error-prone process. Employees must navigate through multiple screens, search for the correct company records, and link them together one by one, which requires significant time and effort. The repetitive nature of the task and the volume of data involved make it susceptible to human error, such as overlooking important connections or making data entry mistakes.
Inconsistencies can arise when different employees have varying levels of understanding or attention to detail, leading to a lack of standardization in the company association process.
To mitigate these risks, businesses must invest in comprehensive training, establish clear guidelines, and consider implementing bulk tools to streamline the company association process.
It's a tedious and error-prone way to manage your CRM, but it's not the only way to ensure company-to-company associations in HubSpot.
Let's look at an easier way.
How Insycle Gives You Complete Control Over Bulk Company-to-Company Associations in HubSpot
Managing hundreds or thousands of company records is easier with a CRM. But if that CRM doesn't automatically associate these records, you’ll waste precious time and resources fixing the issue. Insycle can help.
Insycle is a customer data management platform that allows you to associate companies to other companies in HubSpot in bulk. You can set up association templates that will run automatically when triggered.
For example, whenever new contacts are added to a HubSpot workflow, Insycle can automatically associate these companies to their respective related companies. And you can do this for all sorts of records, including business partners, vendors, consultants, and contracted firms.
Additionally, Insycle allows you to analyze existing associations to find missing ones. For example, if you have two companies associated with the same deal, but those companies are not associated with one another, Insycle can detect this and create the association.
Build Sophisticated HubSpot Workflows With Insycle Recipes
Cooking up templates for your sales and marketing teams to automate bulk HubSpot company-to-company associations is one thing. But what if there were a way to bundle templates together and execute them as a single action?
There is, and it’s called an Insycle Recipe.
A Recipe is a collection of pre-built or custom templates you can set up in Insycle and execute in a specific order. These can be triggered automatically within HubSpot Workflows. Using Insycle Recipes, you can eliminate manual data entry, reduce the risk of human error, and ensure your CRM reflects the most current and accurate relationships.
For instance, you can build a Recipe that will associate all the contacts of a specific company with all the companies they work with. Just create a template for each action and then build a Recipe that runs them all in order.
Then, you can schedule this association Recipe to run automatically on a set schedule, or inject it into HubSpot workflows.
Keeping your CRM fresh without manual intervention doesn't get any easier than that.
Link Records Seamlessly With Insycle's Automation Features
Data is like a precious gem: The more you shine it, the more valuable it becomes. But doing this manually is laborious and time-consuming. With Insycle, you can identify records that are missing associations and add those associations in bulk, automatically.
But company-to-company associations aren’t the only thing Insycle can help with. It can also remove duplicate records, update outdated fields, merge data, and migrate databases. Plus, it can integrate with your favorite tools, such as Marketo, Salesforce, and Mailchimp.
Ready to tackle the muddled mess in your HubSpot CRM without wasting weeks of your time? We invite you to learn more about Insycle for HubSpot. Schedule a demo today.
