The new year has begun, and people are slowly returning to routine.  This is the perfect time to protect one of your company’s most overlooked assets: the data sitting on your team’s phones.

Why It Matters

Contacts, photos, and videos on employee devices are marketing gold and a major business security risk. If a salesperson leaves tomorrow, will you lose critical client information? If those files aren’t backed up, you could lose valuable business information.

Photos and Video

This one is easy.  On most phone systems, you can connect them to a computer like any external drive and transfer from one to another.  Salespeople like to keep some photos and video for conversations in the new year so it’s not necessary that they completely clear their phones, but having backups in a secured location is critical. Here are some tips to ensure this task is completed:

• Designate a Central Location – Create a shared drive in your system and assign a folder to each person to ensure that all of the files make their way to safety
• Make it Easy – Provide clear, step-by-step instructions for transferring files – less friction, more success.
• Capture Insights – Set systems to organize the media consistently (Trade Shows, Proof Points, Testimonials, etc.). If context matters, define files or labels so everyone will understand. Adding notes to the folder or file name help.

Contacts

This task is critical for your business security and continuity.  Too often, we see a salesperson leave a company and take with them all their critical contacts because they’re sitting in a phone.

How you manage this task will differ for your business depending on two factors:

1. Corporate vs. Personal Phone? Paying employees to use their own phones for work is easy and convenient for salespeople but it’s a big business risk.  In our opinion, frequently downloading business contact information from a personal phone is a non-negotiable for the sales team.  Those contacts created on company time are company assets.  Protect them.
2. How do you store the contacts? If you have a database or use a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system, the contacts from a phone can be downloaded into a spreadsheet that can be easily uploaded into most systems.  If you’re not using a system, at least capturing a spreadsheet of contact information is better than not downloading it at all.

Regardless of your situation, downloading contacts is not an option.  Making the task as painless as possible can make it more likely that you’ll get what you need.

• Make it Easy – Provide specific, step-by-step instructions on how to do this so your team won’t procrastinate. Be clear on the outcome you expect from the process.
• Create a Check – Again, set up a filing system or place for downloads so you can tell if the work has been completed.
• Round it Out – Whether you’re using a spreadsheet or a more complex system, there are ways to identify contacts that are incomplete. Slower times are great for filling in the blanks so the contact information is robust and useful.  At a minimum, you need a full name, company, phone and email.  Ideally, you’ve got a position or title and an address.  Superstars include contact dates, notes on the connections and ratings.

Bottom Line

You wouldn’t leave your office unlocked so don’t leave your customer data unsecured. Take action now so you start the new year with clean phones and peace of mind.