Does clean account & contact data promote better CRM adoption?

This is a double edged sword type of question really. I think that it can help, but there are may reasons ahead of account and contact data being clean that promotes adoption.

Here are the items I believe promote adoption in order of priority:
1- Requirements gathering for implementation as part of a Sales workshop: A sales workshop where the sales folks are included in the conversation about what and how things could be implemented. Sure this can turn into a gripe session, but I have yet to see worse adoption doing this…it’s only been better 100% of the time in taking this approach.
2- Having an experienced team lead the implementation: Experience needs to be in processes, understanding the value of CRM, having implemented and knowing what obstacles can come up, what questions to ask, and setting reasonable expectations. You get what you pay for, and if you get to budget conscious in the beginning, it’s highly likely to cost you much, much more to fix later.
3- Executive buy-in and communication leadership: management needs to be driving the conversation about the change to come when implementing a CRM tool. There needs to be regularly scheduled communication from management to the sales team(s) about progress, what the changes mean to sales, what the benefits of using the tool(s) are, and what will happen if the users do not use. This means that performance measurements will be directly built into the tool(s) and tracked directly from the tool versus allowing for any alternatives for tracking performance outside of the tool(s)- i.e where the sales reps are sending spreadsheets, emails, and/or leaving phone messages and not putting this information into the tool(s). Net-net is the executives need to set expectations up front that the tool will be used this way.
4- Training needs to be well-built, delivered and ongoing: Too often companies do not build in the ongoing costs of training into the CRM costs. It is critical to have training on the tools be often, not just based on changes/enhancements, and in terms that sales folks will understand.
5- Data Quality: If the data was bad before, and it is bad again in a new tool, this is definitely a strike against adoption. A data quality plan is one of those areas that can be a time suck, so it’s often pushed out of the an initial implementation work. BIG mistake! Data quality can be worked in parallel with an implementation and is critical to the success of performance metrics. Users who have had bad data in the past do seem to be more tolerable, but are usually quite hopeful it will a change using a new tool. Where I thinks this threatens adoption is at the top with executive buy-in. My advice is to address this as soon as possible, set proper expectations around this topic, and make sure to include a data quality tool in the implementation up front. It is money well spent given that data quality gets exponentially worse over time.

Overall, I feel that adoption is about the relationship users have with management, process, and tools. I have heard before that CRM a three-legged stool, and I firmly believe that has not changed nor will.