CRM Data Hygiene: Why It Matters and How to Maintain It

Data hygiene is an ongoing process for maintaining the accuracy and reliability of past, current and future customer details.

Data management keeps the business data accurate and updated, leading to better decision-making and, in turn, increasing efficiency. Clean data connects Sales with the right leads, improves marketing activities, and increases the ROI.

CRM Data Management Best Practices

Keeping your CRM data clean starts with the right strategy. Here’s how to make it happen:

“Without a systematic way to start and keep data clean, bad data will happen.”

— Donato Diorio, Founder & CEO, FLiK

Step 1: Start with a Data Audit

Before cleansing your CRM data, conduct a thorough data audit to assess:

• Is the data up to date?
• Are there duplicates?
• Are there contacts that haven’t engaged in months (or years)?

Start by identifying contacts that need to be removed, such as:

• Hard-bounced emails
• Unsubscribed users

Step 2: Clean Up Your CRM Data

The goal is to maintain the accuracy & quality for every contact or company in the CRM. Some ways to clean up your database include cleaning and de-duplication of data.

1. Remove Old Contacts
   Leads with old contact information can be updated to include the most recent details.
2. Find and Merge Duplicates
   Duplicate data is a common issue in most of the CRM systems, and there are various reasons for it. The deduplication of contacts can help in maintaining the system’s accuracy and efficiency.
3. Filter Low-Engagement Contacts
   If a contact hasn’t opened an email or engaged with your website in a year, lower their score or pause email communication and targeting for a while. Excluding inactive leads enhances email deliverability and allows you to concentrate your marketing efforts on high-value prospects.

Contacts who haven’t interacted with emails or your website for a year should have their engagement score lowered or be removed from targeting. Prioritizing engaged prospects enhances campaign effectiveness and email performance.

Step 3: Standardize Data Entry

Data inconsistency while importing or adding data can cause bad data. Without a structured process, you may end up with inconsistent representations of the same information. For instance, “New York City” can be written as “NY” or “New York,” and a job title could be written as “Vice President” or “V.P.” This can be reduced by following these steps:

• Use dropdown values instead of free-text fields to standardise the data values.
• Create mandatory fields for key information, like job title, industry, and email.
• Implement a structured data entry formatfor company names, phone numbers, and addresses to maintain uniformity across records.

Step 4: Validate Data Regularly 

Data decays over time. So, regularly cleaning your CRM data – more than once a year – will help in maintaining it. Here’s how we can do that:

• Standardize the data values before adding them to the CRM to maintain accuracy and consistency across all records.
• Validate contact details against reliable sources to remove outdated or incorrect information.
• Automate data quality controls by implementing validation rules that reject incomplete entries during form submissions, integrations, or imports.

Step 5: Follow Standard Practices for Ongoing Data Management

Set clear guidelines for your team to follow so that clean CRM data stays clean, including:

• Standardised Data Entry Protocols– Use predefined formats, data validation rules, dropdown lists, and structured fields to minimise inconsistencies.
• Routine Data Audits– Conduct regular audits—monthly, quarterly, or annually—based on your organisation’s needs to uphold data accuracy, integrity, and security.
• Access Control Measures– Restrict editing permissions to a few users to prevent accidental modifications and ensure data reliability.

Step 6: Integrate Your Tech Stack for Seamless Data Flow

Your CRM is just one component of your tech stack. To maintain data accuracy and consistency, integrate your CRM with email marketing tools, lead management platforms, and other business systems. Real-time data synchronisation will help prevent discrepancies by centralising customer and prospect information across all platforms. Here are a few key strategies to optimise data flow:

• Ensure all platforms pull data from a single source of truth.
• Synchronise data in real time by updating records whenever leads interact with your brand.
• Set up automated workflows to identify, flag, and correct data inconsistencies as they occur.

The Advantages of Keeping CRM Data Clean

Here are the benefits you’ll reap when you keep your CRM data clean:

• Improved lead generation and B2B database management
• Higher email deliverability, reducing bounce rates and spam issues
• More reliable customer insights, leading to personalized marketing
• Better decision-making with high-quality data
• Reduced manual effort in fixing CRM errors
• Lower costs by avoiding unnecessary marketing spend on bad data
• More relevant messaging and higher engagement rates
• Improved trust in your brand, leading to better customer experiences

Conclusion

CRM data hygiene affects sales efficiency, marketing accuracy, and overall growth. Poor data quality can lead to misguided decisions, lost revenue, and wasted resources.

By Implementing robust data-cleaning processes, automating enrichment, and maintaining accurate segmentation help organizations maximize the value of their CRM systems and achieve better results.

At Digital Di Consultants, we offer expert consulting, CRM data management, and strategic marketing solutions. Whether you need Salesforce & HubSpot consulting, marketing database cleaning, or B2B data enrichment services, our team ensures your data remains an asset, not a liability.

Ready to enhance your CRM data quality? Book a meeting today to learn how we can help you maximize the impact of your CRM data.