Give Your CRM a Summer MOT Before the Autumn Rush
Databroker Summer Series - Part 2 of 8 – Building Your Best Q4 Starts Now
Moving on to data cleansing in more detail. In the first blog in the series, I looked at why your September sales pipeline actually starts in July. The main message was simple. Don’t wait until September to start preparing for September.
But before you spend money on fresh prospect data, launch a new email campaign or ask your sales team to pick up the phone more often, there’s another question worth asking.
Can you actually trust the data you’ve already got? It’s a question that catches a lot of businesses off guard.
Most companies invest a huge amount of time building their CRM. New customers are added, prospects are imported, enquiries are logged and marketing campaigns generate hundreds, sometimes thousands, of new records every year.
Then… not a lot happens.
The CRM grows.
Nobody really tidies it up. Nobody notices that people have changed jobs, companies have moved, duplicates have appeared or phone numbers have quietly stopped working.
It’s a bit like buying a brand-new car and never servicing it. It’ll keep running for a while.
But eventually, little problems start appearing. Then those little problems become bigger ones, and before long you’re wondering why something that used to perform so well suddenly feels unreliable.
Your CRM is no different.
In 30 Seconds
If you’re short on time, here’s what you need to know.
- Every CRM deteriorates unless it’s regularly maintained.
- Poor quality data costs sales teams time and marketing teams opportunities.
- Summer is the ideal time to review, cleanse and improve your database.
- A healthier CRM creates a stronger pipeline for the autumn.
Your CRM Should Be Your Biggest Asset
One of the first questions I ask when meeting a new client is surprisingly simple. “How much do you trust your CRM?” The answer is almost always the same - it could be better! It's the same for us, our CRM isn't perfect either!
That’s because deep down they already know where the problems are. They know there are duplicate companies. They know people have moved jobs. They know some email addresses bounce. They know there are records with missing phone numbers or incomplete information.
The frustrating part is that everyone knows these issues exist, but they’re rarely urgent enough to fix. Until they become urgent. Usually because someone wants to launch a campaign next week.
CRMs Don’t Go Wrong Overnight
One of the biggest misconceptions about data quality is that it suddenly becomes bad. It doesn’t. It happens gradually. Businesses change details, move, relocate, close, re-open and so on, but your CRM cannot keep up. That process needs regular help, such as cleanse and append services.
Small changes in your CRM never feels particularly significant on their own. But after two or three years, they start to add up. That’s why businesses are often surprised when they discover just how many issues have quietly crept into their CRM. Not because anyone has done anything wrong. Simply because businesses evolve. People move on. And data reflects that.
From the Databroker Desk
One thing we’ve learnt over the years is that nobody gets excited about data cleansing. It’s not glamorous. Nobody walks into the office saying, “I can’t wait to remove duplicate records today.” But almost every business gets excited about generating more leads.
The irony is that those two things are often closely linked.
We’ve worked with businesses who were convinced they needed thousands of new prospects, only to discover they were sitting on hundreds of perfectly good opportunities that had simply been forgotten inside their CRM, such as:
- Old enquiries.
- Past customers.
- Lapsed opportunities.
- Incomplete records.
- People who’d changed job titles but were still working for the same organisation.
Sometimes the quickest route to more business isn’t buying more data. It’s making better use of the data you’ve already invested time and money collecting.
A Healthy CRM Makes Everything Else Easier
Think about everything that relies on your CRM:
- Sales calls
- Email marketing
- Lead generation
- Account management
- Customer service
- Invoicing and bill chasing
- Management information
- Recruitment
Every one of those activities depends on having reliable data.
If the information underneath isn’t accurate, every decision built on top of it becomes a little less reliable too. That’s why we often encourage clients to think of data cleansing as preventative maintenance rather than a one-off project. You service your car because you want it to stay reliable. Your CRM deserves exactly the same approach. Learn more about our services below:
And It’s Not Just About Cleaning Data
When people hear the phrase data cleansing, they often think it simply means deleting duplicate records or correcting the odd spelling mistake. In reality, it’s much broader than that, a good CRM review is an opportunity to ask whether your database still reflects the market you’re trying to sell into today.
- Have your target sectors changed?
- Are the job titles you’re targeting still the right ones?
- Have customers grown, merged or expanded?
- Are there missing email addresses that could be appended?
- Would direct dial telephone numbers help your sales team have more conversations?
- Should you be enriching records with employee size, turnover or company information to make segmentation easier?
It’s not just about fixing what’s broken. It’s about making the information you already own work harder for your business. That’s where data enhancement becomes just as valuable as cleansing. Adding missing information, validating existing records and enriching customer profiles often gives sales and marketing teams a much clearer picture of who they’re actually working with.
Summer Is the Ideal Time to Do It
The timing matters. When September arrives, everyone suddenly wants results.
Sales teams need fresh opportunities. Marketing campaigns go live. Budgets need spending. Reports start landing on directors’ desks. By then, it’s too late to discover your CRM isn’t fit for purpose. July and August give you breathing space. There’s time to review your data properly.
Time to speak to sales about where they’re struggling. Time to identify patterns in bounced emails or missing contact details. Time to improve things before they become tomorrow’s problem. It’s exactly the same reason people service a car before a long journey rather than halfway through it. A little preparation now usually prevents much bigger headaches later.
If You Remember One Thing…
Your CRM isn’t a project you finish. It’s an asset you maintain. The businesses that get the most value from their customer data aren’t necessarily the ones with the biggest databases.
They’re the ones who look after them.
A healthy CRM saves time. It improves reporting. It helps sales teams trust the information they’re using. It gives marketing a stronger foundation to build campaigns from.
And perhaps most importantly, it gives everyone confidence that they’re making decisions based on accurate information rather than educated guesses.
Five-Minute Challenge
Open your CRM and pick ten customer records at random.
Ask yourself:
- Would I be confident giving these records to my best salesperson?
- Are the decision-makers still correct?
- Are there duplicate companies?
- Do we have email addresses and telephone numbers where we’d expect them?
- Does this information still reflect the business today?
If the answer is “not really” more than once or twice, your CRM is probably overdue a summer MOT.
Looking Ahead
In the next blog, we’re going to put a value on something that most businesses never actually calculate.
Poor quality data.
We’ll look at how inaccurate information quietly wastes sales time, marketing budget and commercial opportunities, and why investing in data quality often delivers a return far greater than most businesses realise. Because before deciding whether to buy more data, it’s worth understanding exactly what bad data is already costing you.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is CRM data cleansing?
CRM data cleansing is the process of improving the quality of your customer and prospect database by removing duplicate records, correcting inaccuracies, validating contact information and ensuring records remain accurate and up to date.
How often should a CRM be cleaned?
There’s no fixed rule, but most businesses benefit from reviewing their CRM at least once or twice a year. Regular maintenance helps prevent data quality issues from building up over time.
What’s the difference between data cleansing and data enhancement?
Data cleansing improves the accuracy of existing records by correcting or removing inaccurate information. Data enhancement adds missing information such as email addresses, telephone numbers, employee size, turnover, SIC codes, sector codes, directory codes, market sectors, technographics, firmographics or other business intelligence.
Why does CRM data become outdated?
Businesses constantly change. People move jobs, companies relocate, organisations merge, phone numbers change and email addresses become inactive. Without regular maintenance, every CRM gradually becomes less accurate.
Can cleaning a CRM improve sales performance?
Yes. Better quality data helps sales teams spend less time chasing inaccurate information and more time speaking to the right people, while also improving marketing performance and reporting accuracy.
