By The PhantomBuster TeamIs your CRM helping or hurting your sales team? A messy database can slow you down, lead to wasted outreach, and even impact your revenue growth.
Keeping your CRM clean isn’t just about deleting old contacts. It’s about having fresh, enriched leads your team can use.
With that in mind, here's how to implement good CRM hygiene.
AI highlights
CRM data hygiene ensures your customer data is accurate, complete, and current.
Maintaining good CRM hygiene is crucial for sales teams to work efficiently and close more deals. A cluttered CRM leads to wasted time, poor outreach, and inaccurate sales forecasting.
Best practices include extracting fresh data, using intent data to find quality leads, leveraging enrichment tools, automating CRM updates, choosing tools that easily integrate with your CRM, setting data quality guidelines, eliminating silos, and ensuring proper CRM training.
The right tools—like PhantomBuster, HubSpot's Breeze Intelligence, and Apollo—can help keep CRM data accurate and actionable.
Best Practice | Definition |
Extract fresh data instead of using databases | Pull real-time lead data from platforms like LinkedIn instead of static databases. |
Find high-quality leads based on intent data | Use signals like event participation, hiring trends, and social media activity to target engaged prospects. |
Use enrichment tools to get accurate contact data | Fill in missing details like emails, phone numbers, and job titles for better outreach. |
Continuously update CRM data using automation | Automatically refresh CRM records to remove outdated or incorrect information. |
Use sales tools that integrate with your CRM | Ensure smooth data flow between other sales and marketing tools. |
Define data quality guidelines | Set clear data entry, formatting, and validation rules to keep CRM data clean. |
Eliminate data silos | Connect all business tools to a centralized CRM to prevent fragmented information. |
Train your sales team on CRM data management | Educate reps entering, updating, and maintaining CRM data properly. |
What is CRM data hygiene?
CRM data hygiene refers to keeping your customer data accurate, complete, and up to date. That means no duplicate entries, outdated records, or missing details.
The goal is to ensure the cleanliness of the information in your CRM, keeping it out of dirty data.
Why is CRM data hygiene important?
Having clean Customer Relationship Management (CRM) data is essential for sales and marketing teams. Here's why:
Improve sales productivity: Sales reps waste 17% of their time on manual CRM updates. But with clean data, you can save time and focus on the right leads.
Ensure data accuracy: 30% of CRM data becomes unreliable each year. That's why refreshing that data is so important so that you can run a far more efficient sales process.
Get better sales forecasting: Sales statistics show that only 2% of sales reps feel over 90% confident in their CRM data. But reliable data in your CRM makes it easier to make the right decisions.
Enhance your lead scoring: Poor CRM data hygiene can make you misunderstand your prospects. But with accurate data, you can know them and score them better.
Comply with privacy regulations: Good CRM data hygiene reduces the risk of storing incorrect or unauthorized data that could violate laws like GDPR and CCPA.
Best practices to keep your CRM free from dirty data
Ready to put data hygiene into action? Here are eight simple tips to maintain a clean, efficient CRM system. Just bear in mind that this is a continuous process.
1. Extract fresh data instead of using databases
Using outdated lead lists? You’re already behind. Instead of relying on static databases, pull fresh, real-time data from sources like LinkedIn.
Old contact lists lead to bounced emails, dead phone numbers, and wasted outreach. Pulling real-time data keeps your CRM accurate and ensures your sales team reaches prospects who are still in the game.
And data collection doesn't have to be a time drain. For example, you can use PhantomBuster's LinkedIn Search Export to extract the results of a LinkedIn search automatically.
This is a great way to find leads matching your ICP directly from LinkedIn.
2. Find high-quality leads based on intent data
Not all leads will be the right fit. Intent data helps you target prospects actively searching for solutions like yours.
Instead of guessing who might be interested, intent data lets you focus on warm leads. These are people already showing buying signals. Maybe they attended a webinar, started following competitors, or just secured funding.
We recommend using PhantomBuster's LinkedIn Event Guests Export to get a list of industry-related event attendees. This will fuel your sales pipeline with high-intent leads you can nurture consequently.
3. Use enrichment tools to get accurate contact data
Your CRM is only as good as the data inside it. Data enrichment tools fill in missing gaps (email, phone numbers, and job titles) to give you complete contact records.
Incomplete data slows down sales teams and leads to missed sales opportunities. If a prospect’s email is missing or their job title is outdated, your outreach won’t land in the right inbox.
PhantomBuster's LinkedIn Profile Scraper can extract fresh, clean data from LinkedIn, whether you're looking for roles, company details, email addresses, or more.
4. Continuously update CRM data using automation
Manual data entry is a productivity killer. We recommend automating your CRM data updates to prevent incorrect data or duplicate records from clogging your sales pipeline with minimal effort.
Indeed, automation keeps your data fresh without the manual work, ensuring your sales team always has the most up-to-date information.
Try PhantomBuster's HubSpot Contact Data Refresher to auto-refresh outdated CRM records with the latest contact details. This keeps your CRM data clean, which will help your revenue operations in the long run.
5. Use sales tools that integrate with your CRM
If your sales tools don’t talk to each other, you end up with poor data hygiene. Instead of juggling spreadsheets and manually moving contacts between platforms, integrations sync everything automatically.
Make sure your sales automation tools can connect with your CRM to ensure a seamless workflow and avoid manual data transfers. You want all your tools working together like a well-oiled machine.
For example, PhantomBuster's HubSpot Contact Sender can export your contacts into your HubSpot CRM. This keeps your revenue operations up-to-date with fresh contact data.
6. Define data quality guidelines
Set clear rules for sales data entry. Standardize naming conventions, required fields, correcting errors, and validation checks to ensure consistency across your CRM. And, of course, make sure all your CRM users stick to them.
Here are some example rules to maintain CRM hygiene:
Naming: Always use full company names (not abbreviations) to avoid mix-ups.
Email addresses: Validate emails before adding them to the CRM.
Duplicate data checks: Make sure you don't feature the same information twice.
Missing data: Fill in any gaps as soon as you see them.
Activity: Delete inactive contacts after 12 months.
Data cleansing: Run regular data audits to filter out any bad data.
7. Eliminate data silos
Data silos happen when information is stored in separate systems or departments. The problem with data silos is that team members then struggle to access it—or the data integrity may be compromised.
Your CRM should be the single source of truth for business data. If your sales, marketing, and support teams use different tools, sync them to keep data hygiene consistent.
This will ensure accurate reporting, clear communication, and spot-on customer data.
Here's how to implement it:
Integrations: Use CRM integrations to connect sales, marketing and support tools.
Repeated data points: Regularly merge duplicate entries to avoid confusion.
Data ownership rules: Assign data entry, updates, and auditing responsibilities.
Collaboration: Encourage team members to coordinate their efforts.
8. Train your sales team on CRM data management
Even the best automation tools won’t help if your team members don’t enter data correctly. Train reps on best practices to prevent dirty data at the source.
To keep the system clean, sales reps must understand how to log new contacts, update records, and merge duplicate entries. Remember, a messy CRM will also mess up your sales process.
Consider running quarterly CRM training sessions or creating a quick reference guide with data entry dos and don’ts. Ultimately, it's all about encouraging a working culture where accuracy matters.
Best tools to keep your CRM clean
CRM hygiene doesn't happen on its own. We recommend using automation tools that integrate with your CRM to help you filter out the wrong contacts, eliminate human error, and prioritize the most valuable data.
PhantomBuster
PhantomBuster is an automation tool designed to help sales teams improve their entire sales process, from finding leads to enriching them to doing outreach and keeping CRM data clean. It offers 100+ pre-built automation across major platforms, including LinkedIn, Sales Navigator, and HubSpot.
Whether you need to pull fresh leads from LinkedIn, refresh outdated contacts, or keep track of prospects who change jobs, PhantomBuster takes the manual work out of CRM hygiene.
Here are some of PhantomBuster's key features:
LinkedIn CRM integration: Automatically send contact data from LinkedIn to HubSpot. Instead of relying on static data, this will keep your CRM packed with up-to-date insights from live LinkedIn profiles.
Intent-based lead generation: Identify buying signals, such as LinkedIn engagement, and prioritize these leads in your CRM system.
AI-powered lead scoring: Run your data through AI and score your leads based on their conversion likelihood.
Pricing
PhantomBuster pricing starts at $56 per month for an annual plan. This includes 5 automation slots, 20 hours of execution time, and 10,000 AI credits. You also get unlimited exports, making it easy to sync your data anywhere.
HubSpot's Breeze Intelligence
HubSpot's Breeze Intelligence service provides B2B teams with precise, AI-powered data.
It gathers public data from the web, its proprietary data, and AI to create structured datasets for B2B sales teams.
Whether you need to enrich CRM records, score, route leads, or identify buying intent data, Clearbit/ HubSpot aims to back every decision with accurate information.
HubSpot's Breeze Intelligence hygiene features include:
Data enrichment: Fill in missing details for leads, contacts, and accounts globally.
Dynamic web forms: Shorten forms based on data that HubSpot's Breeze Intelligence can access.
Company sales intelligence: Understand corporate hierarchies, industry categorization, and seniority levels.
Buying signals: Identify anonymous website visitors and convert them into real leads.
Pricing
Breeze Intelligence is part of HubSpot, starting at $45 per month for an annual plan. This includes 100 Breeze Intelligence credits and the Starter Customer Platform.
However, you also need an existing paid product with HubSpot. This could be a barrier for teams with a smaller budget.
Apollo.io
Apollo.io is a sales intelligence tool with a database of 210M+ contacts and 35M+ companies. It provides extensive lead data, advanced search filters, and automated outreach features.
Apollo pulls contact information from public sources, partnerships, and web scraping, then uses machine learning and third-party vendors to verify emails and phone numbers.
However, some information could be outdated since it operates from a static database.
Apollo.io has lots of features to support CRM hygiene, including:
Buying signals: Identify leads based on funding rounds, recent hires, and online activity.
Sales intelligence: AI-powered call transcriptions, sentiment analysis, and coaching insights to improve sales conversations.
Data enrichment: Auto-update outdated CRM records, fill in missing details, and verify contact info.
AI-powered lead scoring: Rank leads based on engagement history, firmographic fit, and buying signals.
Pricing
Apollo pricing starts with a free plan with limited sequences and data export credits. Its basic plan then starts at $49 per user per month for an annual plan, with more credits and integrations.
CRM hygiene FAQ
What are the common causes of dirty data?
Dirty data refers to poor data quality in your CRM.
This is caused by duplicates, outdated contact records, typos, missing data points, human error, and inconsistent formatting in your CRM system.
Type of Dirty Data | Definition |
Duplicate data | The same information is entered multiple times in different ways. |
Outdated data | Information that's no longer accurate, like an old email or address. |
Inaccurate data | Errors in your data, such as typos or wrong details. |
Incomplete data | Missing important info that leaves gaps in your records. |
Inconsistent data | Conflicting data is stored in different formats or places. |
Non-compliant data | Data that doesn’t follow privacy laws like GDPR or CCPA. |
What metrics should I use to track CRM hygiene?
How do you know if you have clean CRM data? Monitor these key data health metrics:
Data completeness: Percentage of CRM records with all required fields.
Duplicate rate: Number of duplicate contacts in your CRM system.
Data freshness: How often your CRM data is updated.
Bounce rate: Percentage of undeliverable emails from CRM contacts.
Sticking to these metrics lets you keep your CRM data clean and packed with high-quality leads.
