CRM Hygiene

Systematically identify and resolve data quality issues in your CRM to improve forecast accuracy, reporting, and automation reliability.

When to Use This Skill

• Quarterly CRM audits

• Before major reporting periods

• When automation workflows fail

• After team changes or migrations

• Preparing for CRM integrations

Methodology Foundation

Based on Salesforce Data Quality Best Practices and RevOps Co-op Data Governance frameworks, focusing on:

• Completeness (required fields populated)

• Consistency (standardized values)

• Accuracy (correct and current data)

• Timeliness (recent updates)

What Claude Does vs What You Decide

Claude Does You Decide

Defines audit criteria Which fields are required

Identifies data issues Priority of fixes

Categorizes problems by type Who owns cleanup tasks

Suggests remediation steps Automation vs manual fix

Creates cleanup reports Enforcement policies

What This Skill Does

• Audit design - Define required fields and validation rules

• Issue identification - Find missing, inconsistent, duplicate data

• Prioritization - Rank issues by business impact

• Remediation planning - Action steps to fix issues

• Governance recommendations - Prevent future issues

How to Use

For Audit Design:

Help me create a CRM hygiene audit for [CRM System].

Key objects to audit:

• [Leads, Contacts, Accounts, Opportunities]

Critical fields for each:

• Leads: [list required fields]
• Opportunities: [list required fields]

Our main issues:

• [Describe known problems]

For Data Audit:

Audit this opportunity data for hygiene issues:

[Paste export or describe data]

Required fields:

• [List fields that must be populated]

Validation rules:

• [List rules like "Stage must match Amount > $0"]

Instructions

Step 1: Define Audit Scope

Object Priority (typical):

• Opportunities - Revenue impact

• Accounts - Relationship foundation

• Contacts - Communication accuracy

• Leads - Pipeline source

Field Categories:

• Critical - Blocks processes if missing

• Important - Affects reporting/segmentation

• Nice-to-Have - Enriches but not required

Step 2: Completeness Audit

Check required fields by object:

Opportunities:

Field Criticality Why Required

Amount Critical Forecast, pipeline value

Close Date Critical Forecast timing

Stage Critical Pipeline reporting

Owner Critical Accountability

Account Critical Company linkage

Primary Contact Important Communication

Next Step Important Deal momentum

Competitor Important Win/loss analysis

Loss Reason Critical (if lost) Improvement insights

Accounts:

Field Criticality Why Required

Industry Important Segmentation

Employee Count Important ICP fit

Website Important Research, enrichment

Billing Address Critical Invoicing

Account Owner Critical Accountability

Step 3: Consistency Audit

Check for standardization issues:

Issue Type Example Impact

Picklist variations "US" vs "USA" vs "United States" Reporting breaks

Case inconsistency "ACME" vs "Acme" vs "acme" Duplicates

Format variations "(555) 123-4567" vs "5551234567" Automation fails

Null vs blank NULL vs "" vs "N/A" Filters don't work

Step 4: Accuracy Audit

Identify likely incorrect data:

Check Criteria Action

Stale close dates Past date, still open Update or close

Amount mismatches $0 in late stage Verify pricing

Stage regression Stage 4 → Stage 2 Investigate

Impossible values 200% probability Fix validation

Bounced emails Marked invalid Remove or update

Step 5: Duplicate Detection

Find potential duplicates:

Match Type Criteria Confidence

Exact email Same email address 99% duplicate

Domain match Same company domain 80% duplicate

Fuzzy name Similar company name Investigate

Phone match Same phone number 90% duplicate

Step 6: Timeliness Audit

Flag stale records:

Object Staleness Threshold Action

Open Opportunity No activity 30 days Review with rep

Lead No touch 14 days Reassign or nurture

Account No contact 90 days Re-engagement

Contact Bounced + 30 days Archive

Examples

Example 1: Opportunity Audit

Input:

Audit these opportunities:

1. Acme Corp - Stage: Proposal, Amount: $0, Close: Jan 15 (past), Owner: Empty
2. Beta Inc - Stage: Closed Won, Amount: $50K, Close: Feb 1, Loss Reason: "Price"
3. Gamma LLC - Stage: Discovery, Amount: $100K, Close: Mar 30, No activity 45 days
4. Delta Co - Stage: Negotiation, Amount: $75K, Close: Feb 28, Next Step: Empty
5. Echo Systems - Stage: Closed Lost, Amount: $200K, Loss Reason: Empty

Output:

CRM Hygiene Audit: Opportunities

Summary

• Total Records: 5
• Critical Issues: 4
• Warnings: 2
• Clean Records: 0

Critical Issues (Fix Immediately)

1. Acme Corp - 3 Critical Issues

Action: Assign owner, verify if deal is active, update amount and close date.

2. Beta Inc - Logic Error

Action: Either change stage to Closed Lost, or clear Loss Reason.

3. Echo Systems - Missing Required

Action: Rep must document why deal was lost.

4. Delta Co - Missing Next Step

Action: Rep should define next step for Negotiation stage.

Warnings (Review This Week)

5. Gamma LLC - Stale Deal

Action: Review with rep - is this deal still active? If yes, update. If no, close lost.

Hygiene Score: 20/100 (Poor)

Recommended Actions by Priority

1. Today: Fix Acme Corp (no owner = orphaned deal)
2. Today: Fix Beta Inc logic error (affects win rate)
3. This Week: Get Echo Systems loss reason
4. This Week: Update Gamma LLC status
5. This Week: Add Delta Co next step

Process Recommendations

• Add validation rule: Amount required when Stage > Discovery
• Add validation rule: Owner required on all opportunities
• Add validation rule: Loss Reason required when Closed Lost
• Create stale deal report (no activity 30+ days)

Example 2: Duplicate Detection

Input:

Check these accounts for duplicates:

1. Acme Corporation, acme.com, San Francisco
2. ACME Corp, acme.com, SF
3. Acme Inc, acme-inc.com, San Francisco
4. Beta Technologies, beta.io, New York
5. Beta Tech, betatech.com, NYC
6. Beta Technologies Inc, beta.io, New York

Output:

Duplicate Detection Report

High Confidence Duplicates (Merge)

Duplicate Set 1: Acme Corporation

Recommendation: Merge #2 into #1

• Same domain (acme.com)
• Same location (SF = San Francisco)
• Name variation only (Corp vs Corporation)

Duplicate Set 2: Beta Technologies

Recommendation: Merge #6 into #4

• Same domain (beta.io)
• Same location (New York)
• Name variation only (Inc suffix)

Investigate (Possible Duplicates)

Possible Set 1: Acme variations

Recommendation: Investigate manually

• Same location, similar name
• BUT different domains (acme.com vs acme-inc.com)
• Could be: subsidiary, different company, or typo

Possible Set 2: Beta variations

Recommendation: Investigate manually

• Same location (NYC = New York)
• Similar names (Beta Tech vs Beta Technologies)
• Different domains - likely different companies

Summary

• Definite Duplicates: 2 sets (4 records → 2)
• Possible Duplicates: 2 sets (need research)
• Unique Records: Pending investigation

Merge Checklist

Before merging, verify:

• All opportunities moved to master record
• All contacts linked to master
• Activity history preserved
• Custom fields compared
• Integration IDs noted (for external systems)

Skill Boundaries

What This Skill Does Well

• Defining audit criteria systematically

• Identifying common data quality issues

• Prioritizing fixes by business impact

• Creating actionable remediation plans

What This Skill Cannot Do

• Access your actual CRM data

• Execute cleanup automatically

• Know your specific business rules

• Detect all semantic errors

When to Escalate to Human

• Merge decisions (data loss risk)

• Business rule definitions

• Enforcement policy decisions

• Cross-object relationship issues

Iteration Guide

Follow-up Prompts

• "Create a monthly hygiene report template."

• "What validation rules would prevent these issues?"

• "Prioritize the top 10 issues by revenue impact."

• "Design a data entry form that enforces these rules."

Continuous Improvement Cycle

• Audit → Identify issues

• Fix → Clean data

• Prevent → Add validation rules

• Monitor → Track hygiene score weekly

• Iterate → Refine rules quarterly

Checklists & Templates

Weekly Hygiene Report Template

CRM Hygiene Report - Week of [Date]

Hygiene Score: X/100

Critical Issues (Fix Today)

Warnings (Fix This Week)

Trends

• Issues closed this week: X
• New issues this week: X
• Net change: +/- X

Action Items

Data Governance Checklist

• Required fields defined per object

• Validation rules implemented

• Duplicate rules active

• Stale record reports scheduled

• Ownership assignments current

• Integration mappings documented

References

• Salesforce Data Quality Best Practices

• RevOps Co-op Data Governance Framework

• Marketo Database Health Guide

• Gartner Data Quality Market Guide

Related Skills

• pipeline-forecasting

• Clean data improves forecasts

• lead-scoring

• Requires complete lead data

• deal-risk-scoring

• Depends on activity data

Skill Metadata

• Domain: RevOps

• Complexity: Intermediate

• Mode: centaur

• Time to Value: 30-60 min for audit, varies for cleanup

• Prerequisites: CRM data export, field requirements list