SaaS startup · CRM cleanup
3,000 records cleaned — response rates up 35%
A fast-growing startup had more than 3,000 CRM entries carrying duplicates, inconsistent formatting, missing email addresses and outdated phone numbers. Outreach was slow and ineffective because nobody trusted what they were looking at.
The problem
Over 3,000 entries accumulated during a period of fast growth, with no data governance in place. Duplicates from repeated imports, company names and locations entered in whatever format the person felt like using, thousands of missing email addresses, and phone numbers stored without country codes so nobody could reliably dial them. The sales team had effectively stopped using the CRM as a source of truth.
Why it mattered
Slow, ineffective outreach is the visible symptom, but the deeper cost is behavioural: once a sales team stops trusting the CRM, they start keeping private spreadsheets, and every report the leadership sees becomes fiction. Fixing the data was really about making the system usable again so the team would actually work inside it.
Our approach
- Import and audit — the raw CRM export was pulled into Excel and profiled field by field to establish what was actually wrong and in what proportion.
- Deduplicate and standardise — over 450 duplicate records removed, company names and locations corrected to a consistent format, and all phone numbers standardised with country codes.
- Verify and enrich — missing email addresses researched and verified using reliable sources and manual web research rather than pattern-guessing.
- Restructure for import — the file was rebuilt for clean re-import into HubSpot, with lead status and source tags added so the team could segment properly from day one.
Before and after
| Field | Records | Problem | Impact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Company name | 3,000+ | Inconsistent casing / suffixes | Duplicates hidden |
| Partial | Missing on many records | Cannot contact | |
| Phone | 3,000+ | No country codes | Undiallable |
| Lead status | None | Field did not exist | No segmentation |
| Field | Records | Action | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Company name | 2,550+ | Standardised | 450+ dupes removed ✓ |
| Enriched | Researched & verified | Contactable ✓ | |
| Phone | All | Country codes added | Diallable ✓ |
| Lead status & source | All | Tagged for segmentation | Campaign-ready ✓ |
The stack
Microsoft Excel
Profiling, deduplication and bulk standardisation of the export.
Web research
Manual discovery and verification of missing email addresses — not pattern-guessing.
HubSpot
Destination CRM. File restructured for clean re-import with tags applied.
Results
“The sales team reduced bounce rates in email campaigns and improved response rates by over 35%. They’ve since hired us for monthly data maintenance to keep their CRM up to date.”
What we handed over
- Cleaned and deduplicated master file
- Deduplication log of all 450+ merges
- Enriched email addresses with verification status
- Phone numbers normalised with country codes
- Lead status and source tags applied for segmentation
- HubSpot-ready import file
- Ongoing monthly maintenance schedule
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