How Do You Know If Your Data Quality Is Good Enough?
Data quality is one of those things that feels fine until it suddenly is not. Revenue reviews that depend on pipeline data nobody trusts. Forecasts built on records that have not been updated in weeks. Attribution reports that show wildly different numbers depending on which system you pull from.
The Five-Question Data Quality Audit
- What percentage of CRM records have the five most critical fields completed correctly? Spot-check 20-30 records across different team members. If the answer is below 80%, you have a data quality problem affecting your ability to manage the pipeline.
- What percentage of deals are in accurate pipeline stages? Pull a list of deals in each stage and review a sample. Are the stage criteria being applied consistently? Are there deals that have been in the same stage for 60-90 days without activity?
- Are there significant numbers of duplicate records? Most CRMs have duplicate detection. Run it and see what comes up. More than 5% duplication is worth addressing.
- Do your lead source values mean the same thing to everyone? Pull a list of all lead source values. Look for catch-alls, duplicates, and values that could mean different things to different people. Lead source data is the foundation of channel attribution.
- When was the last time your CRM records were reviewed for accuracy? If the answer is 'never' or 'I'm not sure,' that is itself a data quality signal.
The Trust Test
Beyond the technical audit, there is a simpler test: do your leaders trust the data enough to make decisions with it? Ask your head of sales, your CFO, and your ops lead independently: when you need to know the current pipeline number, where do you go and how much do you trust that number? If their answers differ, you have a trust problem.
A Data Quality Scorecard
Rate your data quality across these dimensions on a red/yellow/green scale:
- Field completion: Green = >90% of critical fields complete. Yellow = 75-90%. Red = below 75%.
- Stage accuracy: Green = deals reviewed monthly, stages current. Red = no regular review, many stale deals.
- Duplicates: Green = less than 2%. Yellow = 2-5%. Red = above 5%.
- Lead source consistency: Green = defined values, enforced in system. Red = undefined or ignored.
- Data trust: Green = leadership uses CRM data in every decision. Red = regularly creates parallel tracking.