Data Cleansing

Data Cleansing — also called data scrubbing — is the process of identifying and correcting inaccurate, incomplete, outdated, or improperly formatted records within a CRM database. CRM data degrades naturally over time: contacts change jobs, companies merge or rebrand, phone numbers become invalid, and email addresses bounce. Studies suggest that B2B contact data decays at 20-30% per year, meaning a CRM with no active cleansing program becomes significantly less reliable within two years. Data cleansing may involve automated tools that flag anomalies or duplicate records, enrichment services that update contact and firmographic data from third-party sources, and manual review processes for high-priority account records.