Tips for Salesforce Data Cleaning

Data is arguably one of the most important aspects of a business. Good data helps drive decisions that improve products, services, and customer experiences. If your organization has bad Salesforce data, you will start to notice inconsistencies down the line that can challenge marketing campaigns, sales initiatives, reporting, and analysis.

Data naturally decays over time, so without a proper cleanse that fixes recurring errors, bad Salesforce data will continue to worsen and hinder your business. In this blog, I’m going to identify common types of bad data, why you should complete Salesforce data cleaning, and give you tips for improving these processes.

What is bad Salesforce data?

If you use Salesforce, you may already notice data-related problems due to input error, poor data collection methods, or natural data decay. Bad data, like the types listed below, has been known to cost organizations an average of $13 million in revenue each year. 

These are the most common types of bad Salesforce data that you may encounter:

• Duplicates: Multiple different records that have similar or the exact same data.  
• Inaccuracy: Typos, data entry errors, or fields that are filled in incorrectly.
• Irrelevancy: Records or contact information that is outdated or no longer relevant.
• Inconsistency: No standardization with formatting fields within records.
• Incomplete: Missing data in key fields, such as company size, industry, or title.

The reasons for Salesforce data cleaning

Good data improves productivity and insights, which helps organizations reach business goals and stay ahead of the competition. Day to day, good data can help your team make smarter decisions that drive growth and revenue as well as increase overall efficiency. It can also help your team with audience targeting that increases the effectiveness of campaigns. 

Clean data is good for your customers as well. It can help build better customer relationships when you know exactly what they need, so your team can offer more appealing services or products.

And finally, good quality data open your organization to greater and more targeted opportunities that increase your competitive advantage and profitability. 

Five tips for a Salesforce data cleanse

Salesforce data cleaning is an ongoing process that helps your business improve data quality over time. Follow these four tips to increase the effectiveness of your Salesforce data cleanse.

Identify root causes

The first step in cleaning Salesforce data is to identify where the majority of errors occur. Is your team inputting data manually and making mistakes? Or are you relying on a data collection system that doesn’t have the right integrations with your business systems? 

These inconsistencies or errors within your current data collection methods may be the cause of bad data. Catching bad data at the source will help you determine what needs to be changed or improved. This initial data audit provides a clear path toward quality data, whether it be through more team training, better software, improved data governance, or something else. 

Choose the right tools

Whether your organization deals with hundreds or thousands (or even millions) of datasets, having the right tools to effectively collect and manage this data is critical to maintaining it. Manual data cleaning for datasets this large is also generally too big of a task for a single data scientist or administrator. 

Having the right data cleaning tools in your systems accelerates cleaning processes and minimizes manual tasks. These tools can automate cleaning tasks, with specific functions that target and correct data quality issues, such as duplicates or missing values.

In addition to adding data cleaning software, implementing an integrated web form and data collection platform like FormAssembly helps ensure that data entering your Salesforce Org is clean and high-quality from the start. 

Standardize processes

The phrase “garbage in, garbage out” is just as relevant to data collection as any other process. Manual processes that begin with a customer filling out a paper form and end with an employee inputting data by hand into Salesforce are prone to numerous errors. 

These processes make it virtually impossible to have consistent validation or standardization of data collection methods. Adopting online forms for streamlined collection, training employees on validation standards, and using data cleaning software help eliminate many of these data errors. 

Setting standards for data ensures that all data entered into Salesforce through a web form follows the same formatting (email, industry type, address, etc.). Standardization minimizes the discrepancies that lead to duplicate records and helps maintain data quality over time.

Enforce rules

Without rules that are set up correctly, data will never be cleaned or completed. Users are joining and leaving the company, which also means the new users may not be aware of existing rules. Manual intervention wastes a lot of time for small teams and is nearly impossible for larger teams.

Setting mandatory fields, dependency fields, and validation rules are easy and can be implemented by Salesforce admin within minutes.

Complete routine audits

Once you have completed a comprehensive Salesforce data cleanse, the process does not stop there. Without proper maintenance, data errors and data decay will inevitably continue to occur. Conducting routine audits means that you will discover and resolve issues faster, while providing your organization with an in-depth look at how data is being processed and stored.

A data quality audit should always include error identification, error resolution, and improved standardization protocols. These audits, when completed regularly, keep your data clean and give your team the information they need to improve processes, analyze accurately, and maintain productivity. 

Clean data starts at the source

Getting quality data into your Salesforce Org efficiently and accurately is the next step in keeping data clean long-term. A data collection platform with advanced Salesforce integration like FormAssembly helps ensure clean, high-quality data from the source—online forms. 

Using FormAssembly’s web form builder, you can easily create Salesforce-connected forms that create or update data for standard and custom objects, prefill forms, and more. In addition, FormAssembly’s newest solution, Workflow, makes it possible to build entire data collection workflows to further reduce errors, accelerate processes, and increase productivity for your team. 

Learn more

With quality data available to leverage, your team has more time, knowledge, and resources to spend driving initiatives that help increase revenue. To learn more about how FormAssembly helps with clean Salesforce data collection, visit their website or find them on AppExchange.