The best Pipedrive consultant for an existing setup is one that audits the data before it touches the configuration, and hands you a written report with a prioritised list of what to fix. Most underperforming Pipedrive accounts are not badly built. The data going into them cannot be trusted, and no amount of pipeline restructuring fixes that.
If your Pipedrive is live but not delivering - deals stuck in stages, records nobody trusts, reports that do not match what the sales team says - you need a different kind of help from the one that got you set up. This guide covers what to look for, what a proper audit covers, and which options are worth considering.
What should you look for in a Pipedrive audit consultant?
Most Pipedrive consultants are trained to build new setups. Auditing and improving an existing one is a different skill. Three questions separate the two before you hire anyone.
- Do they start with the data or the configuration? Pipeline structure, stages and automations are the surface. The root cause of most underperforming setups is underneath: incomplete records, duplicate contacts, fields filled in inconsistently, and deals with no next action or owner. A consultant who skips the data fixes symptoms, not causes.
- Will they give you a written report? A credible audit ends with a document that says what is wrong, why it matters commercially, and what to fix first. A verbal walkthrough or a slide of bullet points means the diagnosis has not been done properly.
- Do they diagnose before they recommend? A consultant who arrives with the answer before looking at your data is selling something. A good audit shows what is actually in the system before any configuration change is suggested.
What should a Pipedrive audit cover?
A thorough audit of an existing Pipedrive setup covers six areas.
| Area | What gets checked |
|---|---|
| Data integrity | Duplicate people and organisations, missing core fields (email, phone, owner, job title), undeliverable email addresses, people with no organisation linked, records owned by former employees |
| Pipeline and deal health | Deals that have never changed stage, zero-value deals, open deals with no activity scheduled or no expected close date, and where deals actually drop out |
| Field completion | Fields that are meant to drive segmentation, reporting or automation but are blank or inconsistently filled in |
| Ownership and governance | Records assigned to people who have left, records with no owner, and whether there is any rule for how records get created and assigned |
| Integration accuracy | Whether data arriving from your website, marketing tools and finance platform lands correctly, or creates duplicates and overwrites good data |
| Reporting reliability | Whether the reports and dashboards in use draw on fields populated consistently enough to be trusted |
The field completion row is usually where the gap sits between what Pipedrive can do and what it actually does for a business.
What types of Pipedrive consultant are there?
- Freelancers on Fiverr and Upwork. Good for defined configuration work: pipeline restructuring, stage design and automation builds. Less suited to deep data audits, or to reconciling several data sources. Usually cheaper, and narrower in scope and follow-through.
- Pipedrive partner agencies. Pipedrive lists its partners in its own partner directory, and most have certified consultants on staff. Quality varies, and most lead with implementation rather than data quality. Filter by location and specialism, and ask about their audit method before you engage.
- Data-first CRM specialists. A smaller group whose starting point is the data underneath the CRM rather than the configuration on top of it. The better fit when the setup is broadly right but the data cannot be trusted, the team has stopped using the system reliably, or a previous clean-up did not hold.
Where does Flowbird fit?
We are Flowbird, a UK-based Pipedrive Elite Partner, and we sit in the third group. Our CRM Data Audit starts with what is actually in your data before we recommend any configuration change. It covers duplicates, field completion, stale and incomplete deals, ownership, firmographic gaps and how the team really uses the system, and every finding comes with a number, an example and a note on the business impact.
It ends in a written report with a prioritised action list, which you keep whether or not you go any further. You can see the structure in our illustrative sample CRM Data Health review.
If you need configuration or automation work and the data is already sound, a freelancer or another Pipedrive partner may well be the better-value option. We would rather say so than sell you an audit you do not need.
When is a Pipedrive audit worth doing?
An audit pays for itself quickly when:
- Your sales team has stopped trusting what Pipedrive tells them and works from spreadsheets or memory instead
- You have grown through acquisition or team expansion, and data from several sources has never been properly consolidated
- You have switched on AI or automation features that are not performing as expected
- Your pipeline reporting does not match what your salespeople say is happening
- You are about to migrate to another platform and want to know which data is worth taking with you
- You have cleaned the data before and it has degraded again (we cover why in why CRM data cleaning projects don't stick)
The common thread is a data problem presenting as a CRM problem. The configuration is often fine. The data going into it is not.
How much does a Pipedrive audit cost?
A configuration review from a freelancer is usually the cheapest option, and covers pipeline structure and obvious gaps. A data audit takes longer because it reads every record rather than every setting.
Ours is £950 + VAT, delivered inside the Customer Platform Assessment over two to three weeks. The fee comes off a managed service in full if you start one within 60 days, so the improvements are kept up on a fixed monthly basis rather than left to drift. There is no obligation to go any further once you have the report.
Pipedrive set up, but the data cannot be trusted?
Get in touch. We will tell you what is in the data, what it is costing you, and what to fix first. That is a CRM Data Audit, and it is the right place to start.