ISSUE 01
Duplicates are the most common thing we find, and the easiest to miss. The same contact or company gets created two or three times, usually because an import ran twice or a form didn't match an existing record. From then on, reports double-count, two reps end up working the same account, and nobody fully trusts the numbers.
Lean reporting starts with one record per customer, not three.
ISSUE 02
Half a record is no record
Plenty of contacts look fine until you open them. No email, no owner, no lifecycle stage. These gaps quietly break the things that depend on them, so automation skips people, segments come out wrong, and follow-up falls through. The data isn't wrong exactly, there just isn't enough of it to act on.
A record is only useful when the fields you rely on are actually filled in.
ISSUE 03
One company, five spellings
"Acme Ltd", "Acme Limited", "ACME LTD", all the same business typed slightly differently. When values aren't entered consistently, filters miss records, lists split apart, and the same company shows up in three different reports. Small inconsistencies add up to numbers you can't rely on.
If it can be typed five ways, it can be counted five ways.
ISSUE 04
Right person, three jobs ago
Data goes out of date faster than most teams realise. People change jobs, email addresses stop working, titles and deal stages drift away from reality. Roughly a quarter of B2B data decays every year, so without upkeep you end up making decisions and sending campaigns based on a picture that no longer exists.
Old data doesn't just sit there quietly, it steers you wrong.
ISSUE 05
Five fields for one phone number
When there are no naming rules and nothing stopping new properties being created, the same information ends up scattered across half a dozen fields. Reps never know which one to fill in, so the data spreads thinner and the mess grows on its own. It's less one big problem and more a slow drift with no brakes.
Without rules, every fix is temporary and the mess just comes back.