Tip #6: Maintain a style sheet for a clean CRM database
Your CRM data too needs maintenance. Outdated phones numbers, invalid email addresses, confusion in abbreviations, and duplicate entries can add up to a database that needs cleaning. It can be problematic when you have to pull specific data.
In our upcoming posts we will be giving tips that will help you maintain a clean CRM database.
So here it is - Maintain a Style Sheet
Picture this. A sales rep is trying to collect customer’s data in a particular region to send mass emails. While the relevant data is generated, some of the records were left out. The criteria mentioned was "Country name is USA” and the records that were missed out had the same country but was added as United States. In this case, we know that both are correct and they are the same, yet different.
When I say Style Sheet, it definitely need not be a complicated one. Simple rules on whether it should be USA, US, United States of America can go a long way in cleaning up your data.
Another quick example can be the naming convention. In a note, you may be asked to send an ‘Acknowledgement’ email and another note in a different record may inform you that a 'Thank You' email has been sent. Your team may not be able to distinguish between the similarities or differences between these two. So it is essential to keep such terminologies consistent in your CRM to avoid unnecessary confusion.
Similarly, create a list of abbreviations and standard data entry formats for postal addresses, company names, designations, templates, etc. This method can also be followed to establish a standard for all types of tasks. This would help you generate accurate reports and filter records based on the exact criteria. It goes a long way in reducing the risk of human error.
So what do you do to ensure that your CRM database is clean? Do share your experiences with us in this post as comments!
Access your files securely from anywhere
New to Zoho Recruit?
Zoho Developer Community
New to Zoho LandingPage?
Zoho LandingPage Resources
New to Zoho Survey?
New to Zoho CRM Plus?
Deliver unforgettable customer experiences
New to Zoho CRM Plus?
Deliver unforgettable customer experiences
New to Zoho Marketing Plus?
Everything you need to run your marketing
New to Zoho Marketing Plus?
Everything you need to run your marketing
New to Bigin?
Topic Participants
Pavitra Jothi
Noyel Pascal
Sticky Posts
How to reach the official Zoho Support channels and avoid fake ones.
Dear Customers, Thanks a lot for choosing Zoho! Our applications are built to help achieve your day-to-day business goals. We are committed to engaging with you, to understand and develop solutions that enhance your productivity. We are happy and ready to help you use our services effectively. Understanding and avoiding fake support Just like using popular bank names and financial applications for phishing purposes, using Zoho and claiming to be providing Zoho Support or services with false numbersFunction #35: Close all tasks associated with a lead and create a new task.
Welcome back everyone! Last week, we learnt how to close all tasks of a deal depending upon the deal stage. This week, let's look at a custom function that lets you close all of the tasks associated with a lead while simultaneously creating a new task, like when you need to halt all progress towards a lead while the lead is not available at the moment but create a reminder task. Business scenario: The success of a company, in one way or another, is determined by the leads it gets. Each lead is justZoho CRM Webinar - Redesigning Daily User Experiences with Canvas
<br> Your users across roles use the CRM for day-to-day tasks that are necessary. Whether they perform their tasks on time, the right way, or at all depends on a lot of factors, including User Experience. Many businesses struggle with rigid layouts,Join us at the Canada ZUG Meetup: What’s New in Zoho CRM
Hello Zoho Community! Start your year with fresh insights into Zoho CRM’s latest updates and tools. Whether you're a CRM beginner or a experienced user, this meetup is crafted to help you optimise your processes and leverage new features. Explore practicalCRM Hack #2: Automate sending of birthday greetings to your customers.
Hello everyone! What sets you apart as a sales person is your ability to add that personal touch to your business relationship with your customers. Sending a gift on a special day, or leaving a note wishing them on their birthdays, are small, yet significant actions that show your customers that you care. And these are actions done without any expectations :) You must be engaging with a lot of customers and it is highly unlikely that they all are your friends on Facebook or some social channel,
New to Zoho TeamInbox?
Zoho TeamInbox Resources
Zoho CRM Plus Resources
Zoho Books Resources
Zoho Subscriptions Resources
Zoho Projects Resources
Zoho Sprints Resources
Qntrl Resources
Zoho Creator Resources
Zoho CRM Resources
Design. Discuss. Deliver.
Zoho Show Resources
Get Started. Write Away!
Writer is a powerful online word processor, designed for collaborative work.
Zoho CRM コンテンツ
-
オンラインヘルプ
-
Webセミナー
-
機能活用動画
-
よくある質問
-
Ebook
-
-
Zoho Campaigns
- Zoho サービスのWebセミナー
その他のサービス コンテンツ
Nederlandse Hulpbronnen
ご検討中の方
Recent Topics
How to restrict user/portal user change canvas view
Hi , I would like to restrict user / portal user change their canvas view because I hide some sensitive field for them. I dont want my user switch the canvas view that do not belong to them But seems Zoho do not provide this setting?How to add to Subforms via Zapier with Zoho Writer?
I have the following layout for a Zoho Writer Document. As you can see there is a repeating subform taking in "Items". I am trying to make a Zapier integration with it, and I can see there is 1 field saying: "Items", but it does not specify how I'm supposedContrôles administratifs granulaires : un atout pour la sécurité des e-mails
La moindre erreur dans votre système de messagerie peut coûter très cher à votre entreprise, tant en argent qu’en conformité et en image de marque. Pour beaucoup d’organisations, ce risque est bien réel. Les e-mails véhiculent quotidiennement des informationsCollections Management: #6 Realign Customers who gets back In-Term
Arun stared at the subscription list on his dashboard. Another account had just been moved to Cancelled status after completing the whole dunning process. Nothing unusual, just that payment failures happen, retries fail, and cancellation is the expectedZoho Mail IP Blacklist
I need problems with send mails: Error: junk mail rejected - sender4-op-o10.zoho.com 136.143.188.10, is in RBL. Spamcop. Please remove FQDN for blacklist. Regards.I can receive but not send emails
Hello, I've been not able to send emails for almost a year now. I been using alternate email to do this. I want to know how to fix this so I can use my zoho account normally again.The challenge of 24/7 connectivity: Being present and meeting customer expectations
Before television entered our homes, radio was our window to the world. We had to tune carefully to catch voices from distant places. When television arrived, the world began to grow smaller. We can watch rocket launches, see the goal that wins our favoriteHow to download all attachments from inbox, send, other folders in one go
Hi All, Appreciate if anyone could help me with steps for below requirement. How to download all attachments from inbox, send, other folders in one go. Even mapping to new folder will help me. Thanks in advance.Cannot connect mail accounts to Thunderbird
Hi Support - I'm attempting to add my mail accounts to Thunderbird but I'm getting an unable to login to server error. I tried to use the password associated with my account I received the unable to login error. So I went into Zoho Accounts and generateAlias Email Id already exists
Hi, I just verified my domain sesque (dot) com and now I am trying to create the admin account using admin (at) sesque (dot) com, but I am getting an error saying "Alias Email Id already exists". I used to have another Zoho account with this email address,Unable to connect to smtp server, connection timed out
Hi Team, I am facing below issue, while sending out emails from thunderbird client. It used to work, facing this issue from morning. Error: Sending of the message failed. The message could not be sent because the connection to Outgoing server (SMTP) smtp.zoho.comKaizen #217 - Actions APIs : Tasks
Welcome to another week of Kaizen! In last week's post we discussed Email Notifications APIs which act as the link between your Workflow automations and you. We have discussed how Zylker Cloud Services uses Email Notifications API in their custom dashboard.DKIM Verification Failed (Namecheap)
Hi! I have already set up the TXT records in Namecheap but I keep getting the "Verification Failed" pop up. Was wondering if I'm the only one who has this problem and can anyone help me with this? Thanks!Emails stuck in Queue
Hi there, Since yesterday I have a few out going emails stuck in a queue. It say it will auto retry sending however nothing is happening. It seems to be affecting roughly 50% of my outgoing emails. Please help ThanksSoft Bounce from transational emails from BREVO (Sendinblue)
I manage the website of a client who uses your EMAIL service for the domain floranativadobrasil.com. And I use the BREVO email service, previously called SendinBlue, to send transactional emails about events specific to the website. All emails sent toGetting an error Address not found Your message wasn't delivered
Hey, I'm trying to configure zoho mail for my website https://businessentity.org/ The email is meredith.karter@businessentity.org I'm able to successfully send the mails but when someone sends an email to above mail, this error shoots up: Address notSupport Uploading YouTube Videos Longer Than 60 Minutes
Hi Zoho Social Team, How are you? We would like to request support for uploading YouTube videos longer than 60 minutes directly through Zoho Social. Your support team informed us that Zoho Social currently cannot upload videos over 60 minutes due to “APINeed Faster Help? Try Live Chat Support
Hello there, We understand that sometimes, whether you’re facing an issue, exploring a feature, or need quick clarification, sending an email and waiting for a response just doesn’t cut it. You need answers, and you need them now. That’s exactly why weCan't deactivate Spell Check
Hi Community, right now I'm using the Zoho Mail Desktop-Software. So far, so good.. many possibilities. Overall very nice. What is extremely annoying right now, is that we are not able to deactivate the Spell Check feature. And we are barely able to focusZoho Toolkit Email Signature Generator
I'm having real issues with the email signature generator with no matter where I host the photo, Zoho doesn't seem to show the photo on the link provided?Company Policy Upload - Request All EE to review and sign
How can I upload policies into Zoho People and have the employees review them and sign off saying they agree, etc.? Also, if I make a revision to a policy, I would like that changed or updated policy to be distributed or have the employees notified thatZoho Sign Global Settings vs. Template and Document
Hello, We are running into an issue on a current use case. We already use Zoho Sign. Now that KBA is available, we want to begin using it in our tax delivery process, by allowing clients to sign electronically, but also download a copy of their returnZoho Mail Desktop Crashes on Linux - Ubuntu 24 LTS
Hi, I have been trying to run the desktop app on Ubuntu for the past few day with no luck. I have tried both the .deb package and the appImage. When I attempt to open the app. It just crashes immediately. The crash error dialog appeared once and I cantZoho IP blocked by SpamCop
Hi, Many of my emails are blocked and I receive this: INVALID_ADDRESS, ERROR_CODE :550, ERROR_CODE :spamcop.mimecast.org Blocked - see https://www.spamcop.net/bl.shtml?136.143.188.51. - https://community.mimecast.com/docs/DOC-1369#550 [DGwIYPPSOfWIServer error when trying to Data > Sort > Custom Sort
Been using Data > Sort > Custom Sort for a while, now it has suddenly stopped working. When selecting the same data range and trying to execute, I get "Sorry! There was a problem saving your last edit. Please try again."To Assign a genrated pdf to a file upload field using delug
content = "<html><body>HTML Content on page One <div style='page-break-after:always'></div> HTML Content on page Two </body></html>"; file = zoho.file.convertToPDF(content); file.setFileName("Name of the file"); <variableName> = <FormLinkName>[ID == input.ID];TArgets To Accounts (Modules)
How can i set sale target to Customers (Accounts Module)Breaking barriers with multilingual WhatsApp templates in IM
Ever wondered what it feels like to be greeted in your own language by a brand you love? A “Welcome!” feels nice, but a “¡Bienvenido!” or “स्वागत है!” feels personal. In today’s global world, conversations often need to cross both time zones and crossHow to share private Opportunities with whole org at an account level
Opportunities are currently set to private, so our sales team only sees their own opportunities, along with their manager and upper leadership. The need is the ability for the rest of the Org to see the opportunities at an account level, not within theProblema Verificacion con proveedor NIC.AR
No puedo realizar la verificación del correo, he seguido los pasos indicados y configurado los MX. Y no puedo verificar el correo. He leido en el foro que otros han tenido el mismo problema. Alguno pudo solucionarlo?How to remove some users in zoho accounts
How to remove some users in Zoho accounts.Unified Inbox for all, including fetched mails
I fetch mails from different third-parties mailboxes. But I need to switch mailbox too see fetched mails. It's strange. All mailboxes have one shared disk space for own mail and fetched mail, but why do we need to switch mailbox (on the left bottom) toWhatsapp Limitation Questions
Good day, I would like to find out about the functionality or possibility of all the below points within the Zoho/WhatsApp integration. Will WhatsApp buttons ever be possible in the future? Will WhatsApp Re-directs to different users be possible basedUsers Not Automatically Being Added To WorkDrive Team
I have already created a ticket for this issue, but the support team doesn't seem to understand what's happening. Our organization started with a trial of Zoho Workplace around November 10, 2025. I created 10 users, including myself. I sent out the invites,Synchronization between Gmail and Zoho Mail
Hello! I am using Zoho Mail within the Zoho One platform. I have completed the basic setup and added all the required DNS records with our domain provider. Our goal is to set up two-way synchronization between our current Gmail inbox and Zoho Mail, butIMAP login problem
I have my domain hosted with zoho @wilson.ie I have added a new user and have enabled IMAP access to this user account The user can login to zoho mail on the web. When we enter the server settings into Outlook as per below, Outlook cannot login to theChanges to subform in Zoho CRM Portal Timeline History Unavailable
Hi Support Team, We have noticed a feature limitation in the Zoho CRM portal. We created a portal for our vendors to edit records directly, but when vendors make updates, the Modified Time and Date fields are not being updated. Additionally, these updatesThis mobile number has been marked spam. Please contact support.
Hi Support, Can you tell me why number was marked as spam. I have having difficult to add my number as you keep requesting i must use it. My number is +63....163 Or is Zoho company excluding Philippines from their services?Function #11: Apply unused credits automatically to invoices
Today, we bring you a custom function that automatically applies unused credits from excess payments, credit notes, and retainer payments to an invoice when it is created. Prerequisites: Create a Connection named "zbooks" to successfully execute the function.Duplicating report but custom layout does not
Dear Zoho Creator, I need to duplicate a report into 10 copies, but unfortunately the custom layout (detail view) doesn’t copy along with it. I tried exporting and importing the custom layout, but the field mappings are incorrect. I believe everyone areNext Page