CRM basics: records, pipelines, data quality and customer data
What every CRM has in common: records and how they relate (people, organizations, deals), pipelines whose stages have clear exit criteria, activities and dated next steps, preventing and merging duplicates, ownership and access to customer data, honoring opt-outs, and reading pipeline reports critically.
- Level
- Beginner
- Length
- About 40 minutes
- Contents
- 3 lessons · 1 video · final exam
- Status
- Published · updated 2 Oct 2026
Skills you'll practise
- Explain how people, organizations and deals relate in a CRM, and why associations matter
- Move a deal only when the stage's exit criteria are met
- Record activities and a dated next step that a colleague could act on
- Spot likely duplicates and decide which record to keep
- Handle customer data within your access and honor opt-out requests
- Read a pipeline report and identify records that make it unreliable
Course outline
- 1.CRM basicsVideo · 1 min
- 2.Records and relationshipsLesson · 13 min
- 3.Pipelines, activities and next stepsLesson · 13 min
- 4.Clean data, access and opt-outsLesson · 14 min
- 5.CRM basics: records, pipelines, data quality and customer data: knowledge checkKnowledge check · 15 questions
- 6.Final exam11 questions · passing it completes the course, so people who already know the material can test out
Sources it draws on
The lessons and questions are written from these references, so learners can go back to the original.
- HubSpot Knowledge Base: How to use objects for business processes (objects, records, properties, associations)
- HubSpot Knowledge Base: Deduplication of records
- Trailhead: Create and Convert Leads as Potential Customers
- Trailhead: Improve Data Quality in Salesforce (why duplicate data is a problem)
- UK ICO: Guide to PECR, electronic and telephone marketing (UK example: consent and the right to opt out; follow the rules where you work)
- U.S. FTC: CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business (US example: honor opt-out requests promptly)
- General CRM and sales operations practice
See it with your own jobs and topics
Tell us about your team and we'll walk you through setup, from choosing jobs to your first skills check.