How to enrich CRM contacts with verified data from Salesintel

Ever feel like your CRM is full of ghosts—contacts with missing phone numbers, outdated job titles, or companies that don’t even exist anymore? If you’re in sales, marketing, or customer success, you know: bad data isn’t just annoying—it kills deals, wastes time, and makes your team look sloppy.

This guide is for anyone tired of chasing down the right info or paying for tools that promise “verified” data and deliver little more than educated guesses. We’ll walk through how to actually enrich your CRM contacts with real, human-verified data from Salesintel—without breaking things, wasting hours, or getting burned by hype.

Why bother enriching CRM contacts at all?

Short answer: Because garbage in = garbage out. If your CRM is full of half-baked records, you’ll:

  • Email the wrong people (or dead inboxes).
  • Miss out on prospects who changed jobs.
  • Waste money on marketing to contacts who aren’t even there.

Enrichment means filling in the blanks with real, up-to-date data—like direct dials, work emails, company info, even LinkedIn profiles. Done right, it makes your CRM actually useful.

But let’s be honest: Most enrichment tools overpromise and underdeliver. You want verified data, not just a database scraped from the web. That’s where Salesintel claims to stand out—they say they use real people to verify info, not just bots.

Step 1: Figure out what you actually need

Before you install anything or hand over your credit card, take a breath.

  • What’s missing in your CRM? Are you lacking direct dials? Clean company names? LinkedIn URLs?
  • Which fields do you care about? Don’t pay for data you’ll never use.
  • How many contacts do you want to enrich? Some tools charge by contact, some by seat, some by “credits.” (Watch out for this. It adds up fast.)

Pro tip: Run a quick audit of your CRM. Export a sample to CSV and highlight what’s missing. If 90% of your contacts are missing phone numbers, focus there—don’t get distracted by shiny features you don’t need.

Step 2: Clean up your CRM before you enrich

This is boring, but it matters. If your CRM is a mess—duplicates, typos, people who left their jobs years ago—enrichment won’t fix it. It’ll just make the mess fancier.

  • Deduplicate contacts: Merge or remove obvious repeats.
  • Fix broken fields: Standardize things like job titles and company names.
  • Purge the dead weight: If someone hasn’t opened an email in 3 years and you have zero engagement, maybe let them go.

You don’t need to be perfect. But the cleaner your list, the better the enrichment works.

Step 3: Connect Salesintel to your CRM

Now for the main event. Salesintel integrates with most major CRMs—Salesforce, HubSpot, Dynamics, and a few others. Here’s what you need to know:

A. Decide on integration vs. manual upload

  • Native integrations: Easiest but usually require admin privileges and a paid plan.
  • Manual CSV import/export: More work, but gets around permissions and lets you control what you upload.

If you’re at a big company, IT might need to sign off. At a small company, you can probably do it yourself.

B. Set up the connection

  1. Log in to Salesintel.
  2. Go to the integrations page and pick your CRM.
  3. Follow the prompts—usually OAuth or an API key.
  4. Map fields: This is important. Make sure Salesintel’s “Direct Dial” goes to the right field in your CRM. Don’t just accept the defaults—double-check.

Pro tip: Do a small test batch first. Enrich 50 contacts, not 5,000. Check if the data lands where you expect. If something looks weird, stop and fix it before rolling out to everyone.

C. Manual option (if you can’t integrate)

  • Export your CRM contacts to CSV.
  • Upload the file to Salesintel.
  • Choose which data you want to enrich.
  • Download the enriched file and re-import to your CRM.

It’s slower, but it works—and you’re less likely to accidentally overwrite good data.

Step 4: Choose your enrichment settings carefully

Salesintel lets you pick what to enrich—emails, phones, company data, social profiles, etc. Don’t just tick every box because it’s there.

  • More data = more cost: Many enrichment tools charge by field. Only enrich what you’ll actually use.
  • Be careful with overwrites: If you already have a valid work email, don’t let Salesintel overwrite it. Some CRMs let you set rules for this.
  • Watch your “credits”: Salesintel uses a credit system. Enriching a contact can burn 1-3 credits depending on the data. Don’t blow your whole budget on one upload.

What not to bother with: Unless you have a clear use case, skip things like “personal emails” or “company revenue estimates.” These are often inaccurate or unnecessary.

Step 5: Kick off enrichment—and monitor closely

Start the enrichment job. For big lists, it might take a while. Here’s what to watch for:

  • Failed matches: Not every contact will get new data. That’s normal. A 60-80% match rate is typical for verified data. If you’re getting much less, something’s wrong—check your field mapping or ask support.
  • Data quality: Spot check a sample. Are emails bouncing? Do phone numbers connect? Is the company info accurate?
  • Duplicates: Sometimes enrichment tools create new contacts instead of updating existing ones. This is a nightmare—make sure your CRM is set to update, not create, when possible.

Pro tip: Keep a backup of your CRM before running a big batch. If things go sideways, you’ll thank yourself.

Step 6: Make the data actually useful

You’ve enriched your contacts. Now what? If all you do is admire your new data, you’ve wasted your time.

  • Update your workflows: Use direct dials for outbound calls. Update email cadences to use verified addresses.
  • Segment smarter: Group contacts by company size, industry, or role—based on the new data.
  • Share with your team: Brief sales and marketing. Show them what’s new and how to use it.

Don’t: Blast everyone with the same message just because you have new emails. That’s a fast way to get marked as spam.

Pitfalls and real talk: What works, what doesn’t

What works (if you do it right):

  • Direct dials: If Salesintel has them, they’re usually solid. Great for outbound calls.
  • Work emails: Generally good, but always verify with a test campaign.
  • Human-verified job titles: Better than scraped data, but still check for recent job changes.

What doesn’t:

  • Personal emails: Quality varies wildly. Often out of date or just plain wrong.
  • Company “firmographics”: Revenue, headcount, industry—they’re sometimes educated guesses, not hard facts.
  • Bulk enrichment on a dirty list: If your starting data is garbage, enrichment just gives you fancier garbage.

What to ignore:

  • Shiny dashboards that measure “data completeness.” Focus on what actually moves the needle for your team.
  • Overpromised “AI insights.” Unless you see a clear benefit, don’t pay extra.

Quick checklist for success

  • [ ] Audit your CRM for missing fields and junk data.
  • [ ] Clean up duplicates and obvious errors.
  • [ ] Decide exactly what data you really need.
  • [ ] Connect or prepare your CRM for enrichment.
  • [ ] Run a small test batch and verify results.
  • [ ] Enrich your full list (with backups handy).
  • [ ] Update workflows and train your team to use the new data.

Wrapping up: Don’t overthink it

Enriching your CRM contacts with verified data from Salesintel can save you time and make your outreach way more effective—but only if you keep it simple. Start with what you actually need, test on a small scale, and ignore the hype. Iterate as you go.

Remember: Better data won’t fix a broken process, but it does make good teams faster and smarter. Stick to the basics, and you’ll avoid most of the usual headaches.