Role Guide: CRM Administrator
For Narqix specialists who keep a client's CRM clean, structured and trustworthy. After reading you will know what you own, what you may never change alone, and how your work is measured.
Track: Back Office & Admin · Role: CRM Administrator · Time to complete: 20 min
What this role is
The CRM is the client's memory of every customer, lead and deal. Sales callers, managers, automations and reports all read from it. When the CRM is wrong, everyone downstream makes wrong decisions: the caller phones a dead number, the automation texts a customer who opted out, the owner thinks the pipeline is twice as big as it is.
A CRM Administrator keeps that memory complete, consistent and current. You are not the owner of the CRM (the client is). You are its caretaker.
What you own
| Area | Your job |
|---|---|
| Record quality | Every record meets the Minimum Record standard (see CRM Hygiene Cycle) |
| Duplicates | Found and merged weekly, safely |
| Formats | Names, phones, emails, states, dates in one agreed format |
| Tags and fields | Only approved values in use; new ones only with approval |
| Pipelines and stages | Records sit in the right stage; stuck deals flagged |
| Imports | Lists prepared, mapped, tested and imported with a backup first |
| Lead assignment | New leads routed to the right owner on time |
| Reports and views | Saved views and simple reports the team uses daily |
| Change log | Every structural change recorded with date, reason and approver |
Your rhythm
You run the CRM Hygiene Cycle (its own page): daily tasks, a weekly duplicate sweep, a monthly stale-record review, and a quarterly audit. On top of that, your daily shift looks like this:
| Shift time | What you do |
|---|---|
| Start | Check in, start of day report, read requests from the sales team. |
| First hour | New leads assigned. Overdue tasks report sent to owners. Bounces and wrong numbers from yesterday marked. |
| Main block | Imports, cleaning projects, requested views and reports. |
| Mid shift | Logged break. Answer team questions in one batch. |
| Second block | Hygiene cycle task for today (dedupe, stale review, or audit). |
| End | Change log updated, end of day report with counts (records fixed, merged, imported, held). |
How you are measured
| KPI | Target |
|---|---|
| Records missing required fields | Under 2% of active records |
| Duplicates found in the weekly sweep | Falling month on month |
| New leads assigned within the client's window | 100% |
| Imports completed with a backup and a test batch | 100% |
| Unapproved tags or fields created | Zero |
| Unapproved bulk changes | Zero (auto-fail in QA) |
| QA score on sampled work | 90% or more |
Tools (generic)
CRM (admin or power user seat, never sole owner), spreadsheet, shared drive for backups and import files, password manager, task tracker, team channel, your campaign's time tracker.
Handoffs
- You receive: new lead sources, import files, requests from callers and managers ("can you add a field", "this contact is wrong"), and decisions from the client.
- You pass on: clean, assigned leads to callers; reports to managers; proposed structure changes to the client for approval; data quality notes in the weekly report.
What needs written approval (always)
Some CRM actions are dangerous because they affect many records at once or trigger automations. These always need a written yes from the client, every time:
- Deleting any record (single or bulk).
- Editing more than 50 records in one action.
- Creating, renaming or deleting a pipeline, stage, field or tag.
- Turning any automation, workflow or campaign on or off.
- Importing a list that will receive messages (texts, emails, calls).
- Changing user permissions.
Before any approved bulk action: export a backup of the affected records, test on 5 records, check the result, then run the rest.
Never do this: never import a list into a CRM that sends automated texts or calls unless the client confirms the contacts gave the right consent (or approves the list as a cold list for first-touch texts and voicemail drops) and the list has been checked against do-not-contact rules. A bad import can message thousands of people in minutes, and that cannot be undone.
Coach's note: when a sales rep says "the CRM is a mess", ask for three examples. Messy usually means one of four things: duplicates, missing next steps, wrong owner, or stuck stages. Each has a different fix. Specific problems get fixed; vague ones get complained about forever.
Quality standards
- Search before you create. Always check by email and phone before adding a contact.
- Merge carefully. Keep the record with the most activity; bring notes, tasks and history across; never merge two different people who share a phone number (families, offices).
- Log every touch the same day. Date, channel, outcome, next step and its date.
- Archive, do not delete. Old contacts go to an inactive list unless the client approves deletion.
- Document structure. Keep a short CRM map: pipelines, stages and what each means, fields and allowed values, tags and when to use them.
Escalation rules
- P1, tell your Narqix lead in 15 minutes: an import or bulk action went wrong, an automation messaged the wrong people, or you see signs of an account takeover.
- Same day to the client: a broken automation, a lead source that stopped sending leads, a large duplicate problem.
- Weekly report: hygiene trends and suggested improvements.
Common mistakes
| Mistake | Fix |
|---|---|
| Creating a "temporary" tag that never gets removed | No new tags without approval; use a note instead |
| Importing without mapping test | Always test 5 records and check every field landed in the right place |
| Merging by name only | Match on email or phone, then confirm with address or company |
| Moving deals forward without notes | A stage move needs a reason in the notes |
| Fixing data the sales rep owns without telling them | Leave a note on the record and tell the owner |
Check yourself
- A manager asks you to switch off a follow up automation "for a day". What do you need before you do it?
- Two contacts share a phone number but have different names. Do you merge them?
- List the four steps before any approved bulk edit.
- What is the target for records missing required fields?
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