Data validation checks whether business data meets defined requirements before it enters a CRM or another system. Email, phone, business-status, address, and duplicate checks should return explicit statuses, timestamps, and exceptions. Pre-import review keeps questionable records out of downstream routing, outreach, and reporting until an owner resolves them.
What Do Validation Services Mean?
"Validation services" gets used for three different things, and search results mix them together. Data validation services (this page) verify business records: emails, phones, addresses, company status. Account validation services in banking confirm that a bank account exists and is open before a payment goes through. And ITIL's "service validation and testing" is an IT service management practice for confirming a new IT service meets requirements before release.
If you landed here looking for payment verification or ITIL process guidance, those are different disciplines. What follows covers validating B2B contact and company data before it enters a CRM, which is what we do.
The Problem: Bad Data Is Already in Your CRM
Most companies discover data quality problems after the damage is done. Emails bounce. Calls go to disconnected numbers. Sales reps waste hours on leads that don't exist. Marketing sends the same message three times to the same person.
By then, the bad data has already:
- Damaged your email sender reputation
- Wasted your sales team's time
- Polluted your reporting and forecasts
- Created duplicate records that take forever to untangle
The fix is simple: validate data before it enters your systems.
What We Validate
We check your data against multiple verification sources to catch problems before they become expensive:
- Email deliverability verification. Format checking is the easy part. We verify the mailbox will receive mail, so bounces get caught before they hurt your sender reputation.
- Phone number validation. Verify numbers are dialable, identify line type (mobile, landline, VoIP), and flag disconnected numbers.
- Business status checks. Is the company still operating? Has it been acquired, merged, or closed? We verify against public records and business databases.
- Address verification. Standardize and verify mailing addresses. Catch typos, incomplete addresses, and non-existent locations.
- Duplicate detection. Before you add records, we check them against your existing database. No more creating duplicates of contacts you already have.
- Data completeness scoring. Which records have enough information to be useful? Which need enrichment before they're worth pursuing?
Industry-Specific Validation
Generic validation catches generic problems. Industry-specific validation catches the issues specific to your business.
Healthcare Validation
Verum confirms project scale, timing, and acceptance checks after reviewing the submitted file; publishing an outcome requires an attributable project record.
- NPI Registry verification. Cross-reference against the National Provider Identifier database to confirm provider credentials.
- Practice status validation. Verify practices are open and operating rather than closed or relocated.
- Hospital system detection. Flag records that belong to hospital systems vs. independent practices.
- Specialty classification. Validate and standardize medical specialties against recognized taxonomies.
- Practice type categorization. Distinguish private practices from regional health systems, academic medical centers, and other facility types.
We're building similar validation rule sets for other industries. Contact us if you have industry-specific validation needs.
What You Get
You receive your original records with validation outcomes, source notes, and exceptions that need a business decision.
Every validation project delivers:
- Validated file. Your original data with validation status flags on each record.
- Validation report. Summary showing percentage valid, percentage fixable, percentage to exclude, and recommended actions.
- Issue breakdown. Specific counts by problem type so you know exactly what's wrong with your data.
- Recommendations. Which records to proceed with, which need enrichment, and which should be excluded.
Pre-CRM vs. Post-CRM Validation
There are two ways to think about data validation:
Pre-CRM validation checks data before it enters your systems. This is what we specialize in. You're importing a list from a trade show, onboarding data from an acquisition, or loading leads from a partner. Validate first, import clean.
Post-CRM validation audits data that's already in your systems. We do this too, but it's more expensive to fix. By the time data is in your CRM, it's already created duplicates, triggered automation, and polluted reports.
The economics are simple: catching a bad record before import costs pennies. Fixing the downstream damage costs dollars.
How Do You Choose a Validation Service Provider?
Choose a provider that defines each status, explains its sources, and proves the workflow on a representative sample.
Ask five questions before you send anyone your data.
- How deep is the email check? Syntax checking catches typos. Mailbox-level verification catches the addresses that look acceptable and still bounce. If a provider can't explain the difference, keep looking.
- What happens to unverifiable records? Some providers mark everything "valid" or "invalid" and hide the messy middle. You want domains with domain-wide acceptance and unverifiable records flagged separately so you can decide what risk to accept.
- Do you get a report or just a file? A validated file tells you which records passed. A report tells you why records failed, what's fixable, and what the numbers mean for your import.
- How is the data handled? Your list is customer and prospect data. Confirm how it's stored, who touches it, and when it gets deleted after delivery.
- How is the unit of work defined? Confirm submitted versus eligible records, included checks, minimum batch size, and treatment of unverifiable records.
Do You Validate US and International Data?
Email and phone validation work globally because the checks run against mail servers and carrier databases rather than any one country's records. Business status checks and address verification are strongest for US and Canadian records, where public registries and postal databases are most complete. For international lists, we'll tell you up front which checks apply at full depth and which come back with lower confidence, so you're rarely guessing what a "valid" flag means.
How It Works
Step 1: Send us your data. The list you're about to import, the vendor file you just received, the spreadsheet your partner sent over.
Step 2: We validate against multiple sources. Email verification services, phone databases, business registries, and our industry-specific rule sets.
Step 3: You get a validation report. Clear breakdown of what's valid, what's fixable, and what should be excluded. No guessing.
Step 4: Import with confidence. You know exactly what you're putting into your CRM. No surprises later.
Pricing
Verum provides a written, scope-specific charge and schedule after reviewing the records, requested checks, exception rules, and delivery format.
After reviewing a representative sample, we document the eligible records, included checks, exception rules, delivery format, schedule, and written quote before work begins.
Common Questions
How is validation different from cleaning?
Validation checks if data is accurate and usable. Cleaning fixes formatting and removes duplicates. Many projects need both, but validation comes first. No point cleaning data that shouldn't be in your system in practice.
How long does validation take?
The written scope sets the schedule after the eligible records, requested checks, exception rules, review requirements, and delivery format are known.
What if I need to validate data regularly?
Check out our Ongoing Maintenance service. We can set up recurring validation on whatever schedule works for you.
Can you validate data already in my CRM?
Yes. Export your data, we validate it, and you get a report showing which records need attention. This is a good first step before a larger data cleaning project.
How much do data validation services cost?
Compare written quotes for the same eligible records, requested checks, validation statuses, exception rules, review method, and delivery format.
Can you validate addresses and company records, or only emails?
Both. Address verification standardizes mailing addresses and flags non-existent locations. Company validation confirms the business is still operating and catches acquisitions, mergers, and closures. Most projects combine email, phone, address, and business status checks in one pass.
Is this the same as ITIL service validation and testing?
No. ITIL's service validation and testing practice is about verifying IT services before release. Data validation verifies business records: contacts, companies, addresses. Same word, unrelated disciplines.
Stop Importing Problems
Each bad record you import creates work downstream. Bounced emails, wasted calls, polluted reports, frustrated sales reps.
Validate before you import. It's cheaper to catch problems at the door than to fix them after they're inside.
Related: Data Cleaning | Data Enrichment | Ongoing Maintenance