Consolidating Duplicates
Over time, duplicate customer records can accumulate in your Rolodex through data entry errors, multiple team members adding the same contact, or customers providing slightly different information across projects. Consolidating these duplicates maintains data quality and ensures accurate customer history.
Why Duplicates Occur
Duplicate contacts typically arise from variations in how customer information is entered. A customer might provide their business name on one project and personal name on another. Phone numbers might be formatted differently, with or without dashes or parentheses. Addresses might use different abbreviations or include or exclude apartment numbers. These small variations can lead to creating separate records for what is actually the same customer.
Finding Potential Duplicates
Start by searching the Rolodex for similar names or contact information. Look for entries with matching phone numbers, email addresses, or physical addresses. The search functionality queries multiple fields simultaneously, making it effective for identifying records that might represent the same customer.
Pay attention to contacts with similar names in the same city or with matching address components. Business names with slight variations in formatting or capitalization are common indicators of duplicates. Customer records with only one or two associated projects each might actually represent a single customer with multiple entries.
Reviewing Before Merging
Before consolidating records, carefully review all information in both contact entries. Open each contact's detail page and examine their complete profiles, including project history, notes, and all contact information fields. Verify that you are actually looking at duplicate entries for the same customer rather than two different people or businesses with similar information.
Check the project history for each record. If the projects are clearly for the same customer at the same location, this confirms the duplication. If the projects are at different locations or for clearly different people, the similar information might be coincidental and the records should remain separate.
The Merge Process
When you have confirmed that two records represent the same customer, choose which record will be the primary entry. Typically, you should keep the record with more complete information or more project associations. The primary record will be retained with all its existing data.
Manually transfer any unique information from the secondary record to the primary record. This includes contact details, notes, or project associations that exist only in the duplicate entry. Update the primary record to include the most current and accurate information from both sources.
Project Reassignment
After consolidating the contact information, you need to reassign projects from the duplicate record to the primary record. Open each project that is associated with the duplicate contact and update it to reference the primary contact instead. This ensures that all project history appears under a single customer record.
This reassignment step is crucial because deleting a contact that is linked to proposals will remove those associations. By moving all project relationships to the primary record first, you preserve the complete customer history before removing the duplicate entry.
Data Preservation Best Practices
Before deleting the duplicate record, copy any unique notes or information into the primary record's notes field. Include a note about the consolidation itself, documenting which duplicate record was merged and when. This creates an audit trail and preserves any historical context that might be valuable later.
Verify that all projects, invoices, and other records now reference the primary contact. Double-check that no important information exists only in the duplicate record. Once you are certain that all data has been preserved, you can safely delete the duplicate contact.
Preventing Future Duplicates
Establish procedures to minimize duplicate creation. Before adding a new contact, search the Rolodex to verify that the customer does not already exist. Use consistent formatting for phone numbers, addresses, and business names. When team members report a possible duplicate, address it promptly before additional projects become associated with the wrong record.
Consider designating one team member to handle Rolodex maintenance and duplicate resolution. Regular database reviews can catch duplicates early before they accumulate extensive project histories. Clean data practices save time and improve the accuracy of customer records throughout your organization.