How to Eliminate and Prevent Lead Deduplication

There are two words that no business owner wants to hear: duplicate leads or lead deduplication. They decrease revenue, reduce sales productivity, increase the cost of customer acquisition, destroy customer loyalty, and a whole host of other negatives that can spell disaster for a company. Once you’ve identified that you have duplicate leads, it is important to eliminate them and prevent duplicates from entering your CRM system in the future. This is your guide on how to fix duplicate leads. 

What’s Considered to Be a Lead Duplication?

A duplicate lead is when there are multiple records for the same person in your system. In the case of duplicates, all the information may not be exactly the same. For instance, one person may sign-up for your newsletter twice using two different emails. It is the slight variation in information, whether it be an email address, a typo in the name, or phone number that allows the duplicate record to enter your CRM database without initiating an alert.

How to Fix and Prevent Duplicate Leads

There’s no such thing as a good duplicate lead or lead deduplication procedure. They all need to be cleaned out of your system as soon as possible and measures are taken to ensure that more do not find their way in. Let’s take a look at the best ways to eliminate and prevent duplicate records in your CRM system.

Lead Deduplication or Duplicate Leads

Lead Deduplication is the process of identifying and eliminating duplicate leads within a specified set of data. This process is able to analyze data across different directories, data types, and servers even in different locations. Repetitive pieces of data are identified and can then either be removed or consolidated so that each consumer only has one record.

Properly Set Up Your CRM System

It is important to either follow all of the instructions set forth by the developer when installing your CRM system or having it professionally installed. Failure to do so can interfere with the ability of duplicate alerts to work correctly. Cutting corners can also affect how well you are able to store and manage your data.

Grouping and Organizing Records

In most cases, you will need to create different categories and subgroups in order to store your data in an effective way that is easy to navigate. An easy-to-understand grouping system makes it easier to avoid duplicate records and identify them before they enter your system.

Create Lead Duplication Prevention Algorithms and Alerts

Alerts are great for raising red flags when something is amiss based on set parameters. Create duplication alerts in your CRM system. Make sure that your duplication detection algorithms are cross-matching across programs, servers, and locations. They should also be looking at names, phone numbers, and emails holistically as opposed to analyzing pieces of information separately. For instance, if a customer signed up more than once and used their work phone number for one and their cell phone for another if your algorithms are only looking at phone numbers this duplication will not be caught. However, if your system is looking at all three factors, an alert will be sent notifying you of the potential duplication.

Create a Protocol for Importing Customer Data

When your sales team is pulling data from different sources and servers, things can get complicated very quickly. Define a clear protocol for procuring and entering new consumer data into your system and checking for duplicates prior too.

Increase the Health of Your Business by Eliminating Duplicate Leads

Duplicate leads are a detriment to your business. LeadAngel understands that fixing and preventing duplicate leads takes time. You’ve got more important things when it comes to running your business. Let us put our expertise to work for your business by eliminating the duplicate leads in your CRM system and preventing future ones. Contact us today to get started!