Deduplication

This page explains how we deduplicate leads in our system

Definition(s)

• Deduplication refers to the process by which, when the same Leads, Contacts, and/or Accounts are attempted to be added to a system, the system avoids creating a duplicate record

• Deduplication matters in CRM-like systems because the whole point of a CRM is to keep a clean, organized view of all interactions, notes, summaries for a particular person or company. If hundreds of the same contact or company existed in a system, this would create significant operational pressure for sales teams and ops teams.

• Deduplication is a complex problem because of:

  • the inherent messiness of data

  • frequency of human error in lead list imports

  • philosophical challenges with determine what constitutes a 'duplicate'.

    • classic example:

      • if a person left a company and started a new job, should the system overwrite the previous person's work email, or simply create a new person record with the new work email?

  • philosophical challenges with what determines what an account is

    • classic example:

      • McDonald's is a massive global organization. Should sales teams group all Contactswith the same email domain to a single monolithic 'McDonald's' account?

        • should McDonald's be split up into separate accounts by country?

        • if by country, why not by state?

        • if not by state, then why not by zip code?

        • some McDonalds franchises are owned by private equity ownership groups, and decision making for these McDonalds franchises are made by the private equity ownership group, not McDonalds. Does this mean for certain McDonalds franchises, they should actually roll into the private equity ownership group account?

How we deduplicate leads

• We deduplicate leads by email address.