Handle Duplicate Contact Records

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What to do with duplicate contact records.

• Transcript

  Let’s talk about Duplicate Contact Records.

  Sometimes, it’s difficult to determine what a duplicate is. 

  Is Jon Smith and Jonathan Smith the same person?

  If there are two Jon Smiths, they both live on the same street, but have different phone numbers, are those duplicate contacts?

  To resolve duplicate contact problems, go to ‘reports’ and then ‘duplicate contacts’.

  Here’s where you search and resolve duplicate contact issues.

  While there are several ways to search for duplicate contacts, one of the best ways is by email address.

  If two contacts in your database have the same email address, its a sure bet that we’re talking about the same person.

  Now when we find a duplicate, the next question is, which one or which ones do we delete?

  And how do we make sure that we don’t delete any good information?

  It would be nice if we could just combine duplicate records into one, but unfortunately, we need human eyes on the record because there may be decisions that need to be made.

  You never want an automated process that assumes something and deletes data that should not be deleted.

  Which name is correct? What’s the correct address? This is where a bit of manual work comes in.

  You will need to compare the two records and decide which date elements you want to keep. Put all the accurate information into one of the records and delete the other record.

  Here are some tips to make this task a breeze.

  If you have two monitors, you can put one contact on one screen and the other contact on the other screen.

  If not, maybe you want to print out both records, and compare them that way.