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The Hidden Threat of Lead Duplication and How CRM Sales Automation Software Can Solve It

As per industry experts 10-30% duplication rate is not uncommon for companies that have no data quality initiatives in place.

What is Lead Duplication?

It is a complex scenario when a lead enters your system more than once. Typically, the problem is lead duplication is unintentional and happens because of various factors, from incomplete records, not well-defined formatting, and misspellings to minor variations.

Lead Duplication Can Occur for Various Reasons:

  • Incorrect data entry : This may be due to manual entry or typing errors by the user or automated data entry tools. An example is if a user enters “John” instead of “John Doe” as the primary contact name.
  • Wrong formatting : This may be due to incorrect formatting settings on your customer service automation CRM, such as a wrong date format or no delimiter between different records in one document. An example would be if you have multiple lists, but only one uses commas instead of spaces between the list items in each list (as opposed to using both).
  • Misunderstanding or misuse of data elements: This can happen when users do not understand how certain fields and fieldsets work within your system, or they do not use it properly because they do not know how to use it properly (for instance, entering an address incorrectly into an address field).

To help prevent this from happening, you should implement a process to ensure that all of your lead information is up-to-date. This means ensuring you have accurate data and that any duplicated leads will be removed from your system.

How Can Lead Duplication Negatively Impact Your Business?

Incomplete or Confusing Information

The information you provide to your leads is their first impression of your business. If you send out clean, up-to-date, and clear information, it will be easier for your prospects to understand what you do and how your services can help them. In addition to poor lead management, incomplete or confusing information can negatively impact your business by confusing customers who receive incomplete or outdated information from your sales team.

Missed Opportunities

Lead duplication is one of the most common issues that companies face. It is not only frustrating but also costly and time-consuming. The reason for this is that when you are dealing with lead generation, there are so many opportunities to target prospective clients. You may think you have covered all the bases with your marketing campaigns, but what happens when you face a lead duplication issue? Your leads will be wasted because they were never contacted or added to your database. This can be very detrimental to your business because it means that you won’t be able to serve your customers as effectively as you should be able to do. This could mean that they won’t convert into sales, so they won’t buy from you again.

Wasted Marketing Budget

Lead duplication can be a problem for marketers. It is important to understand that lead generation aims to generate more leads than you need and lead nurturing aims to convert those leads into qualified sales opportunities. If you have a high level of lead duplication, then this means that your marketing budget could be better spent on leads that won’t turn into sales.

How to Fix and Prevent Lead Duplication?

Set Up your CRM marketing automation tools Properly

Leads are the lifeblood of any business. While you need to have a system for collecting leads, it is equally important to set up your system properly. A reliable CRM sales automation software will help you track your leads, manage the process of turning them into clients, and keep records of activities related to your clients.

You can fix the lead duplication problem to a great extent by ensuring that all of your salespeople are using the same customer service automation CRM and can access it easily. You should also ensure they have access to additional tools like email templates, which will help them automate certain parts of their process so they don’t have to do them manually anymore.

Bonus Suggestion: Properly set-up up your CRM system is the key to preventing lead duplication. The data should be tracked weekly, and a proper audit trail should be followed. This will help you find out if there are any errors in your CRM system, which can then be fixed immediately. You must also ensure that all the data is accurate and up-to-date because it will be easy to track down duplicate leads later.

With so many CRM marketing automation tools, zeroing in on the right one seems one heck of a challenge. Understanding your needs, budget, knowing the platform features, and research is imperative to make a well-informed decision.

Create Lead Duplication Prevention Algorithms and Alerts

Lead duplication prevention algorithms and alerts are essential for a robust data hygiene program.

The main objective of the lead duplication prevention algorithms is to measure the level of similarity between two leads and decide whether they are duplicates.

Duplication detection is a significant part of a data hygiene program as it helps you find potential problems in your data before they become big problems.

It’s also important to understand that there are many ways to prevent duplicate leads and that every system has its way of doing so. There are different ways to detect duplicates in different systems, but generally speaking, there are two main types:

Type 1 : A simple algorithm that looks at the first few fields of each lead and decides if they match up or not. This type doesn’t consider any other fields that may be in common between two leads (such as date of birth or phone number).

Type 2 : A more sophisticated algorithm that looks at all fields together and then determines if they match up based on certain rules (e.g., dates or phone numbers). This type can determine if there’s a high probability that two leads belong to the same person, but it won’t necessarily exclude them.

Define a Clear Protocol for Importing Customer Data

If you know your company’s internal processes, you can use that knowledge to improve the data import process.
The first thing you need is a clear protocol for importing customer data, which will help ensure consistency and accuracy from one import to another.

For example, if certain fields are required for each record, such as name, address, and phone number, then you should follow these rules when importing the data into your database:

Formatting : Use consistent formatting and spelling when entering information. For example, if one field must be filled in with a comma or a colon instead of an underscore, all other fields must be entered similarly.

Validation : Ensure all fields are validated before sending them over to your database server. This will ensure that every record has been entered correctly before being sent over to the database server, as well as prevent any errors from occurring while imported into your database.

In The End

A lead that has been copied is essentially a duplicate. There are several reasons why a lead could end up being duplicated; for the most part, it is not something you can predict. If you have found many duplicates in your database, you should do some digging to figure out why and then take steps as necessary to improve your lead collection processes. By following the tips in this article, you should be able to find the cause of your duplicates and correct them so they don’t come back and haunt you again!

AIM is the best CRM sales automation software. It has all the features required for a successful business sales process. AIM allows you to create, manage and automate your sales activities easily. AIM offers complete tools to organize and manage your customer records, contacts and leads. You can create custom reports, perform advanced analysis and get real-time information about your customers in one dashboard.