What is Salesforce Duplicate Management?
What is Salesforce Duplicate Management? RevOps 10 min Salesforce duplicate management is a cause of worry for most businesses. It fills up the CRM with untrustworthy data. And the insights drawn from that data become questionable. Duplicity in Salesforce is when customer data is entered multiple times in the system leading to confusion, inefficiencies, and inaccurate reporting of leads. Sales duplicity management is an issue that leading companies of the world are dealing with. Duplicate data in Salesforce describes a situation where two or more records in your database describe one unique real-world entity. For example, suppose you possess a contact named Ariana Grande, but your CRM comprises several contact entries representing Ariana Grande, each with some differences (A. Grande, Ari Grande). Duplicate data often results in lead ownership and sales commission confusion. The customer, on the other hand, gets conflicting messages and redundant calls, causing a negative impression of the organization. The problem of duplicate data in Salesforce is huge, with most CRMs having 15-30% duplicate records. New records coming from integrations are almost 80% duplicate on average! How Duplicate Data is killing your Salesforce Effectiveness Let’s have a detailed look at how duplicate data might be hindering your Salesforce CRM’s effectiveness. 1. Poor customer experience Imagine receiving identical emails twice or having to repeat your issue to customer support because they are looking at different records. Such experiences can be frustrating and hamper the customer experience, which Salesforce aims to provide seamlessly. Duplicate records in Salesforce create the opposite effect, disrupting the smooth customer experience and undermining customer satisfaction. 2. Wasted sales opportunities Duplicate data in Salesforce can lead to wastage and frustration for the sales team. For instance, if a salesperson contacts a lead that another salesperson is already engaging in, it can result in wasted time, added frustration, and a poor experience for the lead. An excessive number of duplicates can also erode salespersons’ trust in the data in Salesforce. Consequently, they may either extensively verify each contact before reaching out or skip checking background data altogether. 3. Unnecessary costs Businesses that utilize physical marketing materials like brochures, sample kits, and direct mail might suffer financial losses by sending the same materials to a person twice. This practice is not only wasteful but also harmful to the environment. Moreover, certain software licenses are tied to the total number of records. Removing duplicates can minimize the number of records and associated costs. 4. Inflated forecasts The process of forecasting involves evaluating the number of prospects that are likely to progress through the marketing and sales funnel. However, inflated numbers caused by duplicates in the data can result in overly optimistic forecasts, which may be unattainable. For example, if two sales representatives work on the same opportunity and enter the same data into Salesforce, the opportunity will be counted twice in the forecast. When there are multiple records for the same customer or prospect, it can be difficult to get an accurate view of the customer’s history, preferences, and needs. This can lead to misinformed sales strategies and missed opportunities. 5. Bad decision-making Effective decision-making begins with a unified view of the customer, consolidating all customer data into one view. This view can comprise various types of data, such as click data, transactional data, and contact information, and can enable cross-channel marketing and other capabilities. Measuring the impact of actions across all channels is crucial for making informed decisions. However, duplicates in the database can prevent a comprehensive analysis of specific customers and make the aggregated data unsuitable for analysis. With duplicity in Salesforce hurting organizations so viciously, companies are trying to find solutions to this common problem. One such solution is – Automation. Automation in Salesforce can be used to prevent duplicates by implementing data quality rules, identifying potential duplicates, and automating routine data management tasks. This can improve data accuracy, reduce the risk of errors, and ensure consistency in customer data. What are the various ways in which Automation can mitigate the issue of duplicate data in Salesforce? Let’s have a look. How Automation Can Resolve the Problem of Salesforce Duplicity Management What are the various ways in which automation can mitigate the issue of duplicate data in Salesforce? Let’s have a look. 1. Automated data entry instead of manual work Automated data entry can help prevent duplicate data in Salesforce by reducing the likelihood of human errors that often occur during manual data entry. With automation, data can be extracted from various sources and integrated into Salesforce without manual intervention, thereby minimizing the risk of creating duplicates. Automation can also check for duplicates in real time, and if detected, the system can either merge or delete the duplicate record automatically. 2. Audit before importing data Auditing data before importing it into Salesforce can identify and eliminate potential duplicates before they are introduced into the system. This involves thoroughly reviewing existing data and cross-referencing it against the new data to be imported. By doing so, businesses can identify any existing records that match the imported data and take the necessary actions to merge or delete them. 3. Implement validation rules to enforce data standards Implementing validation rules in Salesforce can help prevent duplicate data by enforcing data standards and ensuring that new data being entered meets specific criteria. These rules can be set up to validate different types of data, including names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses. For example, suppose a validation rule is set up to prevent the creation of multiple contact records with the same email address. In that case, any attempt to create a new record with an existing email address will trigger an error, preventing the duplicate record from being created. This can improve data accuracy, reduce the risk of errors, and ensure consistency in customer data. 4. Proper validation on all CRM-connected forms Implementing proper validation on all CRM-connected forms can help prevent duplicate data by ensuring that new data being entered meets specific criteria before it is added to Salesforce. This