ACT Database Software Video, Another Way to Deal with Duplicates

Posted on February 6th, 2008 by Travis

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Have you ever received an identical offline marketing piece (like a postcard, brochure, or promotional materials) from the same company more than once? How did that make you feel? Or have you ever sent a mailing out, only to find out that you send duplicate pieces to the same prospect, so that you not only incurred unnecessary marketing expense, but more importantly lost credibility in the mind of the recipient?

I battle this all the time in the online world, as I was forced to switch online mailing services not too long ago… Subscribers are still getting duplicates.

I recently evaluated a product to help deal with duplicates in ACT, in the right situation, it can save a ton of time and headache. Have a look.


Want to get the trial? Go to this page to find out more about this eGrabber software.

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7 Responses to “ACT Database Software Video, Another Way to Deal with Duplicates”

  1. chandra Bodapati, on February 7th, 2008 Said:

    Hi Travis

    Here are couple of observations:

    The main reason you gave for not wanting duplicates is to avoid sending
    two mail pieces to the same contact. There are other reasons too:

    = > Communication gap - Salesman knows person as Bob from IBM and
    Manger knows him as Robert from International Business Machines.

    - Each can be talking to the same person, but updating different records. So there is no common history.

    - Bob can be given different pricing and quotes if he calls - not knowing
    from ACT! that they have already been quoted under Robert

    = > Sales Call Confusion - Let’s suppose someone just imported a list of prospects from a trades show or a from a purchased lot

    - Assigning “Cypher Technologies” to salesman-A, while CTI (short form for Cypher Technologies Inc) is assigned to someone else and is a customer

    - A sales person not knowing that they are already dealing with that company

    - they have good/bad experience earlier. Would the way you make the cold call change, if you knew history?

    Hope this helps

    Chandra Bodapati
    Founder / CEO
    eGrabber

  2. chandra bodapati, on February 7th, 2008 Said:

    Travis

    This brings to the second issue,
    The video states eGrabber dupchecks only on Name or Company. That is not True. eGrabber dupchecks ALL primary contact fields. However these are three modes that exist for dupchecking:

    1) Match Name and Company
    2) Match Name (Ignore Company)
    3) Match Company (Ignore Name)

    In all of the above, the entire contact information is considered, including
    Address, phone, email and at times title too. It is natural!

    In Option-2, Match Name (Ignore Company), the company is ignored, but all
    other fields are matched.

    This is because you may have a friend called Chandra Bodapati. In the old
    database you will have him as C Bodapati, CypherTech and the new database
    you may have him as Chandra Bodapati, eGrabber. You might have a home
    address for him on both.

    So this is called a personal centric database.

    If you use option #2, it will group all the people you know that match by
    similar name.
    So it will match as duplicates - Which no other databases do
    C Bodapati, CypherTech
    Chandra Bodapati, eGrabber
    ==================================

    In Option-3, Match Company (Ignore Name), the Name is ignored, but all other
    fields are matched.

    This for company level sorting.
    You might want to know all the companies in which you have multiple
    contacts.

    Here Bob Smith, Add-on Store and Jack Brown, Addon store Inc will show
    up as duplicates.

    So when you get an imported list, and do this type of match you can assign accounts in smart manner.

    Travis, you will note that lot of thought has gone into developing this
    product. That is the reason it took us over 6 years in R&D.

    Thank you again for your support of the ACT! community.

    Chandra
    eGrabber
    Founder / CEO

  3. Travis, on February 7th, 2008 Said:

    Chandra-

    Thanks for taking the time to offer such a detailed response. I think this will clarify it for many readers. Indeed your examples for why duplicates are bad are good ones (I was trying to avoid creating a looooong video).

    The fact is, there is nothing else that I’m aware of that makes duplicate cleanup exercise go so fast!

    A smart move you made at eGrabber, was giving users the ability to download and try it against their own DB to get a feel for how it works.

    I encourage anyone who faces this issue to give the trial a run. Get the more info here.

  4. Roberta, on February 10th, 2008 Said:

    We only have 2007, will this work the same?

  5. Travis, on February 10th, 2008 Said:

    Roberta-

    Good question… I happen to know it does work with ACT! 2007, perhaps Chandra can reply with more information as to the versions. Of course you can follow the links here to get more details.

  6. jeff, on July 11th, 2008 Said:

    Caution on egrabber though. We tried it on a DB with a lot of doctors. It wasn’t worth a darn. The docs had father/son at the same address along with multiple offices in the same town. Program could not tell the difference between it all.

  7. Travis, on July 11th, 2008 Said:

    Make sure you have the latest version of the software, I just spoke with them recently and they updated it to accomodate a specific customer request I had.

    Let us know.

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