Duplicate leads: codes, warnings and merging
How a firm avoids and fixes duplicate leads when the same prospect enquires twice: firm-wide lead codes, the matching warning and field-by-field merges.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Accountants & audit firms in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
A prospect fills in the website form on Monday, sees the firm's advert on Facebook on Wednesday and responds to that too, then phones reception on Friday because nobody has called back. By the following week the firm has three records for one person, owned by three different people, two of whom have each sent a welcome e-mail, and a prospect who has formed a fairly clear view of how organised the firm is.
Duplicate leads are not a data-hygiene nuisance to be tidied once a year. They cost the firm first impressions. This article explains why they appear, how Achekam warns about them, and how to merge them without losing anything.
Why duplicates appear
Most duplicates come from ordinary behaviour, not carelessness:
- Several channels. Web forms, social media lead ads and phone enquiries each create leads in their own way.
- Several people. The receptionist captures a phone enquiry while a manager is already working the same person's form submission.
- Slight differences. A personal e-mail on one enquiry and a work e-mail on the other, or a phone number with and without the country code.
- Old leads returning. A prospect who went quiet last year comes back through a new channel.
Some channels already help. A web form submission either creates a lead or adds to a recent lead with the same e-mail. The Zapier connector for Facebook and Instagram Lead Ads logs every receipt and recognises replayed deliveries, so a resent submission does not become a second lead. The remaining risk is mostly in manual entry and in differences that no automatic rule can match.
Firm-wide codes that are never reused
Each new lead gets a firm-wide code that is never reused. The code identifies the lead across the whole firm, not just one person's list.
Use the code as the reference in internal conversation. "Lead" plus a name is ambiguous when two records share a name; the code is not. Because codes are never reused, a code quoted in an old e-mail or note will always point to the same record, including after a merge, as explained below.
The warning on a matching e-mail or phone
When staff enter a lead whose e-mail or phone matches one already held, Achekam names the existing lead and asks before creating a second.
That warning is only as useful as the response to it. Agree a rule: when the warning appears, open the existing lead before doing anything else. Then decide:
| What you find | What to do |
|---|---|
| The same person, same enquiry | Add the new information to the existing lead; do not create a second |
| The same person, a new and separate need | Discuss with the existing lead's owner before creating anything |
| A different person sharing an e-mail or phone, such as spouses or a shared office line | Create the new lead and note the shared detail |
| An old lead closed as lost | Reopen the conversation on the existing record, which carries the history |
The last row is where the warning pays off most. A worked lead is never deleted, only closed as lost, so the returning prospect's earlier conversation, proposal and reason for leaving are all still there. More on that in closing leads as lost instead of deleting them.
Merging field by field
Some duplicates slip through: the work e-mail and the personal one, the name spelt two ways. Staff can merge two leads for the same prospect, choosing which value to keep for each field.
Field-by-field choice matters because the two records often each hold something right. One has the correct mobile number, the other the correct company name; one has the more recent address. Before merging:
- Check that they really are the same prospect. Same surname and town is not enough.
- Talk to both owners if the leads are owned by different people, and agree who will own the merged lead.
- Go through each field deliberately, keeping the most recent and most reliable value, not simply whichever record you opened first.
The merged lead is never deleted, and the merge is recorded with who did it. Opening the merged lead says which lead it became, so a colleague who follows an old link or quotes the old code is sent to the right place instead of a dead end.
Importing lists
Leads can also be imported from CSV, up to 5,000 rows at a time. Bulk imports are the largest single source of duplicates, because a purchased list, an event attendance list or an old spreadsheet will overlap with leads the firm already holds.
Clean the file before importing it, rather than relying on the system afterwards:
- remove duplicate rows within the file itself;
- standardise e-mail addresses and phone formats;
- compare the list with the firm's existing leads, and remove or flag anyone already held;
- record where the list came from, so the source is known later.
Do not assume a bulk import will stop to ask about each match the way manual entry does. Cleaning a file before it goes in is quicker than merging its duplicates one pair at a time afterwards.
Bulk lists raise a data protection question too: each row is a person, and one accurate record per person is easier to defend than three conflicting ones. Kenya's Data Protection Act, 2019 sets out the principles for processing personal data and data subjects' rights; South African and Nigerian firms have equivalent laws. A prospect who asks what the firm holds about them should get one clear answer.
For how web forms create or add to leads, see web forms, consent and the firm's mailing list.
This week, ask whoever captures phone enquiries to follow the warning rule above, and review the leads created in the last month for any that should be merged.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
