
Dedupely Vs. Five Alternatives For Deduping Your CRM
We don't have many competitors. That is, there aren't too many other companies out there specializing in data deduplication.However, we still do compete. I once heard a smart entrepreneur say "Your competition is the process your market uses outside of software". We don't compete with other companies or focus much on what they do. We do however have to compete against the rather old, outdated processes our customers use before using Dedupely.Let's cover a few data deduplication alternatives and why I'm convinced Dedupely is the best:
1. Google Sheets & CSVs (Export-Clean-Import)
You can remove duplicates with Google Sheets. This takes a bit of doing, but you can eventually end up with a cleaner CSV to import back into your CRM.Pros
- Totally free.
- 100% power over match calculations.
Cons
- May or may not be easy to merge multiple duplicates into one line, rather just removes the other duplicates.
- You lose references to Notes, Tasks, Deals, Companies, etc. when importing back in.
- Exporting and importing again takes a lot of extra time and work and often messes with your data.
2. Coders
Getting a coder to write deduplication scripts is one alternative I've seen a few companies use.Access to powerful programming languages is abundant in this day and age. Hiring coders from Fiverr or UpWork can be fairly easy and inexpensive. You can even do this yourself if you are a tech-savvy person.Pros
- Get more control over your unique situation
- Tweak and change things over time
- Direct access to the API to avoid CSV imports/exports
Cons
- Anything close to big data (more than a few thousand contacts) begins to require more computational power. You might need to invest in a better computer or server stack.
- You need to get the coder to update things on a continual basis when you want to tweak how the deduplication scan works.
- Building a deduplication script is not always simple, and paying a programmer can cost you > $20 an hour (especially programmers who know how to write powerful algorithms).
3. VAs (You outsource data deduping to)
Using a VA (Virtual Assistant) to manually dedupe is probably the most common alternative. Our first customer (back in 2014) did this before he switched to Dedupely.Pros
- Relatively cheap depending on your duplicates situation.
- You don't have to do it yourself.
Cons
- Moral killer for the VA (I can safely say, no one likes spending hours deduplication contacts)
- Can be costly depending how many duplicates you have and how often they enter your CRM
- Can be very very slow. It takes time for humans to hunt down duplicates.