What is Merge-Purge ?
Merge-Purge is the process of identifying duplicated contact records then merging all the valuable information that needs retaining into a single golden record.
Contact records become enriched by consolidating vital information from matching records into one unique master customer profile. With all the personal information held in one place, you’ll know more about your customers.
This outcome is known as the Single Customer View and provides your business with many valuable benefits.
When do you use Merge-Purge ?
A Merge-Purge can be can be applied within a single data file or across multiple databases.
It’s an integral element if you are cleaning your contact data and is also used extensively with Data Migration projects.
Results can be further improved by firstly correcting postal addresses and then screening against House Movers reference databases. Matching contact records are then identified with the same algorithms used for deduplication.
When you want to merge-purge your contact data, I’ll formulate a custom solution that provides the most effective results for you. This specifies how duplicates are identified, how the master record is selected and what data is merged together as well as the output format.
Examples of Merge-Purge Processing
The first example is 3 contact records matching at individual level. These are consolidated and all relevant information re-calculated & merged. The result is one enriched `golden’ profile containing the best parts from those 3 records, providing you with a Single Customer View.
The retained golden profile contains the:
- sum total of the number of purchases
- most recent purchase date
- sum total of the value of purchases
- most complete name
The next example is where 2 records with different addresses could be deemed to be a match. The first name, surname, telephone number and email address are identical and the purchase dates are some time apart.
It could be concluded that they are the same person listed at a previous and a new address. All relevant information, including the latest postal address can then be merged to create an up-to-date Single Customer View.
This technique can be especially useful if you have historical customer records, even if they have been processed against House Movers databases.
Benefits of Merge-Purge
- Create a Single View for each customer so that all the important information is held on one unique golden profile.
- Implement more accurate marketing campaigns by targeting your most valuable customers, most recent customers or lapsed customers with real precision.
- Provide more accurate management reporting and database analysis.
- Presents a more complete & accurate picture of each customer to your Customer Services or Reservations teams.
