How duplicates are created

The computer is at fault!

As opposed to humans, computers interpret information strictly literally. Given a "Thomas Meyer" and a "Tomas Mayor" in the same street of the same city, you may know that these names refer to the same person, but a computer will treat them as two entirely different individuals.

Even with careful data entry work, duplicates may still be created:

• Customers may sometimes write their names out in full, and other times use abbreviations.
• You may see a "Carl Schulz", then later "Dr. Schulz".
• A company may first place an order as "Office Supply Urban", then as "Urban Office Supplies", and then later as "Modern Urban Office Supply, Inc."
• A secretary may understand a name over the telephone as "Ullman"; but when a handwritten order arrives, the name appears to be "Holman".

What about careful maintenance?

In a well-maintained address database, the rate of duplicates normally runs from 4% to 6%. Most of our customers have had even more than that. In 1989, our own corporate database contained over 12% duplicates; this was the reason we began developing software to analyze and eliminate duplicates.

Purchased addresses may be dangerous

Integrating purchased data records into your own set of data often results in an especially high rate of duplicates. Assuming a good match between the target groups, it would not be unusual at all to find that 25% are duplicates.

Again and again...

No matter how careful you are, duplicates will continue to occur, unless you have preventive utilities in place. Luckily Omikron is here to help you with the world's best comparison processor, so that your system will become clean, and remain so.

Would you like additional information or a customized offer?

Call us now at +49 7231-12597-0, or send us a note using our contact form. One of our experienced representatives will contact you shortly.