HubSpot is known for its comprehensive support, marketing, and sales features. A notable aspect of HubSpot's functionality is its text messaging capability, which enhances customer interactions and communications. However, while HubSpot’s texting features are extremely useful for any department that interfaces with customers, companies that embrace SMS often require more advanced solutions.
To bridge this gap, many companies opt for third-party integrated phone SMS apps available within the HubSpot App Marketplace. Among these, Sakari is a particularly popular choice. Sakari is an integrated SMS app that augments HubSpot's standard capabilities. By offering features such as personalized messaging, two-way texting, autoresponders, and automated bulk texts, Sakari enhances the communication experience for both the business and its customers.
However, the integration of any app with your CRM is not without its challenges. A common issue faced by users of the Sakari-HubSpot integration is the creation of duplicate contact records. This problem typically arises because Sakari syncs with HubSpot and relies on phone numbers to identify contacts. When Sakari fails to find a matching phone number within HubSpot, it creates a new contact record.
Complicating matters further, Sakari employs a unique placeholder email for each contact, incorporating the phone number into this email. This method, while useful in differentiating contacts, makes it difficult to identify and merge duplicate records using email addresses.
Companies looking to streamline customer data and ensure more effective communication need to find a way to effectively manage these duplicates.
Why Sakari-Created Duplicates Are Damaging
Duplicate data in any CRM system can have far-reaching and detrimental effects on a business.
First, duplicate data leads to inefficiencies in communication and outreach. Sales and support teams rely on accurate data to make calls to customers and prospects. Duplicates can result in redundant actions from different team members, for example, resulting in a customer receiving multiple communications from different people. This wastes valuable resources but can also irritate the customer, potentially harming the relationship.
Additionally, duplicates can skew analytics and reporting. Accurate data analysis is vital for making informed business decisions, and particularly in assessing the effectiveness of sales and support operations. Duplicate records can lead to inaccurate metrics, such as overstated customer engagement or skewed conversion rates, which mislead the management team.
Managing customer information becomes more challenging with duplicates in the system. Each interaction, whether it's a call, message, or email, is a crucial touchpoint that shapes a customer’s experience with your company. Duplicate records can lead to a disjointed or inconsistent customer experience, as different records may not have the same history or context.
How Sakari Creates Duplicate Contacts in HubSpot
Sakari, like all HubSpot phone apps, collects limited data from customer conversations. Often, the only data that Sakari has to pass on are customer phone numbers. As there is usually no name attached, these records are only useful if you are able to identify the corresponding record in your database.
When receiving a message or call, Sakari automatically converts the contact number to the E. 164 format and then scans your HubSpot database to find a match. However, mismatches occur if the phone numbers within your HubSpot database are not stored in E. 164 format. This leads Sakari to create a new, redundant contact record, cluttering your database with duplicates.
This data inconsistency is further exacerbated by varied data sources, including customer submissions, manual data entries, integrations with other apps, and bulk imports. The rarity of consistent E. 164 formatting across these sources means Sakari frequently overlooks existing records.
Sakari uses placeholder information in mandatory fields. When creating a new contact record, Sakari inputs data into the following fields:
- Email: send+[phonenumber]@sakari.io
- Phone number: Phone number in E. 164 format
- Mobile phone number: Phone number in E. 164 format
- Contact owner: Based on your integration settings
While placeholders are a necessary workaround, they make deduplication much more difficult. First and last names are the most commonly used matching fields for identifying duplicates, but Sakari doesn’t populate them, further complicating deduplication. Not only that, but the placeholder email that uses the customer’s phone number means that you cannot reliably use the email field to match potential duplicates in HubSpot CRM. You only have the phone number to work with.
Although HubSpot's built-in tools do give you the option to evaluate and merge HubSpot contacts manually, this is a long and arduous process that is not really ideal for companies with larger bases. These tools are also unable to discern between myriad phone number formats, particularly when considering international standards, area codes, and extensions.
To solve Sakari-generated duplicates, you need to format your database’s phone numbers to the E. 164 standard. And when doing so, it is typically worth your time to look to third-party solutions to help you deal with your Sakari-HubSpot duplicate contacts. Insycle offers simple solutions for negating the downsides of Sakari-HubSpot duplicates, completely.
Insycle Solves Sakari-HubSpot Duplicates Outright, Automatically
Insycle's Merge Duplicates feature offers a sophisticated solution for automatically managing duplicates created through Sakari's integration with HubSpot, significantly reducing the need for manual oversight.
To start, Insycle makes it incredibly easy to reformat phone numbers in your database to the E. 164 standard.
Insycle enables you to use any field as a potential criterion for identifying duplicates, with advanced control over the analysis of data within those fields to pinpoint duplicates accurately.
For Sakari duplicates in HubSpot, the phone number field is crucial. It's important to utilize an "Exact Match" strategy for phone numbers to avoid mistakenly merging contacts with similar but distinct phone numbers. However, Insycle offers flexibility by allowing you to exclude formatting differences such as symbols, spaces, and letters. This way, you ensure that only genuine duplicates are flagged.
Further, Insycle allows for matching across multiple fields. Because you can instruct Sakari to place the phone number data in either the phone number field, the mobile phone number field, or both, you may want to compare both fields when matching duplicates by phone numbers.
With Insycle, you can safeguard valuable data, ensuring that it is retained across duplicate contacts originating from Sakari. And Insycle gives you complete control over which record is chosen as the post-merge master record.
Additionally, Insycle can set rules regarding how data is retained during the merge, down to the field level.
Insycle integrates seamlessly with HubSpot workflows, allowing for the immediate and automatic merging of Sakari-generated duplicates, addressing them completely before any initial contact communication begins.
Insycle's robust deduplication features allows you to effectively eliminate Sakari duplicates within HubSpot, streamlining CRM maintenance and enhancing data integrity.
Insycle: The Ultimate HubSpot Data Quality Game-Changer
Insycle’s Merge Duplicates module automates and simplifies the process of identifying and merging duplicate contacts created through Sakari. By offering the capability to overlook intricate formatting discrepancies and match across multiple fields, Insycle allows you to catch more of the duplicates that clutter your database.
However, Insycle's utility extends far beyond just handling duplicates. It is a comprehensive customer data management platform for HubSpot companies. Insycle provides an insightful lens through which companies can identify and rectify their data quality blind spots. Insycle empowers businesses to refine their data management strategies, enabling them to fuel the engines that drive their core operations.
Discover the difference that a streamlined, accurate, and automated data management system can make in your business operations.
