Stop Duplicate Leads from Scanned Business Cards

Duplicates creep into every CRM, and business cards are a common source. A rep scans a card at an event, then scans it again at the follow-up meeting. Two colleagues meet the same visitor at the same booth. Without a check, each scan becomes a new record.

Why duplicates hurt

• Two reps may contact the same person with different messages.
• Activity history is split across records, so nobody sees the full picture.
• Reports overstate pipeline and event performance.
• Cleaning up later takes far longer than preventing it.

Designing a good matching rule

PeriScan’s Duplicate Management lets you define rules per object (Lead, Account, Contact). Each rule lists the fields that must match and how they match. A few patterns work well:

• Email first. An exact email match is the strongest signal that two records are the same person.
• Phone as a fallback. When a card has no email, an exact phone match is a good second check.
• Name + company. Useful for catching people who changed email domains, but broader — pair it with a warning rather than a hard block.

Rules are evaluated in priority order, so put your most reliable match at the top.

Choose what happens on a match

For each object you can decide how PeriScan responds when it finds a likely duplicate:

• Do not create — the safest choice for most orgs.
• Warn the user — let them review the existing record before deciding.
• Allow creation — for cases where you knowingly want separate records.

Test before you roll out

Scan a card for a contact who already exists in your org and confirm the rule triggers as expected. Then try a near-match — same company, different email — to check your fallback behaviour.

Clean data is a habit, not a project. See how PeriScan’s admin tools work.