What is the scalable option to avoid duplicates when creating customer records?

Creating duplicate rules in Salesforce is an effective and scalable method to prevent duplicates when establishing customer records. This approach leverages Salesforce's built-in functionalities, allowing organizations to define specific criteria for what constitutes a duplicate without requiring extensive manual intervention or additional systems. By setting up these rules, you can streamline the process of record creation while automatically flagging potential duplicates in real time.

Duplicate rules allow for proactive management of customer records as users are notified during the data entry process when similar existing records are detected. This minimizes the chances of duplicates entering the system and enhances data quality right from the point of contact. Additionally, since Salesforce is already a centralized platform for customer management, relying on its native features keeps the system aligned and avoids the complexities of external solutions.

While implementing a Master Data Management (MDM) solution could also address duplicate records, it often involves extra costs, integration challenges, and requires ongoing maintenance, making it less scalable for immediate needs. Building custom searches on accounts may help in identifying duplicates after they have already been created, thus not preventing them at the source. Regular deduplication jobs can clean up existing data but do not prevent duplicates from being created in real-time, making them reactive rather than proactive measures.