You don't want to spam your customers with too many survey invitations. But sometimes you might accidentally upload an email address for a customer who has recently received a survey invitation. To avoid annoying this customer with another survey invitation, CustomerGauge has duplication rules in place.
A duplication rule is normally set either by email address, phone number (SMS), or by some other unique identifier. Below you will find some examples of different duplication rule configurations. Please note that we do not currently have the possibility for you to edit your duplication rule configuration from within the platform. If you wish to make any changes, please contact our support team.
How does it work?
At the core of every duplication rule are three key settings:
1) One or more fields that CustomerGauge will check for a duplicate value
2) A time period within which records that have identical values for ALL fields listed in point 1 above are automatically suppressed and not sent another survey
3) A date field on which we check the time period above (most systems are based on "Creation Date" but some are based on "Order Date" (more details further down below). Please check with our Support Team if you are unsure about the current structure of your duplication rule.
To further explain how the duplication rule works, we will list out a scenario here and then several examples illustrating when emails would get delivered versus when they would get blocked due to the duplication rule in this scenario, depending on how the duplication rule has been configured. These examples are all based on email sending and thus use email address, but if you are surveying via SMS, the same principle applies, just with "phone number" instead of "email address".
Scenario
You upload the following data into CustomerGauge spread across 5 different data upload files:
- Data is uploaded to CG on 1 August
Email address: amy.johnson@company.com
Survey Touchpoint: Relationship - Data is uploaded to CG on 1 September
Email address: amy.johnson@company.com
Survey Touchpoint: Support - Data is uploaded to CG on 5 September
Email address: amy.johnson@company.com
Survey Touchpoint: Relationship - Data is uploaded to CG on 15 September
Email address: amy.johnson@company.com
Survey Touchpoint: Support - Data is uploaded to CG on 15 December
Email address: amy.johnson@company.com
Survey Touchpoint: Relationship
Examples
"email + 90 days"
This is our default, best practice duplication rule. It means that our system will not send a survey invitation to the same email address more than once per 90 days, no exceptions.
Scenarios:
- Delivered
- Blocked due to duplication (less than 90 days since 1 August)
- Blocked due to duplication (less than 90 days since 1 August)
- Blocked due to duplication (less than 90 days since 1 August)
- Delivered (more than 90 days since 1 August)
"email + 30 days"
This means that our system will not send a survey invitation to the same email address more than once per 30 days.
Scenarios:
- Delivered
- Delivered (more than 30 days since 1 August)
- Blocked due to duplication (less than 30 days since 1 September)
- Blocked due to duplication (less than 30 days since 1 September)
- Delivered (more than 30 days since 1 September)
"email + survey touchpoint + 90 days"
This means that our system will not send a survey invitation for the same survey touchpoint to the same email address more than once per 90 days.
Scenarios:
- Delivered
- Delivered (less than 90 days since 1 August, but survey touchpoint is not identical)
- Blocked due to duplication (less than 90 days since 1 August and survey touchpoint is identical - Relationship)
- Blocked due to duplication (less than 90 days since 1 September and survey touchpoint is identical - Support)
- Delivered (more than 90 days since 1 August, which was the last succesfully delivered survey where touchpoint = Relationship)
Additional example:
Within a period of 90 days, Julie Fisher is in touch twice with your company's Customer Support division, and once with the Finances division. For each of these three interactions, you want to send a survey invitation. Julie will receive one survey invitation from the Finances division, and one from the Customer Support division. One of her interactions with Customer Support will not result in a survey invitation, because the duplication rule blocks it.
"email + segment_x + 90 days"
This rule works the same as the rule above ("email + survey touchpoint + 90 days"), except with a different data value rather than division. For example 'contact reason', or 'project type'.
Be aware
A few things to keep in mind regarding the duplication rule.
One rule per platform
Each CustomerGauge platform must have 1 common duplication rule throughout. If you are sharing a platform across multiple divisions, brands, etc. you need to make sure to put in place a duplication rule that works for all.
One person, multiple email addresses
If you have multiple email addresses for the same person, the duplication rule will not prevent that person from receiving multiple survey invitations. The system will assume that a different email address equals a different person. For example:
Amy Johnson has both a work email address ("amy.johnson@company.com") and a personal address ("amylouisejohnson1978@gmail.com"). She logs a support ticket with your company using her personal address, and receives a survey invitation based on that support ticket. A week later, you send your quarterly relational survey invitation to all users of your product, which includes Amy's work email address. She will receive both survey invitations, because as far as the system knows, "amy.johnson@company.com" and "amylouisejohnson1978@gmail.com" are two different people.
Conversely, if you have a single email address for multiple people, like an office@company.com email address, the duplication rule will block subsequent survey invitations. For example:
Amy and her colleague Tom Smith log a support ticket each with the general company email address "office@company.com". John's ticket is closed a few hours earlier than Amy's ticket, so when data is loaded into CustomerGauge, John's record is first. He receives the survey invitation, but Amy's record is blocked by the duplication rule. Even though Amy is a different person, the system cannot recognise the distinction because they are using the same email address.
If your duplication rule is based on "Order Date", meaning that the 90-day period (for example) checks for records with an Order Date in the previous 90 days, and you upload records with Order Dates far in the past, it is possible that you may accidentally oversurvey someone by evading the duplication rule. Check with your CustomerGauge account manager whether your duplication rule should be edited to "Creation Date" which is instead the date you upload survey data into CustomerGauge. You may want the rule to function by Record Creation Date instead of Order Date.
Fields with empty values
Fields with empty values do count towards the duplication rule. This means that a record with an empty value in a field used in the duplication rule can be caught as a duplicate. A value of “” is just as valid as a value of “ABC”.
Duplicate email addresses within the same survey upload file