Routing rules break on names. 'Acme Ltd', 'ACME Limited' and 'Acme Group' arrive as three leads, land with three reps, and produce one embarrassing call. A stable company identifier fixes the entire class of problem.
Resolve to an entity on capture
At form submission, resolve the input to a registered entity: match on domain and postcode against register data, then store the registration number on the lead before any routing rule runs.
Routing then operates on an identifier that never changes, instead of a string that a human typed at 23:40.
Build the hierarchy once
Register data exposes parent and subsidiary relationships in many markets. Modelling the hierarchy once lets you route a subsidiary enquiry to the rep who owns the group, and report revenue at group level without a spreadsheet.
It also stops two reps from independently negotiating with the same customer under different names.
Dedupe continuously, not annually
Run dedupe as a scheduled job on the identifier, with merge rules that respect field ownership. Annual clean-ups are theatre: duplicates accumulate daily and distort forecasting from week one.
Track duplicate rate as an operational metric with a target, the same way you track uptime.
Frequently asked questions
What if a lead has no registration number?
Fall back to domain, then to name plus postcode with a confidence score, and flag the record for review rather than routing it blindly.
Does this work across countries?
Yes, provided you store the register and country alongside the number — identifiers are only unique within their own register.
