Delete Duplicate Contacts in Outlook 2003

Let's see if we understand your problem.  You've got tons of contact databases spread all over various email, mobile, crm and social networking sites.  Each entity brings with it new contacts you don't have in any of your other databases. Inevitably, you end up with duplicate contacts.  So, you think to yourself, why not try one of those "duplicate remover" tools.   So you either opt for Outlook's built in functionality or you buy a tool or subscribe to Plaxo's premium. 

but you run these widgets and invariably, you worry you're going to delete something important. Maybe you put a note in both copies of a contact. how do you merge these things anyway?   Then reality hits because your quota is hanging over your head. 

Well, if you opt to go low tech and you want to focus just on Outlook, here's how they prescribe the solution.  

I want you to focus on the concept of Available fields and adding not only the Modified field, which shows you when you last modified that contact but also...if you're like me and you worry about notes....add the Notes field too.   Now you can fairly rapidly scan through contacts and delete as you go. 

Wait a second, it would be better if you could hire someone to do this for you. yes, they are out there too. Reducing the value of this blog.  But isnt that the world we want to live in?

What if your CRM was on with your Outlook?

Got your contacts spread all over the place? What if your CRM was built into Outlook? Outlook CRM? One less thing to sync, no?

Avidian is the maker of Prophet Opportunity Manager. Check out the demo.  Most of us are stuck using Outlook so it would be nice to have those quick clicks into CRM world.  But on the other, there are so many annoyances with Outlook to begin with...seems like a negative multiplier.  

Then again, when I think of how salesforce.com manages emails.....it leaves me longing for Outlook's .pst file when I hop from company to company.  So maybe Outlook CRM is work a closer look especially if you're a smaller business. 

For the curious, here's another stab at Outlook-based CRM.