How to find duplicate users in Zendesk

To find duplicate end users across your whole Zendesk account, install Twinmend, open it from the left navigation bar and click Scan end users. Twinmend reads your end users in your browser and lists groups of profiles that look like the same person, best matches first. Each group shows a score and the reason it matched, such as the same phone number or an email one typo apart. Open Compare to see the profiles side by side.

Why duplicates happen

Zendesk can create a new end user whenever a request comes from an email or social account that isn't on an existing profile. Zendesk describes this in Merging a user's duplicate account. So a customer who writes from a second address, or reaches you from a new channel, often ends up with two or three profiles and split history.

Steps

1. Open Twinmend from the left navigation bar.
2. Click Scan end users. Twinmend reads 100 users per request and pauses when your account's API budget runs low.
3. Read the queue. Groups are sorted best match first. Use the search box and the score filter to narrow the list.
4. Open Compare. The profiles appear in columns. Matching emails, phone numbers and organizations are highlighted, and ticket counts load when you open it.
5. Decide. Pick the profile to Keep, or click Not duplicates if they are different people. Twinmend doesn't suggest that pair again, on the main page or in the sidebar.

The matching rules

Admins turn each rule on or off and set its score on the Rules tab.

A pair's score is its strongest rule plus 5 for each other rule that matched, up to 100. Pairs at or above Suggest at score (60) are shown. Every email and phone on a profile counts, not just the primary ones.

What keeps false matches out

• Names are normalized. Accents, punctuation, titles and word order are ignored.
• Placeholders never match by name. "Unknown", "Caller" or "Visitor 48213" are skipped.
• Shared values are ignored. A value shared by more than the Shared-value limit (25 by default), such as a hotel switchboard or a reception address, is left out and listed above the queue.
• Big groups go one by one. Groups larger than Largest bulk group (6) are marked for review in Compare first.

Other settings on the Rules tab: Phone country code for numbers typed without one (1 by default), Sidebar auto-check (days) (30) and whether dots in Gmail addresses matter.

Catch new duplicates on the ticket

On a ticket, Twinmend checks the requester; on a user profile, that user. Customers created in the last 30 days are checked when the ticket opens, others when an agent clicks Check for duplicates. A likely match shows "This requester may be a duplicate of ..." with the score and reason.

What it costs

Twinmend is billed monthly by Zendesk per account: Team $49 (up to 15 agents and admins), Growth $129 (up to 50), Business $379 (up to 150), or Enterprise at $2.75 per agent a month above 150. 14-day trial. The Twinmend documentation has every rule and setting.