I’m collecting leads through online forms that capture phone numbers. Right now I have automation set up to create new contacts in my CRM whenever someone submits a form. The problem is people sometimes fill out forms multiple times or submit different forms with the same phone number. This creates duplicate contacts in my system.
Is there a way to check if a phone number already exists in the CRM before creating a new contact? I want the automation to only add contacts when that specific phone number isn’t already in the database.
I tried using filtering options but they only work with form entry IDs which doesn’t solve my duplicate issue. Any suggestions would be really helpful!
Most CRMs have deduplication features you’re probably not using fully. Instead of just relying on your automation tool’s filtering, check if your CRM has API endpoints for lookups. Modify your automation to search by phone number first, then only create the contact if there’s no match. I ran a similar setup and found that a two-step workflow fixed this completely. First step queries existing contacts by phone, second step only creates new contacts when the search comes back empty. CRMs like HubSpot and Salesforce let you set up duplicate management rules at the platform level - often more reliable than external filtering. Check your CRM’s docs for native deduplication before building complex workarounds.
Had this exact problem last year with my lead gen setup. I built conditional logic right into the automation workflow. Before creating any contact, I added a step that searches the CRM database using the phone number. If it finds a match, the workflow updates that existing contact instead of making a duplicate. If there’s no match, it creates the new contact as usual. This approach is far superior to filtering duplicates after the fact, as it catches them right at entry. Ensure your automation platform can handle conditional branching and database searches; both Zapier and Power Automate offer this functionality.
same thing happened to me too! i switched to an “upsert” action instead of “create contact” - most automation tools have this built in. it updates existing records or creates new ones as needed. so when someone submits with the same phone, it updates their record instead of duplicates. way easier than complex workflows.