Most of the CRM software is web-based. There are some free open source ones like EspoCRM. Some companies shy away from them because they require IT skills, monitoring, maintenance, backups, which are hassle or expensive for small companies.

If you're a solo CRM user or a small company with a few users, would you use a free desktop CRM software if it were as easy to install as any desktop app? If you're the only user, the app and the database will be on your computer. If you were a company, each user will have it installed on their work computer. The database can be hosted anywhere. A computer in the company with no hosting fees, or hosted in the cloud (Azure or AWS) or hosted at a hosting company with as little as $5 for shared hosting with backups. This option will be Windows only, so no Mac or Linux.

There will also be a web based version with the same features.

But I am inquiring right now about if there's interest in the desktop version if it means it's hassle-free to install, host and use. It's free as well.

The business model is making money from advanced customizations.

Duplicate contacts are usually treated as a cleanup problem, but the durable fix starts upstream. If several WordPress forms, booking tools, imports, and integrations feed the same CRM, merging records once will not stop them returning.

1. Normalize before matching

Lowercase and trim email addresses, standardize phone numbers to a consistent international format, remove formatting noise, and preserve the raw submitted values separately when they matter for audit or support.

2. Define identity rules

Email is often the safest primary match for ordinary B2B leads, but shared inboxes and changed addresses create exceptions. Phone can be a secondary signal. Names alone should rarely trigger an automatic merge. Decide which combinations create a match, a possible match, or a new record.

3. Protect source history

A returning contact is not a new person, but the new submission is still a new event. Keep first-touch source, latest-touch source, form name, campaign/UTM values, submission time, and requested offer as event or attribution data instead of overwriting everything on the contact.

4. Choose field precedence

For each field, decide whether the newest valid value wins, the oldest verified value wins, an empty field may be filled, or a human must review conflicts. This is especially important for lifecycle stage, owner, consent, company, and access-related fields.

5. Test automation re-entry

Merging or updating a contact can retrigger nurture, lead assignment, internal alerts, opportunity creation, and membership access. Test with controlled records before bulk cleanup, and keep an export or rollback path.

A useful QA set includes: same email/different phone, same phone/different email, Gmail alias, shared company inbox, changed surname, returning customer, unsubscribed contact, existing opportunity, and an active course/member record.

The key distinction is person versus event: one person may submit many times, and the CRM should retain those events without creating a new identity every time.

What matching rule has caused the most trouble in your CRM: email, phone, imports, or form integrations?

A few weeks ago I started looking into this more seriously as we expand our European pipeline. Our legal team is breathing down my neck about b2b data compliance gdpr for our cold outreach campaigns.

The main issue is making sure the b2b data we're using has proper consent mechanisms and audit trails. Our current provider basically shrugged when I asked for their GDPR documentation. not exactly confidence inspiring when you're sending 5000 emails a week to EU prospects.

I've been evaluating alternatives and narrowing it down. About to pull the trigger on Prospeo because they have detailed GDPR compliance docs and their data comes with audit trails for legitimate interest. Also looking at Apollo but their compliance page seems more generic, like it was written by marketing and not legal.

For those doing heavy European outreach - how are you navigating this? are you just crossing your fingers or have you found data providers that actually take gdpr cold email compliance seriously? Would really love to hear what's working before we make the switch.