Merging Customer Records

Each week, a list of merge customer candidates is generated for each county. Merge customer candidates meet the following criteria:

• Have a vehicle due for renewal two months from the current month. For example, a list generated in September will include customers with registration renewals in November.
• Are an owner, lessee, SI holder, or primary operator.
• Are not an organization.
• Have the same Social Security Number or driver’s license number as one or more customers.

The merge customer candidates function creates groups of customer records that appear to be for the same customer. You cannot add customer records to the groups, but you can approve, modify, or remove the groups compiled by the system. Approved groups are merged weekly.

The application chooses the most complete customer record as the target, or target customer record. The other customer records are candidates, or candidate customer records. If the selected target is not the best customer record to use, you can choose another customer record as the target or update the target on the Customer Maintenance window.

You must use your discretion to determine which customer record should be the target and whether all of the customer records belong to the same customer. The target selected by the application may not belong to the merge customer records group. If a customer record does not belong with the group, you can remove it. It will not be merged with the group and will remain a unique customer record in the database.

When the customer records are merged, the following occurs:

• Any candidate customer characteristics that do not exist for the target are added to the target customer record.
• If a candidate is the renewal customer on a vehicle registration, the target becomes the renewal customer.
• The candidate customer record becomes inactive and cannot be used for new title and registration transactions.
• Any errors that occur during the merge appear on the Merge Customer Error Report.