Data cleaning · Chapel Hill, NC
Chapel Hill data cleaning for a college-town customer list
A college town turns over its customers every few years. Names change, addresses change and the same person signs up twice. We clean the list so that returning buyers are counted once and new ones are counted at all.
Chapel Hill cleaning for lists that follow the school year
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a major part of the town's economy, and educational services, professional and technical services, and health care are the largest employment sectors. A shop or service near campus sees the same people leave and arrive with each term, and the sign-up sheet keeps both generations.
A student who signed up as Jamie P. and again as Jamie Patel with a different email looks like two customers. We show you which rows we would merge and on what rule, then merge only the ones you approve.
Franklin Street, Rosemary Street and Carrboro
The town centres on Franklin Street, and Carrboro borders it to the west. The Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership names Franklin Street as the iconic street and Rosemary Street as the artistic one. Owners in those blocks record where a customer came from, and the answers vary: Franklin, Franklin St, Franklin Street, the Street.
We settle each into one label. Carrboro rows stay Carrboro, unless you tell us to fold them into another group.
Festifall vendor and booth records
Festifall is Chapel Hill's annual arts festival, with a vendor market at 140 West Plaza on Franklin Street. Vendors and the businesses beside them log sales across a few Saturdays, usually on a phone, usually in a hurry. Product names drift and prices land as text.
We turn the prices into numbers you can total and the product names into one spelling each. You get the before and after list, so you can check ten rows against your memory of the day.
Free local support, and what to bring
The Chamber for a Greater Chapel Hill-Carrboro at 104 South Estes Drive offers customer referrals, a business directory and free monthly training. The Durham Tech Small Business Center keeps an Orange County site at 136 E. Rosemary St. and offers free, confidential counseling. Bring a list with one row per person. Advice lands better on numbers that agree with each other.
Questions from Chapel Hill owners
Can you tell a returning student from a new one?
Only if the sheet holds enough to tell. If it has names and emails, we can match on a rule you approve. If it holds first names alone, we will say so rather than guess.
I run a small campus-facing service. Is my list too small?
Short lists hide duplicates as well as long ones. A list of a few hundred rows can easily contain dozens of repeats.
Do you change addresses or names?
We fix spacing, spelling variants and repeats, under rules you agree to. We do not rewrite what a customer meant to say, and we flag rows we cannot read.
Sources for the facts on this page: Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Wikipedia · Festifall Arts Markets return to downtown Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill Community Arts & Culture · The Chamber for a Greater Chapel Hill-Carrboro
Bring us the list that grows every semester
Book a free call on the contact page. If you would rather meet in person, say so in the form.