The evils of double handling

Somewhere in your database right now, there's an email address sitting in a phone number field. Nobody did it to cause trouble. There just wasn't a box for what they needed to write, so they found one that would do.

That little workaround tells you everything about double handling.

Type it once

Here's the rule I live by: once information is entered, it should flow everywhere it's needed. The booking, the accounts, the email list, the report. If someone in your business is typing the same thing a second time, your system is already broken. Not slow. Broken.

Double handling is the quiet admin killer. A re-key here, a copy and paste from an email into a spreadsheet there. Multiply it by every customer and every staff member, and you're paying good people to be photocopiers.

How good systems get messy

This happens in most businesses as they grow, and it's nobody's fault. A new need comes up, so someone adds a new field. Then another. Years later you've got "Mobile", "Phone 2" and "Best contact number", all meaning the same thing, and nobody's sure which one is right.

Every new field that means the same as an old one waters down the data you already have. If you're recording the same thing in two places, it's time to reconsider one of them.

And when the right field doesn't exist, people get creative. That's how the email ends up in the phone field. Creativity is one of my values, just not in a database.

How fields let your systems talk

Well-thought-out fields aren't just tidy. They're how your systems talk to each other. Your CRM (customer relationship management system), your email tool, your accounts and your website all connect by matching fields. Get the fields right once, and information flows into all of them, perfectly. Get them wrong, and every connection needs a human to fix it.

Where AI comes in

Here's the exciting part. With AI, information can be entered the moment the customer tells you. Their first message, whether it's a voice note, an email or a form, can become the record. Name, business, the problem they need solved: captured once, at the source.

No one should ever have to enter that again. Not your receptionist, not your sales team, not you at 9pm.

It's safer too. One clean record is easier to protect, easier to update and easier to delete when a customer asks. Five copies scattered across spreadsheets are five chances to get it wrong.

The good news is that double handling is one of the easiest fixes in business. You don't need new technology. You need to think it through once, then let it flow.

If you're typing it twice, your system is already broken.

Brad, CMO (Chief Maverick Officer), Maverick Digital16 October 2026

Every idea here is mine, sorted with Claude's help.