How to Compare Manual Copying and Prospect on 25 Companies

An extension can look fast while collecting data and still require substantial review afterward. A useful comparison measures the whole job: finding the right fields, correcting mistakes, and producing a list you would actually use.

Compare manual copying and Prospect on the same 25 companies with the same fields and completion rules. Measure capture, review, and correction effort, then audit usable records. This guide explains the test; it reports no measured winner.

Define the sample, completion rules, and timing method before running either approach so corrections do not change the comparison afterward.

Define the task before choosing the sample

Choose whether the test represents company-level research or location-level research. Use the same rule for both methods. If branches matter, both methods must preserve them; if the goal is one record per company, both must follow that definition.

Specify the target fields in advance. A reasonable starting set is company name, website, relevant address, public phone, public email when available, and a source URL. Keep qualification judgments outside the capture accuracy score unless you define a separate research task for both methods.

Write down the completion rule. For example, a record is reviewed when its identity and each captured contact field have been checked against the relevant source. That prevents one method from stopping at raw capture while the other includes cleanup.

Select 25 companies that resemble your real work

Choose the sample before running either method and record how it was selected. Include the types of sites you actually encounter rather than selecting only pages that suit a tool.

A useful sample may include straightforward contact pages, businesses using forms, multi-location companies, sparse sites, and pages that are difficult to read. Do not alter the sample after seeing which records produce errors.

Twenty-five companies can reveal workflow problems, but it is still a small sample. Report the business categories and site types so readers can judge whether the exercise resembles their work.

Control the starting conditions

Use the same computer, browser environment, field requirements, and source companies. Record the extension version and test date. Decide whether source discovery is included or whether both methods start from an already selected list of URLs.

Learning creates an order effect: the second pass may benefit from knowing where information appears. One practical approach is to split the sample, use manual copying first for one group and Prospect first for the other, and record the order for each business.

This does not remove every bias. It does make the design more informative than always running one method after becoming familiar with all 25 websites.

Measure active work and waiting separately

Record active research time, capture time, review time, correction time, and any waiting that prevents other work. Also record total elapsed time if the batch has a meaningful start and finish.

Do not add elapsed time and active time together; they describe overlapping views of the same work. Use total active effort for labor comparisons and elapsed time for how long the process takes to deliver the batch.

Leave the results blank until the test is performed. The table is a measurement sheet, not a set of product claims.

Prevent the second run from inheriting the first result

Preserve each method's raw output before making corrections. When running Prospect again, account for existing captured records, saved edits, or refreshed details that could change the work required. Use a controlled test collection or clearly document what persisted; do not delete your normal working collection just to run a benchmark.

For the manual pass, do not copy the extension's output or consult your earlier completed sheet. Keep the source-company list and permitted source scope the same. Record interruptions and setup work separately, then state whether setup is included in the comparison.

Audit correctness consistently

Check each captured field against the source page. A blank email is not an error if no email was available within the agreed search scope. A plausible email copied from the wrong branch is an error even if its format looks valid.

Track false values and missed available values separately. They create different work: one requires correcting misinformation, while the other requires additional capture.

For a stronger review, have someone who did not perform the capture audit the records. If only one person is available, preserve source notes and review the output in a separate pass without relying on memory.

Calculate effort and completeness separately

Use the same completion rule for both methods. Count a company as usable only after the required identity and field checks pass. Report raw-capture accuracy separately from the corrected output; otherwise, manual cleanup can hide the original errors.

An arithmetic example, not a Prospect test result: a method takes 600 seconds to capture a batch and 300 seconds to review and correct it. Its active effort is 900 seconds. If 20 records are usable, that is 45 active seconds per usable record. Include effort spent on the unresolved records in the numerator.

For available-field completeness, divide correctly captured required fields by required fields actually available within the agreed source scope. If 80 fields were available and 64 were captured correctly, completeness is 80%. Record wrong values separately from missed values and legitimate blanks.

Use (manual effort − Prospect effort) ÷ manual effort × 100 for percentage effort reduction, with identical batch and completion rules. A negative result means Prospect took more active effort. If the manual total is zero, the percentage is undefined; if a method produces no usable records, report zero usable records rather than a per-record division.

Do not allocate the same batch waiting period to every company. Record batch elapsed time once, and keep it separate from active effort. These measures answer different questions: how much work you performed and how long you waited for the finished batch.

Interpret the result for the actual workflow

A method can be faster on straightforward sites and slower on ambiguous branches. Break out those cases when they explain the result. Report setup time, failed pages, manual corrections, and any excluded records rather than presenting only the most flattering total.

Use the finding to decide which tasks suit each method. The relevant question is whether the combination of capture and review improves your work for the business types you research.

Keep the source list and measurement sheet so a future version can be tested under the same conditions. A transparent small test is more useful than an impressive claim that nobody can reproduce.

Related Questions

Is a blank field always a capture failure?

No. Distinguish a field that was publicly available within the agreed search scope from one that was unavailable. Score missed available data separately from legitimate blanks and from incorrectly captured values.

Can this test prove Prospect is always faster?

No. A 25-company test describes the selected sample, conditions, and completion rules. It can guide your own workflow and reveal failure cases, but broader performance claims require more evidence across representative situations.

Use contact verification for the audit and the cleanup checklist to define the correction work.