With 6,000 hotels and motels worldwide, Choice is second only to Wyndham Worldwide Corp. in the number of hotels it holds. Wyndham Worldwide operates Super 8, Days Inn, Ramada and others.

Though based in Silver Spring, Md., almost all of Choice's 170-strong IT staffers are based in Phoenix.

Despite that lean team, Choice built its current all-in-one property management software, called Profit Manager, which it released 10 years ago for use by its franchise hotels. Choice added CRM software from Unica Corp. in 2002. Two years later, it began using Identity Hub.

"It's always a challenge to get enough information from our guests to uniquely identify them," Thompson said. "Identity Hub sits in the background and makes sure all of the info the CRM system is pulling is de-duped."

How do duplicates emerge? "You can transpose the first and middle names, you can have people giving nicknames, typo errors, people getting married, etc.," said Scott Schumacher, senior vice president and chief scientist at Initiate.