In Capitan it's easy to batch update contacts

• Click the Contact Database tab
• Use the search box and filters on the left hand side to find contacts
• When you see any that you'd like to batch update click the plus sign at the right hand side of their row to collect them for a batch operation OR if you want to collect everyone in the results you can click the green button "Collect *** Contacts" in the "Collected Contacts" section at the bottom of the directory
• The "Collected Contacts" section will tell you how many contacts are collected for batch processing and you'll see a dropdown list for choosing "What would you like to do with these contacts..." where a number of possible batch operations are available for selection