Contacts is the sales section for a business that does not sell to other businesses yet: everyone you know on one list, with who has become a client, their tags, and the mailing list. It opens from the Apps menu as Contacts; once you switch the sales pipeline on (under Admin, Modules, or Settings, Menu) the same section is Sales, with the full CRM reading the same people. Nothing is re-entered either way, and switching the pipeline off again brings Contacts back with nothing lost.
A contact is the same record as a client. What tells them apart is what happened: someone who has booked a visit, a class or an event, or bought something, is a Client; someone who has not yet is a Contact. The day a contact books or buys they are a client on the same record. Nothing is copied.
The list
- Search by name, email, phone or tag. Everyone, Contacts (not booked or bought yet) and Clients narrow the list, with how many are in each; Any tag narrows it to one tag.
- Each row says what the person is and the lists they are on, with their tags; a phone and an envelope call or email them in one tap.
- Open a row for their card: their email and phone, the lists they are on, their Tags (your own labels, separated by commas, such as VIP or From the fair, which narrow this list and Marketing's audiences) and the Mailing list switch. Open their client record goes to Clients for everything else: notes, visits, forms, cards on file.
- The list shows the first 500; search to narrow it.
Adding a contact
- Choose Add a contact.
- Give their first name, with a phone or an email. Their last name and tags are optional.
- Put them on the mailing list only when they said yes to offers by email; it needs their email, and the yes is recorded.
- Add the contact. Someone already here by that email or phone is refused with who they are, so nobody is made twice.
Bringing in a file
Bring in a file takes a CSV: a list from another system, a spreadsheet, a sign-up sheet, up to 100,000 people. Tags and a yes-to-email column come along when the file has them. Anyone already here by email or phone is left alone, so the same file can come in twice without doubling anyone. The file is checked before anything is added, comes in in the background, and can be undone as one while none of it has been changed or used. Put everyone in this file on the mailing list is for a list of people who already said yes to your emails: each yes is recorded as given by the file. See Bringing your records over.
The mailing list
The Mailing list tab is everyone who said yes to offers by email, with the newsletter and the text list counted beside it (they live under Marketing, Audiences, Sign-up lists). People join it themselves on your sign-up page (the link is on the tab: put it at the front desk, on receipts and in your Instagram bio), or you switch someone on from their card when they tell you in person. Take off takes someone off, and the no is recorded too.
Write to the list opens Marketing's composer on everyone: the message goes only to people who agreed to offers by email, each one carries a way to stop, and those who asked to stop are left out and counted. See Marketing.
When the full CRM is on
With the sales pipeline switched on, the section is Sales: leads, prospects, accounts with their people, opportunities, the map and the reports. The people here are the same records: a contact at an account is one of them with a title there. See The sales CRM.
Best practices
- Get an email from everyone and ask before you switch the mailing list on; the switch is what keeps your emails lawful.
- Tag people by where they came from (the fair, a referral, a walk-in): the tags narrow this list and Marketing's audiences, and tell you which sources turn into clients.
- Write to the list a month ahead of what you want to fill, not the week of.
- Bring a list in rather than typing it; the file can come in again later and nobody doubles.