Contact Management in the CRM Follow
Introduction to Contact Management in the CRM
Our fully-loaded legal CRM comes with comprehensive contact management features.
📇 "Contacts" in the CRM are all the people and businesses that you work with at your practice - including clients, law firms, spouses, insurance companies, experts, witnesses, judges, etc.
Contacts are the building block of every lead or case inside of the CRM.
Table of Contents
Using Contacts in Leads and Cases
How to Customize Case Roles and Contact Types
Duplicate/Conflict Checking in the CRM and Potential Issues
Importing Contacts Into the CRM
Exporting Contacts Out of the CRM
How Do I Restrict Who Can Export My Contacts?
Managing Your Contacts
To get started, go to "Contacts" using the main navigation menu located on the left-hand side of the screen.
This will bring you to the contact management screen where you may add, edit, and delete Contacts.
⚠️ You cannot delete a Contact that is currently in use on a lead/case record. If you attempt to delete a contact that's in use, you will receive a friendly warning from the system and it will not be deleted. To find out which record(s) the Contact is being used on, use the Global Search field located in the upper-right corner of your CRM system.
Adding New Contacts
🆕 Need to add a new Contact?
Once you are in the Contacts screen, you are able to create a new Contact by clicking the
"New Contact" button found in the upper-right.
Adding a new Contact will trigger the duplicate checking rules, which differ based on whether the selected Contact Nature is "Individual" or "Business".
When creating a New Contact directly in the CRM and not via import, you must determine if this is an individual/personal or business contact by selecting a "Nature". Each contact allows multiple phone numbers, emails, and mailing addresses.
- 🧍Individual Contacts require a First and Last Name, and either a Primary Phone or Primary Email.
- The "Primary Phone" AKA Mobile/Cell Phone is a default field in the CRM and is required for individual contacts since phone numbers are used for duplicate checking and text messaging. However, you can bypass this field by entering a Primary Email.
- The "Primary Email" field is recommended since it may be used for duplicate checking and email communications, but it is not required if you have entered a Primary Phone in the Contact. You must have one or the other to create an individual Contact.
- 🏛️ Business Contacts require the Company Name and either a Primary Phone or Primary Email, but do not require a First or Last Name.
- "Contact Type" is a required field for each Contact that is created. For example, you would select the Contact Type of "Lead" for a new potential client or "Adjuster" for an insurance adjuster.
Using Contacts in Leads and Cases
Primary Contact
Before a lead may be created, you must select a Primary Contact to start the new record. The Primary Contact chosen for a lead will be the same when the record is made into a case.
- The Contact Type is different from the Role so do not confuse the two. A Contact Type is the job title or purpose of the Contact and is not specific to a single lead/case.
- The "Role" (aka Case Role) is the role that a particular Contact plays in a single lead/case. Let's suppose your firm is representing siblings, and each has their own case. In the record of one sibling, the Contact's Role might be "Relative". However, in the other sibling's own record, the same Contact will have the Role of "Client".
The name of the Primary Contact will always be listed at the top of the screen inside every lead/case record in the CRM.
You can edit a Primary Contact by clicking the pencil at the top of the Contact Information box.
You can also edit a Primary Contact from the Action Menu.
⚠️ Of note, if you use the same Contact on multiple leads/cases, be mindful that any edits to the Contact will affect every lead/case where that same Contact is being used.
To replace a Primary Contact with another Contact in the CRM, select the "Change Primary Contact" option from the Action Menu.
Related Contacts
🧑🏻🤝🧑🏽 Additional parties? You may add "Related Contacts" to each lead/case for additional parties.
To add a "Related Contact" to a lead/case, navigate to the Related Contacts section of the record using the left-side menu. You can also add a Related Contact from the Action Menu.
🔧 You must select a "Role" for each additional Contact added to a lead/case. As a reminder, a "Role" is the role that a particular Contact plays in one particular lead/case in the CRM, e.g. witness, defendant, spouse, etc. The "Role" of a Contact could vary across multiple cases.
The Role of each Related Contact may be changed at any time by clicking the Role label that appears next to the Contact.
📧 To send an email to a Related Contact, click the Contact's name. In the small pop-up that appears, click the 3 dots located in the top-right corner, and then select the "Compose Email" option.
🗑️ To remove a Related Contact from a lead/case, select the "Delete Contact" option from the menu that appears when you click the 3 dots, as shown above.
How to Customize Case Roles and Contact Types
The CRM comes pre-built with many roles and contact types to choose from. However, if you ever need to add, remove, or edit roles and contact types, the CRM offers you that flexibility.
Using the main navigation menu located on the left-hand side of the screen, go to "Setup".
Then, navigate to the “System Categories & Key Dates” page.
From this page, you can navigate to either the Case Roles or Contact Types tab to make any necessary customizations.
Duplicate/Conflict Checking in the CRM and Potential Issues
☑️ What are the Duplicate Checking Rules in the CRM?
🧍 For Individual Contacts, the CRM triggers a duplicate contact warning for these conditions:
- The Contact First + Last Name and Primary Email match another Contact in the system
- The Contact First + Last Name and Primary Phone Number (Cell/Mobile)
- Primary Phone Only (Cell/Mobile)
🏛️ For Business Contacts, the CRM triggers a duplicate contact warning for these conditions:
- The Company Name matches another Business Contact in the system
🔁 What are the Potential Issues displayed in a Lead/Case?
"Potential Issues" that appear under the Related Contacts section are detected for any potential duplicates or conflicts where the same Contact in the current lead/case was added as a Contact (primary or related) in another lead/case, e.g. which other records does the same Contact have involvement?
If you see any "Potential Issues" in the Related Contacts section of a lead/case, you should click the "Potential Issues" option, to the right of the Contact where the issue was identified, to verify that there is not a duplicate or conflict before proceeding.
Importing Contacts Into the CRM
Importing your Contacts is the quickest way to fill your CRM's database with your Rolodex of Contacts. This may be done by your firm's staff or it could be done for you as part of a data migration scope of work by a CRM project manager.
📁 If you would like to learn how to import your own Contacts, then visit this article that covers the CRM's Import Wizard.
Exporting Contacts Out of the CRM
Exporting your Contacts is an efficient way to edit them in bulk. This is a great feature for database maintenance. You are able to export your entire or partial database of Contacts, make changes on your side in Excel, and then import them back into the CRM using the Import Wizard.
The CRM gives you 2 different export options:
- Export Contacts
- Export Related Contacts
⏏️ To Export Contacts, click the "Export Contacts" option inside of the Contacts screen located near the upper-right.
This will export a list of all contacts, based on any search or filtering criteria you may have applied.
⏏️ To Export Related Contacts, click the "Export Related Contacts" option inside of the Contacts screen.
This option will export a list of all contacts as well as have additional information regarding which records, if any, those contacts are referenced on. This report will include four additional columns for Lead ID, Case ID, Case Name, and Case Role.
How Do I Restrict Who Can Export My Contacts?
By default, users not are given permission to export all contacts upon creation of their accounts. If you wish to enable this permission for specific users, navigate to Setup > Manage Users.
Scroll down until you see the User Management section.
Select the checkbox for the permission titled "Export Contacts/Inbox".
To learn more about how to manage your users, click here.
Support/Assistance
If you need further assistance with your CRM system, then please contact the support team.
🤗 Thank you very much for choosing the CRM!