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Understand the usage of Contact Information within CRM.COM

What does this section cover?

Back to Contact Information Main Page

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Table of Contents

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What is Contact Information?

Contact Information is all the information which is needed in order to contact a customer or a prospect customer, who can either be a physical person or a company. Contacts are considered to be customers only if they hold a customer account (accounts receivable)personal details or corporate information of a person or company respectively. Contacts that have Contact Information are treated as Customers if they also own an Accounts Receivable.

Contact Information Glossary

 

TermDescription

Customer

Customers are not an entity in CRM.COM. Physical persons or companies are considered to be customers if they hold a customer account (accounts receivable).

Contact Information  Key

A customer is a contact which owns an Accounts Receivable

Contact PersonA contact person is a physical person, for which contact information is kept
Contact CompanyA contact company is a legal organisation, for which contact information is kept
Opt-inContacts can opt-in, in order to receive marketing emails, either from your company or from affiliate companies
Opt-outContacts can opt-out, so that they will never be sent marketing emails, either from your company or from affiliate companies.
Contact Information Life Cycle State

The Life Cycle State distinguishes between contacts which have an Accounts Receivable and are customers (Financial Life Cycle State) and the ones that are either prospective or past customers (Marketing Life Cycle State)

This distinguishes between customers that are prospective (Marketing Life Cycle State) or actual (Financial Life Cycle State)

Contact Information Key Processes and Concepts

Processes / ConceptDescription

Contact Information Uniqueness Rule

Define the You can define which Contact Information fields which will be considered as unique. The system differentiates between Contact Persons and Contact Companiesor set of fields must be unique in the System for each Contact Information record, as well as distinguish between contact persons and companies.

When more than one field is defined in the rule, then the system System will apply uniqueness validation on the combination of the fields. For example if I
If you define the name and the ID combination as unique then , you will be allowed to have 2 contacts with the same Name or the same OR ID but you won't be allowed to have 2 contacts with both the name and ID being the same, but not with the same name AND ID.

Contact Information Life Cycle State

A customer is not an entity within CRM.COM. The module used for representing customers is Contact Information. The differentiation of having a contact used for any purpose other than being registered as a customer, and the customers, is based on the Life Cycle State of the contact which is automatically applied by the system.

If the contact is related to an accounts receivable then the Life Cycle State is set to Financial. If no relation exists then the Life Cycle State is set to Marketing.

 

Contact Information  Network Characteristics

but represented by a contact that owns an Accounts Receivable and is indicated by the contact Life Cycle State set to 'Financial'. Contacts who are not customers have a Life Cycle State set to 'Marketing'. 

Keeping Business and Personal Relation InformationYou have the option to keep business and personal relations within your Contact Information separate. For example, you can create a Company Contact for the company, create multiple Person Contacts for the employees, and then relate the contacts to the company by defining them within the Contact Information.

Define Communication Authorisation Settings

CRM.COM allows you to contact your customers for financial purposes through Customer Care Notifications.

Optionally, the customers can select whether they want to be contacted for marketing purposes by opting-in.
Customers can choose to opt-in Direct, Affiliate or both Marketing campaigns.
Direct Marketing refers to campaigns promoting your company's/organisation's products, while Affiliate Marketing refers to campaigns initiated from your company/organisation but promoting partners' products.You can, however, choose to ignore the customer's preferences and notify them anyway, which can be helpful in cases where it is imperative for the information to be communicated to your customers.

For more information, check out Authorisation Settingsof Managing Contact Information and Notification Types

Note

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titleAvailable from CRM.COM R12.0.0

Sending Communications using customer's preferred language

The preferred language that the customer would like to use for communication with your company can be set in the Contact Information module.
Thus, when mail or sms Communications are sent to the customer, using Communication Templates, if the preferred language of the customer is provided, then it will be used in the Communication sent.

Note

The customer's preferred language is defined in the Contact Information 'Preferred Language' field.

Contact Information Access & Viewing Controls

Network Characteristics define the level of access for each record. i.e. , whether it will be available for selectionfor selection, viewing , or editing etc.

EntityNetwork CharacteristicsDescription
Contact Information

Explicit Viewing Access Entity

Contact Information records can be accessed, viewed and modified by users defined as members of the contact's Owned By Group, by users that belong to a group that collaborates with the Owned By Group, or by Super Users.

 

Contact Information  Related Related Modules 

EntityInteraction of Contact Information with EntityHow
Accounts ReceivableAccounts receivable owned by Contact Information
CommunicationCommunications logged for Contact Information
ActivityActivities scheduled for Contact Information
LeadsLead is created on a Contact InformationReceivable is always related to a Contact Information and distinguishes a customer from a prospective customer or simple contacts.
i.e. the account/contact relation will set the Life Cycle State of the contact to Financial.
CommunicationCommunications are Contact Information based entities. They can only be created for Contact Information.
ActivityAn Activity can be created directly on a contact who may or may not be a customer yet
LeadsLeadsare Contact Information based entities. They can only be created for Contact Information.
Notifications

Notificationsare used to automatically create communications that will notify customers in batch processes for marketing or financial purposes.
(Users have the?) Ability to control customers that will be notified for marketing purposes based on authorisations granted by the customer .

 

Contact Information   - Business Examples

The following section provides business examples to help you understand how CRM.COM of how the Contact Information module is used in CRM.COM.

Setting up Contact Information Uniqueness Rules - Contact Company

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titleSetting up Contact Information Uniqueness Rules - Contact Company

Business Requirement

Company ZX would like to ensure that no Contact Information for a company has two companies share the same VAT Registration Number with another company.in their Contact Information

CRM.COM Solution

  • Configuration
    The Uniqueness Rule should be set with a check on VAT Registration Number under the Companies Uniqueness Rules.
 
Note

More Information can be found at: Applying the Contact Information Uniqueness Rule

Setting up Contact Information Uniqueness Rules - Contact Person

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titleSetting up Contact Information Uniqueness Rules - Contact Person

Business Requirement

Company ZX would like to ensure that no Contact Information has the same ID Number with another contact.in Contact Information is unique for all contacts

CRM.COM Solution

  • Configuration
    The Uniqueness Rule should be set with a check on ID Number under the Persons Uniqueness Rules.

 

Business Requirement

Company ZX would like to ensure that no Contact Information has the same ID Number and Social Security Number (SSN) with another contact i.e., 2 contacts can have the same ID Number with a different SSN or they can have the same SSN with a different ID Number, but they cannot have both ID Number and SSN the same.combination in Contact Information is unique for all contacts

CRM.COM Solution

  • Configuration
    The Uniqueness Rule should be set with a check on both ID Number and Social Security Number under the Persons Uniqueness Rules.
Note

More Information can be found at: Applying the Contact Information Uniqueness Rule

Address Types for Company ZX

title

Business Requirement

Company ZX keeps the following addresses for its customers:

Home, Business, Invoice and PO Box but the Home address is mandatory and hence needs to make sure that it will always be added.

CRM.COM Solution

  • Configuration
    Home, Business, Invoice and PO Box address types should be flagged as Supported and Home should also be flagged as Automatically Display. This way when the user creates a new Contact Information the address tab will be populated with an empty address record of type Home where the user will be able to define the mandatory Home address.
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Address Types for Company ZX

 

Financial and Marketing Life Cycle State

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titleFinancial & Marketing LCS

Business Requirement

Company ZX registers 2 contacts in the system. One , one as a new subscriber and another one as a potential lead. See below how their Life Cycle State is set by the system:

CRM.COM Solution

  • User Process

    Financial

    A new person contact is registered in the system as a new subscriber. The person will also need a A subscription and a financial account (accounts receivable) which will be used is created for billing the customer purposes and keeping to track the contact's financial history. Once the financial account (accounts receivable) is created the life cycle state of the contact information record will be The Life Cycle State of the Contact Information record is (then) automatically updated to Financial.

    Marketing

    A new person contact is registered in the system as a lead. This person will not need The contact does not require a financial account (accounts receivable) and therefore his state will remain their state remains as Marketing. If When this person contact becomes a subscriber and thus requires a financial account (accounts receivable) then the life cycle state will be automatically switched from Marketing to Financial), their Life Cycle State will automatically be updated from Marketing to Financial.

 

Allow Customers to choose not to be contacted for Direct Marketing

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titleFinancial & Marketing LCS

Business Requirement

Company ZX contacts its customers on a monthly basis to let them know about new offers and to notify them about new available channels. In addition to internal organisation (Direct) marketing campaigns, Company ZX also engages in (Affiliate) marketing campaigns for partners. Some of ZX's customers would like to be removed from the Affiliate Marketing campaigns Mailinglist, but would like to remain in the Direct marketing campaigns mailing lists .

CRM.COM Solution

  • Configuration

    • Include in Direct Marketing Campaigns

      Contact Information: The Authorisation Settings (on the)/in Contact Information related to Marketing should be set as follows:
      • Send me Direct Marketing material: YES
      • Send me Direct Affiliate material: NO
      Notification Type: The Notification Type used for the monthly Affiliate Marketing campaign should have the Authorisation Settings set as follows (in order to take into consideration the Affiliate Marketing Contact Information settings):
      • Apply Contact Information Data Protection for Direct Marketing: YES
      • Apply Contact Information Data Protection for Affiliate Marketing: YES
      Notification Run: Use the Customer Care Notification Type created with the settings configured as above.

    • System Process
      When the system executes the Notification Run with the specific Notification Type (configured as described above), contacts that meet the criteria will be validated against the Authorisation settings and notifications/communications and those that have the flag for Direct Marketing set to YES will be contacted.


    • Exclude from Affiliate Marketing Campaigns

      Contact Information: The Authorisation Settings (on the)/in Contact Information related to Marketing should be set as follows:
      • Send me Direct Marketing material: YES
      • Send me Direct Affiliate material: NO
      Notification Type: The Notification Type used for the monthly Direct Marketing campaign should have the Authorisation Settings set as follows (in order to take into consideration the Direct Marketing Contact Information settings):

      • Apply Contact Information Data Protection for Direct Marketing: YES
      • Apply Contact Information Data Protection for Affiliate Marketing: YES
      Notification Run: Use the Customer Care Notification Type created with the settings configured as above

    • System Process
      When the system executes the Notification Run with the Notification Type (configured as described above), contacts that meet the criteria will be validated against the Authorisation settings and notifications/communications, while the ones that have the flag for Affiliate Marketing set to NO will be excluded.

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