Contact Information - R15

Owned by Persia Xenopoulou (Deactivated)
Last updated: Mar 28, 2019 by Andros Papageorgiou (Unlicensed)
16 min read


Overview

Contact information stores the preferences and details of physical persons or companies, including customers, leads, users and partners, with which a business interacts.  The information is used for identifying contacts and communicating with them.

Setting Up Contact Information and Core Processes

 Configuration > CRM Application > CRM Settings > Set up Contact Information

Before you start using Contact Information set up the system to reflect your own business needs.

Settings

Contact Information settings provide a set of rules associated to contact information name display and uniqueness rules, settings associated to granting access to the company to include contacts in mailing campaigns and consent settings associated to GDPR.

Types, Categories, Industries and Industry sectors

Depending on the information you would like to keep for your contacts the following settings can be optionally configured

  • Types: Define a list of address, email, phone and relation types which should be supported by the system and the label that should be used for each type as well as whether it is mandatory to provide it or not
  • Categories: Categories can be used to classify contacts according to their business role (e.g., customers or partners)
  • Industries & Industry Sectors: Any economy is made up of sectors which can be broken down into industries. An industry consists of a specific group of companies with common business activity (for example, energy, law, marketing, telecommunications).  A sector is made up of several industries and refers to a large segment of the economy (for example, industrial, service, financial). Once industries and industry sectors are configured in the system, they can be added to contact information and used for grouping and reference. 

Recommended additional setup

In addition to the Contact Information specific settings the following may be configured for the Contact Information to operate at its full capacity.
  • Security Management: Set up Privacy Level Assignment rules to provide automation on setting the privacy level for the contact.
  • Platform: Provide formatting settings regarding contact information fields.
  • Communications: Create communication templates, including dynamic links that enable customers to opt in and out of mailing lists.


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Using Contact Information

CRM > Contact Information > Manage Contact Information

Contact information is used to organise the details of customers, prospect customers, users and partners.  A separate set of information is kept depending on whether the contact is a physical person or company which can be accessed through NEW > PERSON or NEW COMPANY respectively.Specify the criteria that match the requests you are interested in or use NEW > Person or Company from the Actions Menu to register the detail of a new contact.  Provide the information defined as mandatory in the contact information fields table and SAVE the contact. Contacts associated with an accounts receivable are already customers and have a 'Financial' life cycle state.  Contacts without an accounts receivable are not customers yet and  have a 'Marketing' life cycle state. You can DELETE Contact Information as long as there is no associated accounts receivable.

Importing contact information

The fastest way to create contacts is through importing an excel or CSV file which will create the contact information, especially if the contacts are already available in a third party system.

Foundation > Utilities > Import Data > Import Contacts

Through the import page you have the option to define values which will be applicable to all imported contacts 'Use Specific Contact field' or 'Use field Specified in Import File'

A template is available through the Action Menu > Download Template which can help you prepare the file to be imported

Ensuring uniqueness of contact information

Uniqueness of contact persons and companies registered in the system can be ensured by defining and applying uniqueness rules available in the Contact Information settings. Rules define the field or combination of fields which will be used to guarantee the uniqueness of a person's contact information or company respectively. Uniqueness is validated when creating or updating contact information.  E.g., (Last name and ID number) OR Social Security Number.Fields defined in the uniqueness rule of the contact information settings are mandatory and must be provided for each contact. For example, if Social Security Number is included in the uniqueness rule, then it is mandatory to provide the number for each contact.

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Providing contact information addresses

Addresses registered on the contact information are used by various areas in the system both for billing and delivery of goods and services. For example, in case of billing an address can help to determine the taxes to be applied on products bought by the contact and for delivery the address can help determine if delivery is possible. One active address of each type (Business, Home, PO Box, Billing or any other configured type) can be registered for a contact at a time. One of the addresses must also be set as primary.Previous address data can be inactivated and kept in the system, for future access and reactivation (in case the contact returns to a former address). Through the address area of the contact you can Deactivate or Activate an address, Show/Hide inactive addresses as well as set an address as Primary.

If you would like to use address auto-complete feature enable Melissa address registry or Google Places Autocomplete from Address Registry Settings. For more information refer to Platform manual.


 Defining contact notification preferences

Contacts can opt-in and out of communications regarding direct (in-house) and affiliate (partner) marketing campaigns.  Contacts do not have the option to opt out of communications regarding financial matters, such as bills.Determine whether the contact should be sent direct and affiliate marketing material. The settings default to those in the contact information definition. Send Direct / Affiliate Marketing Material: Enable if the contact should be a recipient (of in-house or partner marketing campaigns, respectively, and of customer care notifications). 
The date on which the authorisation was last updated and the user who updated it is displayed.Customers can opt in and out of mailing lists (i.e., update their authorisation settings) directly from their email.

Applying or ignoring contact notification preferences: Notification runs apply contact communication preferences when the 'Apply Contact Information Data Protection for Direct / Affiliate Marketing' setting is selected, in the notification type.  If it is not selected, the system will communicate with the customer regardless of the contact information preference.

Opting-in and out of mailing lists: Customers can opt-in and out of direct and affiliate mailing lists directly from their email by using dynamic links. For more information refer to dynamic links settings in the communications definition.

Automatic assigning of 'name day' to contacts

Contact information enables the automatic assignment of a contact name day, so that customers can be contacted with wishes and rewards on their name day. Configure name day rules to assign a name day to contacts as well as how often you would like to run the rules or set up and execute instantly.  In each rule you can have multiple variations of a name separated by a comma '.'. For example, Mary, Maria, Mario etc. 
The run will identify the contacts that satisfy (at least one of) the 'name day rules' configured. The name day of each contact that qualifies will be set in the respective contact information field. Through the name day rules you can also determine whether the rules will be applied to All (person) contacts (regardless of whether a different name day is already specified) or only to those Without Name Day already specified. It is also possible to import or export the name day rules through the respective action in the Actions Menu.

Communicating contact Information

Information saved on a Contact Information can be sent to the contact through the Communications page. It is also possible to automate communications by setting up 'Event Based Communication Definition' accordingly.You can use tags related to contact information (text that is automatically replaced by values specific to selected records) when creating communications. Tags are available for selection by typing '#'. 
Refer to the Communications manual for a complete list of service request tags.

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Additional Processes and Automations for Contact Information

Assigning KYC Profiles

Know Your Customer (or KYC) is the process through which a company verifies and establishes the actual identity of its customers. In order to achieve this, the company requests from its customers to provide valid and reliable identification documents (e.g. printed or scanned copies of their ID cards and passports) to be verified across the information which was already provided by the customer. KYC is important because it facilitates a company to have a better understanding of its customers and classify them based on their risk profile. The risk profile in its turn determines specific restrictions that can be applied such as the ability to obtain an accounts receivable or buy services and physical goods. Additionally, the KYC profile can be used as a condition in CRM.COM on assignment of Accounts Receivable Credit Limit and Wallet balance thresholds.
On creating a customer ( a contact information with an accounts receivable) the system will assign to the customer a KYC or optionally the user can select a profile to assign given the required information is provided. The KYC life cycle state indicates the customer's KYC verification progress.

  • Pending Verification: Customer has provided the required information but this information is not verified yet
  • Verified: Contact's information was verified and accepted
  • Refute: Verification failed. Not all the required contact's information was provided or verified so further actions are required (e.g. not all documents were submitted or uploaded documents have to be resent by the contact)
  • Expired: Customer's KYC profile is expired so customer should go through the KYC flow again

If a customer is ‘refute’ or ‘expired’ then customers should go through the KYC flow again where they will provide the required information/documents. It is up to the user to ‘Verify’ or ‘Refute’ a customer’s KYC profile using the respective actions however a profile is automatically set to ‘Expired’ in case that the

  • time since the customer provided the documents is passed the expiration date as set in the definition
  • ID card has expired
  • Passport has expired

When a customer is created or edited if the following conditions are met then a KYC profile is assigned accordingly

  • the fields provided in the KYC definition are provided
  • the contact information is associated to an accounts receivable
A number of actions are available to manage KYC profile of each customer.

Verifying KYC profile: KYC profile requires verification in case the 'Requires Verification' field is set on the profile at the KYC definition. Verification is available through the action 'Verify' available next to the KYC profile information. Once executed the life cycle state changes to 'Verified'Refuting KYC profile: A KYC profile assignment should be refuted by an agent in case that the required documentation has not been submitted. Refuting is possible through the action 'Refute' available next to the KYC profile information in case the life cycle state is 'Pending Verification'.

In case you refute a customer due to inadequate or unverified information, once this information is updated the life cycle state also changes back to Pending Verification.

  Modifying KYC profile: KYC profile can be updated by using the action 'Change' available next to KYC profile information.

  •  You can freely change to a profile of a lower priority with no restrictions and the profile will be instantly verified. 
  • On changing to a highest profile for a customer who is already verified, the required information must be specified in advance before changing the profile. 
  • On changing to a highest profile for a customer who is not verified, then the change is allowed immediately
    • the life cycle state of the new KYC profile will be set according to what the definition says
    • the expiration date is reset accordingly.

Expiring KYC profile: The KYC expiration process is a background process that checks the date on which each KYC profile should be expired  (which is set based on the KYC definition) and updates the life cycle state of the profile to 'Expired'. 

Communicating KYC information to customers: Create customer lists (segments) of financial customers with specific KYC profile which expires in a user-defined number of days and notify them by sending them communications in batch. (Communications sent to multiple customers simultaneously). It is also possible to instantly privately communicate to the customer, changes associated to their KYC profile so that they are informed upon a specific change. More specifically you can instantly send a communication (email/SMS) to customers upon the following events:

  • On Assigning KYC profile
  • On KYC Profile Verification
  • On KYC Profile Refute
  • On KYC Profile expiration
Refer to Communications and Segmentation manuals for more information on how to set up the Event Based Communications, create and notify customers and create the lists of customers that should be notified.
To start using KYC (Know Your Customer) set up the KYC profile settings accordingly. 


Configuration > CRM Application > CRM Settings > KYC Settings

  • KYC Profile Expiration Settings: Define if and when the KYC Profile of a customer will get expired. It can be always valid or for a specific period since its assignment. Once a KYC profile is expired then customers will have to go through the verification process again
  • KYC Profile: For each KYC profile you can define if it Requires Verification after it is assigned to a customer and a Maximum Credit Limit that can be explicitly provided to a customer that belongs to the profile

  • KYC Person Profile Rules & KYC Company Profile Rules: For each rule select the fields which are required to be provided for a customer to be considered as KYC verified and for each field provide the profile is required for. By default, all selected contact information fields must be specified by a customer in order to be KYC verified. At least two (or none) contact information fields must be marked as semi optional. In such case, once the customer specifies at least one of the semi-optional contact information (e.g. provide either the ID or the passport) then the selected KYC profile can be assigned. An Attachment classification is specified for each contact information field for which customers must provide a printed/scanned copy of a reliable document that proves that information's validity.
    Check the Requires Renewal for fields such as ID or passport to specify that when the related contact information will get expired must be renewed. For example, if the expiry date on an ID card or a passport is reached then a renewal is required and the new ID must be resent for KYC

    If a field is defined as required for a KYC profile with a lower level (for example level 1) than another profile, then the higher level profile will also need the field to be defined

     


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Complying with GDPR


In order to comply to General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as of May 2015 certain measures must be taken by organizations to protect every individual's rights to control how their personal information is collected and processed. The following tools are available in CRM.COM to ensure that the collection of personal data of your customers is done in a way that is accepted by GDPR.
  • Contact Consent for keeping and processing data
  • Anonymization of data
  • Expanded audit trail logging for access retrieving and modification of data

Contact Consent State: Each contact information has a state/status associated to their consent which is one of the following:
  • Pending: Contact has not yet provided their consent 
  • Accepted: Contact has provided their consent
  • Rejected: Contact has rejected the consent
  • Withdrawn: A contact who previously provided their consent, withdraws it
Through the Consent Settings available in the Contact Information Settings, you can set up how data of contacts can be manipulated according to the state the consent is at, except the case where the contact has provided their consent (Accepted) in which case there are no restrictions or options to restrict it. In any other case the following options are available:
  • Complete functionality: Indicates that the contacts and the actions applicable on them are fully functional.
  • No functionality allowed: Indicates that no further actions can be applied on these contacts, but they will exist as contacts in the system. (Only available for 'Rejected' and 'Withdrawn' states)
  • Anonymize Contact: Indicates that contacts will be fully anonymized and no longer functional in any way (Only available for 'Rejected' and 'Withdrawn' states)
A contact's consent state (apart from Pending' which is the default state) can be captured in the system in 3 ways
  1. By using the dedicated action in the Contact information page Actions > Add Consent Form in which case the consent state can be selected and the consent form can also be uploaded
  2. By using links available in emails or SMS sent to the contacts through which the contact can either accept or reject the consent. For more
  3. Through a third part system such as a portal or mobile app which can make use of the associated WEB APIs

Contact Consent Form: A contact consent form can be attached on every contact through which their consent can be verified. The consent form can be individualized, for example, a scanned copy of a signed accepted consent form or a global consent form which is the same for all contacts and can be selected through the attachments library. If the form is individualized then it can be added by using the dedicated action in the Contact information page Actions > Add Consent Form in which case a consent form can be uploaded or selected through the attachment's library (global). If however the consent form does not need to be individualized, then set the consent form in the Contact information Consent Settings and the selected form will be automatically attached to all contacts 

Requiring re-consent: Consent forms may be updated through the time thus it may be mandatory to require re-consent from the contacts.  This is possible by using the action available in the Contact Information Settings data entry page 'Require Re-Consent'. This is applicable only for contacts that have either accepted, rejected or pending consent state.  Once the action is selected then the following information are updated
  • Consent State: Pending
  • Consent Updated Date: empty
  • Consent Form: update it with the new attachment
The affected Contacts are then considered as "Pending Consent" and the respective functionality applied on the Contact Information Definitions is applied.
Exporting customer data: Information associated to each and every contact can be made available to them through a printout which optionally it can be sent to them through an email.
Keeping an audit trail: Audit trail of any action associated to the accessing of any record is now kept in the system along with the option to view a complete list of the audit log. Additionally, reports are now available which display a list of the audit trail logs of a specific Contact Information and its related Entities (Accounts Receivable and Rewards Participant and another one to display the changes performed on a contact information by a specific user.  For more information on Audit Trail refer to Network and Security Setup 


Anonymizing Contacts 

Anonymization process is vital to GDPR compliance. Once a contact is anonymized then any CRM.COM functionality is not possible, including updating or executing any action on the Contact Information or associated accounts, service requests, jobs activities etc. Financial transactions imported to the system which are related to an anonymized accounts receivable are posted on the System's Suspense Account instead (available through Accounts Receivable Definitions). 
The following contact information cannot be anonymized:
  • Associated to a user a group, unit or community
  • Has a running subscription, job activity service request or lead
  • Has un-billed items
  • Does not meet the conditions set on the Anonymization settings.
A contact information can be anonymized in the following three ways:  
  • Through the dedicated action in the Contact Information data entry page (if the anonymization process is enabled in the Contact Information definition)
  • Through the batch process that can be set up in the Anonymization section of Contact Information settings
  • Once the Contact rejects or withdraws consent and the Consent Settings of the Contact Information definition are set to anonymize the contact
Check Appendix A for a full list of the data in CRM.COM that is anonymized once the process takes place.

To use the Anonymization process set up the Anonymization settings accordingly. 
Configuration > CRM Application > CRM Settings > Anonymization
Define whether the Contact Anonymization functionality should be enabled and the schedule which the process should be repeated. If the functionality is enabled then the following settings provide extra checks before the anonymization takes place to safeguard against erroneous anonymization. The Minimum Number of Months which must have passed since the last contact update, subscription termination, financial transaction and wallet transaction posting.


Business Flows


Exclude customers from partner marketing campaigns

Scenario

Company ZX contacts its customers on a monthly basis to inform them regarding offers and new channels. Other than its own marketing campaigns, Company ZX also engages in affiliate marketing for partners. Some customers want to be removed from the affiliate marketing mailing list, but remain on the direct marketing mailing lists.
Solution

To Opt-out of Affiliate Marketing Campaigns & Opt-in Direct Marketing Campaigns, Authorisation settings of the contact information related to affiliate marketing should be set as follows: 

  • Send Direct Marketing material: YES
  • Send Direct Affiliate material: NO
For the system to take into consideration the affiliate or direct marketing contact information authorisation settings, the notification type used for the monthly affiliate or direct marketing campaign should be as follows:
  • Apply Contact Information Data Protection for Affiliate Marketing: YES
  • Apply Contact Information Data Protection for Direct Marketing: YES

System Process 
  • Notifications created using the 'affiliate marketing' notification type are not sent to customers.
  • Notifications created using the 'direct marketing' notification type are sent to customers


On this page

For the developer

Check out the Contact Information WEB API for a complete list of actions available used to integrate CRM.COM to external systems

WEB API

Analytics

Check out reports and dashboards available for Contact Information

Analytics

Release news

Check out a full list of CRM.COM features available per release.

Features

Check out upgrade notes to find out what needs to be done to upgrade from your current release to the latest release of CRM.COM.

Upgrade Notes