Leads, contacts and customers

Contacts, leads, converted leads and customers measure different facts. Use the right one when reviewing a pipeline, counting customers or checking access to a Catalog item.

Contact

Anyone in your records. Someone who messaged you once is a contact. So is a customer of ten years.

Being a contact says nothing about whether they've ever bought anything. Messaging you never makes someone a customer — if it did, every enquiry would count as a sale.

Lead

A specific opportunity attached to a contact. One contact can hold several leads over time: three separate enquiries, three leads.

A lead can move through stages such as New → Contacted → Qualified → Converted, or end at Lost. Your pipeline can use different stage names, and Archived means the opportunity is no longer being worked. On the contact-based board, several opportunities can appear behind one person's card; open their lead history to check each one.

Converted lead

A lead that reached its outcome. That's a fact about the lead, not about the person.

Converted is not the same as customer, and the two are different numbers. A lead can convert on the strength of a signed agreement while the money and the work are still ahead of you. Your pipeline counts converted leads; your customer figures count customers. Expect them to disagree, and don't reconcile them — they're measuring different things.

Customer

Someone recognised through something that actually happened between you. By default, any one of these makes a contact a customer:

• an active membership or plan
• a successful payment
• a completed order
• a kept appointment

You can change which of these count for your business. What you can't do is have a contact, a conversation, an open lead or an application under review qualify on its own — none of those is evidence that you did business together.

Elsewhere on a contact you'll also see:

• Prospect — no qualifying event yet. An open lead sits here.
• Applicant — they have an application being reviewed.
• Former customer — a relationship ended or was cancelled, and nothing else qualifies any more.

Holding one particular item

Being a customer of your business and holding a specific item are separate questions.

Someone who pauses their gym membership is still a customer — they haven't left you. But they aren't a member in good standing of the plan they paused, so they shouldn't get into the members-only class this week.

That's why an item's access is judged on the item itself, not on whether the person is a customer somewhere in your records.

Why this matters when you're counting

| You want to know | Look at | | --- | --- | | How busy the pipeline is | Open leads by stage | | How many opportunities closed | Converted leads, in a date range | | How many people you actually do business with | Customers | | Who can use a particular item | That item's holders |

Do not treat a converted-lead count as a customer count. One person can have several opportunities, and a qualifying customer event can exist without a converted lead.

When the figures disagree

Compare the same date range and currency where those apply, then open the underlying lead, payment, order, booking or membership. Check your business's qualifying customer settings and the records your role can see. Missing or restricted evidence is not proof that someone has never been a customer. Do not convert a lead or change a membership just to make reports agree. Continue with View a contact profile.

Related

• Manage contacts
• View a contact profile
• Manage leads