CRM: contacts, companies and deals

Your people, the businesses they work for, and the money in flight.

Included with Smoo Customer Success Bundle, Smoo Growth Bundle and 5 more plansSee plans

The CRM is contacts, companies, deals and tasks, linked together. Import once, then keep it current — a stale CRM makes every downstream feature worse, because campaigns, drips and forecasts all read from it.

Anything here can also be done by asking Smooth Operator, which is usually faster than the forms.

How to

  1. 1

    Import your contacts — from a connected address book, or a CSV.

    Both routes preview before they write. Imports upsert by email, so re-running does not duplicate.

  2. 2

    Create deals and keep their stage current.

    Stage drives the forecast; a deal parked in the wrong stage quietly distorts your pipeline number.

  3. 3

    Save a list view for the slice you look at daily.

  4. 4

    Use tasks and reminders rather than remembering.

  5. 5

    Read a record’s Activity timeline before you reach out.

    Calls, voicemails and texts sit on the same timeline as notes, tasks and deal changes. Open a call to see its summary, action items and transcript, play the recording, or call back. A company shows its contacts’ calls too; a deal shows its contact’s.

Add a contact

  1. 1

    Open CRM → Contacts and select New Contact.

  2. 2

    Fill in what you know: First name, Last name, Email, Phone, Job title and Company.

    A contact needs at least a first name, last name or email. Company searches the companies already in your CRM.

  3. 3

    Select Create.

Add a company

  1. 1

    Open CRM → Companies and select New Company.

  2. 2

    Enter the Name, and any of Domain, Website, Industry, Size and Parent company.

    Only Name is required.

  3. 3

    Select Create.

Create a deal and move it through your pipeline

A deal’s stage is what puts it on the pipeline board and in your forecast, so move it as soon as it changes.

  1. 1

    Open CRM → Deals and select New Deal.

  2. 2

    Enter a Title, then the Value, Stage, Contact and Company you know, and select Create.

    Only Title is required. MRR, Implementation (one-time) and Probability (%) are there too.

  3. 3

    On the Board tab, drag the deal’s card into its new stage.

    No columns yet? Select Set up pipeline to add a starter set of stages.

  4. 4

    Or open the deal and pick a new Stage in the Deal info box. Select Edit there to change the value, close date or anything else.

Keep track of follow-ups with tasks

  1. 1

    Open a contact, company or deal, type in the Tasks box (“Add a task...”) and press Enter.

    The task is linked to that record, so it shows there and in CRM → Tasks.

  2. 2

    Open CRM → Tasks to see them all. Switch between My tasks and All tasks at the top.

  3. 3

    Use the Status filter to show Open, Overdue or Completed tasks.

  4. 4

    Tick the box at the start of a row to complete a task.

Save the list you check every day

Saved views are on the web.

Web only

  1. 1

    On Contacts, Companies, Deals or Tasks, set the filters and columns you want.

    Columns picks what the table shows.

  2. 2

    Select Save view, give it a name, and choose who sees it.

    Private is just you; Organization lets everyone in your org use it.

  3. 3

    Come back to it any time from the view menu at the top left of the list (it starts as “All contacts”).

  4. 4

    To change many contacts at once, tick them and use Set lifecycle, Assign owner or Add tag in the bar that appears.

    Bulk changes work on contacts only.

Ask Smooth Operator

  • “How many contacts, companies and deals do I have?”
  • “What is my pipeline worth?”
  • “Show me my biggest open deals”
  • “Add Acme Corp, Jane Doe as their CTO, and open a $40k deal”

If something goes wrong

A call is on the timeline but its transcript or recording says it needs a permission.
Transcripts, recordings and voicemail audio need the "Listen to call recordings & read transcripts" permission on your role. Anyone who can see the record still sees the call and its summary.
A deal is missing from the pipeline board or forecasts at zero.
Its stage is free text that does not match a configured stage, so it has no column and no probability. Set it to a real stage.
An import made duplicates.
Rows without an email cannot be deduped. Map an email column — it is required for a reason.