Contacts and Profiles are at the heart of Trail's CRM component.
They allow an adviser to represent multiple situations, have multiple opportunities, and for different clients or combinations of clients without needing to enter information in multiple times.
In this article you will learn:
What is a Contact?
What is a Profile?
How do they work together?
What is a Contact?
A Contact represents one entity. This entity could be a person, a trust or a company.
A Contact contains personal, employment and relationship information about that entity (whether person / trust/ company).
In a Profile there may be multiple Contacts.
Ideally, each Contact is linked to a Profile. If a Contact is created and not linked to a Profile they may be 'floating' in the CRM and only located by using the search bar.
A Contact can be linked to as multiple Profiles as need be - this way, Contact information that can move easily between opportunities.
What is a Profile?
A Profile is like a container box where many components come together including:
Any number of Contacts who are involved in an opportunity together. You do need at least one contact in the Profile.
The Opportunities relating to the group of Contacts. Each Opportunity that is created is linked to a Profile.
Any mortgage/ insurance / investment Products that the Contacts have.
You are able to add Notes / Activities to the profile relating to the situation.
A Timeline with all the email correspondence to/ from active Contacts, opportunities movements, notes, activities and archived products.
A Profile can be a Personal Profile (part of a personal situation) or a Business Profile (as part of a business situation).
How do Contacts and Profiles work together?
There are two problems that multiple Profiles solve:
Privacy
Contacts that are on the same profile, will be able to see the information for all the entities involved, which can cause a breach of privacy. Having separate Profiles (e.g. business and a personal, or separate personal profiles) will allow separation of information of the contacts and keep information private.
No more double-entry of information
Creating a Contact for one person for one application, then creating another Contact for that same person in another situation wastes adviser time typing the same information in twice. Therefore, allowing one Contact be a part of multiple Profiles removes the need of double-handling information.
Using the Contact and Profile relationships correctly
The below examples demonstrates how Contacts and Profiles can interact to solve the two issues described above.
As part of a personal situation:
James and Jill Porter are looking to refinance their family home. They have come to you for help to get them the best deal they can. James and Jill are different Contacts, but are a part of the same Profile. They fill in the fact find and you send their application to the bank.
As part of a separate business situation:
In the meantime, James and his business partner, Ralph, are looking to top up their business mortgage to pay for some renovations that need to be done. When starting this application, instead of needing to fill out James' information again, his Contact can be added as an "Existing Contact" to a separate Profile so the information will carry across automatically. This removes the need for double entry and saves you time.
For more information on Contacts and Profiles, read this article on managing a Profile's Contacts.