It is important to understand the differences between Lead and Customer records in The Layer.
Leads are potential customers. You can raise opportunities and quotations against lead records.
Customer records represent businesses or individuals to which you have already provided products or services. As soon as a lead quotation is signed, that lead becomes a customer. Sales orders are raised against customer records.
Lead and customer records have a lot in common. This helps make the transition from lead to customer a smooth process.
Below, we will cover the kind of information that is stored against lead and customer records.
Lead and customer records - shared tabs
Company information
The Home tab of a customer or lead record displays key information about the business. For example, business type, number of employees, VAT number, industry.
The view is similar for both record types, though there are some fields and sections that apply only to one or the other, such as Lead Properties for leads, and Credit Limit for customers.
You may have custom fields configured in your instance of The Layer. These are bespoke fields that accompany the default / core fields. Custom fields can be shown on the Home tab of lead and/or customer records if they have been promoted.
Contacts
The Contacts section lets you store details on multiple lead or customer contacts
You can store information such as phone numbers, job title, and GDPR preferences. You may also see contact custom fields in addition to the standard core fields, if your organisation has configured them.
Tasks
The Tasks section is primarily concerned with helping you manage communication with the lead or customer. The types of task available are:
Appointment
Book meetings with lead or customer contacts, using Outlook integration
Appointments can be linked to opportunities
Phone call
Schedule or log a phone call with the lead or customer
Reminder
Schedule a reminder email for yourself or a colleague
Email
Send an email to a lead or customer contact, with the option to use an email template
Emails sent from any part of The Layer to a customer or lead contact will be included here - e.g. marketing campaigns and service cases
SMS
Send a text message to a contact
Overdue tasks will be grouped together, as will scheduled and completed tasks. You can also use the checkboxes provided to filter out specific task types.
Notes
The Notes area lets you view and add notes for other users of the system. Basic formatting and hyperlinks are supported.
Expiries
The Expiries section lets you record any known contracts that the lead or customer holds with other retailers. These can be used as the basis for opportunities when the expiry is approaching.
Custom Fields
Lead / customer custom fields that have not been promoted can be seen on the Custom Fields tab. Custom fields are defined in Settings, and can be enabled for lead or customer records independently.
These may be split across tabs based on their custom fields group.
Address
The Address tab contains all addresses that have been stored against a lead or customer record.
Addresses can be assigned a type e.g. billing, shipping, or trading. One address can be marked as the default.
The address type determines the default address that will be used for particular functions, though this can always be overriden.
Users of sites can also assign addresses to a particular site.
Quotes
The Quotes tab details all quotes that have been raised against a lead or customer record.
Opportunities
The Opportunities tab details all opportunities that have been raised against a lead or customer record.
Access
Access to lead and customer records is restricted to certain users. Records will be accessible by their owner by default. Users with the correct user roles will be able to access records other than their own - e.g. managers and admins. Access may also be delegated on a temporary basis to individual users.
The Access tab provides details of active and expired access privileges to the current record.
Audit
The Audit tab contains a log of record access and changes made.
Customer records - additional tabs
Customer records contain some additional tabs not found in lead records. Some may not be visible to you, based on your roles, access, and which modules your organisation uses.
Cases
Cases raised for a customer will show in the customer record on the Cases tab. Generally speaking, these will be service-related cases. However, some workflows may involve case creation as part of the sales process.
Assets
Customer assets are products or services that your company has previously provided to a customer. The Assets tab contains details on all past and present assets with that customer.
Assets can be linked to a new opportunity, and can also be linked to new quotation lines. This offers a range of benefits when processing renewals and upgrades.
Orders
The Sales Orders tab details all sales orders that have been raised for that customer.
Finance
This tab provides a log of financial transactions for that customer record. This includes invoices raised, invoice payments, and fund transactions.
Maintenance
This tab will only appear if you have maintenance and support plans enabled. It proves a view of maintenance plan assets for that customer, including balances.