Method Community

I would like to convert some dormant customers back to leads.

I currently have a quick-and-dirty screen with a grid that shows me all customers and when I select the customer in a particular row, it sets the active record ID for the screen to be that customer. Below the grid are Sales Rep and Tax Code fields that I can change and then save for that selected customer. I added the IsLeadStatusOnly field below the grid, but that ends up being read-only. I suspect that it's because the screen ant the grid are based on the Customers table. Either way, since that field isn't in the Customer table I guess I can't change/save it.

Anyway, what's the best way to make a customer a lead? Is the IsLeadOStatusOnly field the ONLY difference between the two tables?

I think my steps should be:

• Export the dormant customers from the Customers table.
• Insert the IsLeadStatusOnly column and populate with "True"
• Import into the Leads table

However, can I keep the same Customer name? Would I need to delete the customer or would setting the IsActive field to false be good enough? I imagine that I can't have the same Fullname in the Customers table and the Leads table, no? Are there any other things I should worry about? Let's assume that the Customer has transactions/activities - they would remain intact if the same name is kept, correct?

Please clarify.

Thanks

Hi Mike,

You won't be able to keep the same customer name unless you delete the customer record.  The only difference between a Lead and a Customer is the IsLeadStatusOnly field.  They are actually both records in the Entity table.  The Entity table is a special table in Method that syncs Customers, Employees, Vendors and OtherNames with Quickbooks.  The Leads, Customer and Leads, and Customer table are actually just views of the Entity table.  This is why the IsLeadStatusOnly field isn't seen when viewing the Customer table.  All customers will have a false value for that field, which is set when a Lead becomes a Customer. 

If you really need to change the customer to a lead, I'd delete the dormant customer from Quickbooks, make sure to sync with Method to confirm its deleted there then import the Leads back into Method.  Please be aware that if there are open transactions in Quickbooks (the customer has a balance), you may not be able to delete them until the balance is adjusted in Quickbooks. The IsActive setting won't work, since that is a field that syncs with QB and the record will still exist in both locations.

Hope this helps.

Adam

OK, but if I delete the customer from QuickBooks, what happens to historical transactions? Any problems there?

Wouldn't it be better to change the customer name in QuickBooks to be somethinng like: "Company ABC - Dormant" and then make the lead name in Method the same as what the customer was before it was dormant ("Company ABC")?

Mike,

Actually you won't be able to delete them if they have any transactions.  I was wrong there.  Your way would work, however over the long run what would happen if they become dormant again?  You might end up with a number of Company ABC - Dormant1, Dormant2, etc.  If that's okay, you can certainly do that but their transaction history won't be associated with the active Customer.

Another suggestion would be to make them inactive.  By making them inactive, if a potential sale comes up for them in the future, you could make them active again.  That way you could create an Opportunity and Estimate just as you would with a Lead, and still have all of your historical transaction data associated with that customer.

Is there any reason they need to be a Lead?  If its just to sort out dormant accounts, you can also use our tagging feature and mark them how you want.  You could then filter out customers with a particular tag. That way they can stay active for campaigns and such, but can be filtered out of your customer list.

- Adam

Has there every been any more development on making this an easier task? 

We sell a product that our market has to purchase year in and year out.   Often times clients discontinue use of our product but that doesn't mean they won't purchase again at a later date.  We also allow for trials which involve making them a customer as well.  If we had used your product since the inception of our company we would have a very large number prospects who would technically be leads but are stuck in the customer tab.  unless we had deleted them out of the system and reintroduced them to it as a lead.  Obviously losing all history and past transactions associated with them.  

Having a sales staff work off 2 lists seems inefficient.  "Call all of these prospects we've never done business with in state A. but then also go to this separate list and call on these in state A as well. they used to be customers or tried our product at some point"  as I said, if we had been using method the last 10 or so years, that list would be quite large.  Non customers stuck in a customer list.  

If there was a way to be able revert them back to a lead and somehow tag or set them as dormant in Quickbooks that would be fantastic.  Otherwise, as a sales manager, i have more work on my hands that doesn't seem necessary.   

Thanks, 

Hello Micahk.

Here's my answer. As mentioned by Adam in the earlier posts, you can definitely use our tagging feature to tag them and filter them with the tags or you can set them Inactive and then use them when any potential sale comes up. Unfortunately there is no other way to convert a customer back into lead apart from the option suggested in the above posts.

Hope this helps!

-Inder

regardless, i'll continue to populate a 2nd list from which my sales staff will have to wade through for leads.  a list of "customers" who aren't actually customers.  This doesn't help me in the slightest.   

Hi Micahk,

This may help you a bit.

Instead of having multiple customer contacts screens like u are using now, just use the one screen provided my method and make new filter view.

Example: My company is a service base company. We go do a job for a customer and we may never have to go there again. The stock customers and contacts list shows basically every customer in your database, even the filter view, shared active customers Contacts would show all my customer unless I deactivated them in quick books which I did not want to do. 

My solution was this:

I created a new dropdown table and called it CustomJobStatus. Next I populated the table with drop down items. Then I linked that table to the entity table and the customer table.

Next, you must open a customer file and edit the edit customer screen. You will need to insert the CustomJobStatus dropdown to this screen. When that is done, you can go through all your customers and give them a job status. If you leave a customer's Job status blank, it will not show up on the (Shared active customer contact view filter.)

Next, you will need to edit the customer and contacts list screen. Once that opens, click edit on the contacts table. When the grid wizard opens go to step 2 and add your new column CustomerJobStatus. Next go to step 3. In step 3 option  1, choose shared active customer contacts, next in option 2 select CustomJobStatus and click insert filter. When the grid filter opens you should see field: CustomJobStatus, Field Type: Text and for the Filter: Choose Is not empty. Save and close. That is it. Now that you are back at the customers contacts screen, make sure you are on the shared active customer contact view filter. Now you or your employees can filter out customers by the specific job statuses you have assigned to each customer.

On my CustomJobStatus table, I left one of the drop downs blank for a reason.  Lets say a customer calls and schedules an appointment, the job status will go to (Job scheduled, not started). If the job is done and billed but the customer has not paid yet the status would be (Job done, not paid) If we were completely done with the job we will remove any job status leaving it blank. Now when we save and close, that customer will not show up on the shared active customer contacts view but if we needed to locate sombody we could do a search for them or we could change the filter by view to shared customer contacts and then every customer would show up again.

I know I wrote a lot but I hope this helps

Here is an idea for not having to deal with two lists.   For many of my Method clients, I have combined the Customerr/Lead Lists. This way they do not need to figure out what is what. On my screen, I added a field for "Contact" type, so its clear what type of "Name" you are dealing with.  With a joint table, you can add a field to show "Dormant" customers (inactve ones)....You could set up main screen to filter for "dormant" customers, leads or customers. You could then use 'taggging' for further filtering.   You could even add a field for "Last Sale" (this would have to be calculated).  Then you have full use of CRM to track activities, conversations, opportunities with your Names.  For a Sales Rep, you want the least amount of clicks to get to pertinent information about name.