Take a new enquiry through to an owned follow-up
Connect the first pieces of a customer workflow: find or create the company and contact, capture the enquiry, and assign its next action.
Take a new enquiry through to an owned follow-up
Connect the first pieces of a customer workflow: find or create the company and contact, capture the enquiry, and assign its next action.
Before you start: You need CRM access, permission to create the required records and a Board for follow-up work. Have the company, contact, original enquiry and agreed next action ready. Reuse matching records whenever they already exist.
Steps
1. Open CRM in the correct workroom and space. In Accounts, search for the company and compare likely matches. If it is new, use the floating plus → New Account, confirm Space assignment, enter Account name, add useful Key notes and select Create account.
2. Open Contacts and look for the person. For a new contact, use plus → New Contact, enter Full name and any confirmed role or contact details, then choose the company in Account (optional) and select Save contact. Do not create another Contact merely because the person has made a new enquiry.
3. Open the saved Contact and confirm the selected Account. Open the Account separately and check its Contacts section. If an existing person needs a different company relationship, resolve that edit with the record owner rather than creating a duplicate.
4. In Leads, search for this particular enquiry. If it is new, choose Quick actions plus → New Lead. Check Space assignment, enter the required name and add the enquiry summary under Signals & scoring → Context. Include the request, source, important unknowns and next question. Select Create lead.
5. As the facts become clearer, use the lead’s Edit → Context → Update lead route to keep the current summary useful. Keep the original source and distinguish confirmed requirements from requested dates or unapproved budgets.
6. Use Add note → Save on the lead to record a meaningful customer update, such as what was discussed and what was agreed next. Keep this history separate from the short current summary.
7. On the same lead, check Linked Work for the intended follow-up. If it exists, reuse it and continue to step 8 without resetting its status or creating another task. Otherwise choose Add task and select the appropriate Board. Keep the generated CRM source description. Add a specific Task Title and a clear completion check, then set Due Date, status and the intended person through Assign Members. Select Create Task.
8. Reopen the lead from the Leads list. Check its Context, note and task under Linked Work. Open the task and confirm its source, brief and date. In Board → Table, check the actual Assignee so the next action has an owner.
9. Give the responsible person the source record and next action through your normal working process. Agree what they will return and when. Continue to opportunity or commercial-document work only when the enquiry supports that next decision.
Expected result
Your team can find the company and person, understand the enquiry and follow its linked next action without reconstructing the conversation from memory.
Common pitfalls
- The Contact-to-Account link and Lead-to-task link are distinct. Naming the company in a lead summary does not automatically create every relationship or convert the lead to a deal.
- Creating these records does not authorize marketing, establish a sale or generate an invoice. Keep those later customer decisions separate.
Continue learning
In this series: Manage customer relationships — guide 15 of 15.
Turn what you learned into the way the team works.
Mark this lesson complete once the workflow exists in your workspace—not simply when you reach the bottom.