Building a contact database is the first step to getting the most out of your CRM. In Springly, you can add contacts yourself or let people create their own account in your database.
This article covers the different ways to create a profile:
- Manually adding a contact to your Community
- Through your website
- Adding a person via a Membership or Donation Campaign
- Via the newsletter
- Duplicate detection system
Manually adding a contact to your Community
This is the most common way to create a profile: you add a person or entity record to your database to store their information. Every time someone is added to the community, an account is automatically created for them.
To add a person, go to Community > Contacts, click Add, then select Add a person.
You'll land on the person creation page, where you can fill in their details. When you're done, click Save at the bottom of the page.
When adding a contact, you can choose to:
- Add this person to a group;
- Notify the person that they've been added.
If you choose, your members can then set up their account and pick their own password. For more information, see this article.
You can also import multiple contacts at once using a spreadsheet.
Through your website
If you've enabled the Website module, visitors to your site can create their own account.
Account creation happens through the login page, which can be accessed via a Log In button located:
- At the bottom of your site (default);
- Or, if you prefer, in the header.
From there, visitors can click Create an account and land on the site's sign-up page.
For more details, check out this article: Adding or removing the member login button from your site.
Adding a person via a Membership or Donation Campaign
If you've enabled the Memberships or Donations modules, people will be added to your community when they complete a campaign form.
Anyone not yet in your database can become a member, make a donation, and create an account at the same time.
They can also complete the form without creating an account — a profile will still be created for them. You can then send them a password setup email. See this article to learn more about account creation options.
For people to access the form without an existing account, make sure the form is set to public, with no access restrictions.
Via the newsletter
You can invite people to subscribe to your newsletter. Go to Website > Settings & Theme, then click the Footer section to enable newsletter sign-up.
To enable this option:
- check Newsletter sign-up;
- then click More options;
- finally, check Add to community.
When signing up for the newsletter, visitors enter their email address in the Enter your email field.
The sign-up page will then appear with the fields to fill in:
Once all the required information is filled in, they simply click Create my account and they're automatically added to your community.
These contacts count toward your contact quota and are therefore included in your billing.
Duplicate detection system
The system checks two levels of information to determine whether a contact is a duplicate:
- First, the new contact's first and last name;
- Then their email address and/or zip code.
Here's how it works at a glance:
If both conditions are met, a duplicate is detected and no new contact is created, since it's the same person.
What happens if a contact already exists in the database?
Information is updated according to the rules below.
1. Blank fields in the duplicate do not overwrite existing information
Example — manually adding a contact from the Contacts page:
- John Doe (john.doe@email.com) already exists in your Community and has a profile photo;
- You accidentally create a new contact named John Doe with the same email address, but no profile photo;
- Springly updates any newly provided information for John Doe, but keeps the existing profile photo.
2. New information overwrites existing information
Example — signing up via the "Create an account" button on the login page:
- Hannah Jones (hannah.jones@email.com) already exists in your Community. Her address is 6 rue Beauregard, 75002 Paris;
- She accidentally creates a new account under Hannah Jones with the same email. Her address is now 34 rue du Sentier, 75002 Paris;
- Springly updates the profile with the new address: 34 rue du Sentier, 75002 Paris.
3. New information fills in missing fields on the existing profile
Example — signing up through an online Membership Campaign:
- Kylie Pearson (kylie.pearson@email.com) already exists in your Community, but her address is missing;
- She completes your campaign form with the same email address and provides her address: 34 rue du Sentier, 75002 Paris;
- After sign-up, Springly updates her profile with the new address: 34 rue du Sentier, 75002 Paris.
4. Duplicate detected via a campaign form
- Kevin James (kevin.james@email.com) already exists in your Community;
- He signs up through a Membership Campaign and clicks "Create an account" or "Continue without an account";
- Springly will show him existing accounts with a similar name;
- He can then select his account or create a new one if none of the suggestions match.
This duplicate detection system only applies to new accounts — whether contacts or entities — and is not retroactive. That said, if you spot duplicates in your Community, you can always merge them. This article explains how.
Learn more:
Comments
0 comments
Article is closed for comments.