Difference between Lead, Contact, and Customer
In the CRM module, ERPNext separates the entities of Lead, Contact, and Customer really well, which enables the companies to track the prospect, manage relationship and process transactions adequately. Efficient structuring of the sales pipeline is enabled through knowing these roles.
Lead
A Lead is a prospective customer—an individual or company that has expressed interest in your service or product but hasn't made the purchase yet. Leads are most often gathered from various sources like campaigns, websites, social media, trade shows, or referrals.
- Leads are the top of the sales funnel.
- They have important information such as name, email, phone, company, and acquisition source.
- You can store their requirements, communication history, and designate sales representatives for nurturing.
- On confirmation of interest, then Lead can be qualified and placed in a Customer.
Customer
A Customer is a person or an organization that has already transacted business with you by purchasing or ordering something. Customers are qualified and revenue-generating entities in the system.
- Customers are at the heart of processes like Quotations, Sales Orders, Deliveries, and Invoices.
- A Customer record rolls up all business data such as credit limits, tax information, price lists, payment terms, and transaction history.
- The Customers can be a Individual or Company and this can help further customize the process of doing business.
- ERPNext supports associating multiple Contacts and Addresses with a single Customer, making it simple to manage business relationships.
Contact
A Contact is an individual related to a Customer or Lead. This is especially significant in B2B (business-to-business) situations where a business (Customer) might have several agents (Contacts).
- A Contact maintains personal information like name, title, phone numbers, and email IDs.
- Contacts can also be associated with Customers as well as Suppliers or Leads.
- You can have multiple Contacts for a single Customer to deal with various business roles (e.g., head of procurement, financial manager, technical expert).
- The useful feature of managing Contacts separately will guarantee a way to track communication and work effectively between an organization.
Lead to Customer Conversion
ERPNext offers easy conversion of a Lead into a Customer once qualified:
- Select Open a Lead and select Customer from the available Make list.
- The information related to the Lead will be placed automatically in ERPNext in a form of a Customer record.
- The Lead status is set to "Converted", eliminating duplication and providing transparency in the sales process.
- Now against the new Customer record any further Opportunities or Quotations and Orders can be added.
This conversion procedure ensures that prospecting sales teams can shift straight to customer relationship management without any difficulties and the whole process can be tracked and is organized in ERPNext.