Accounts and Contacts Rules!

Owned by Jodie Miners
Last updated: Feb 06, 2019
6 min read

Using Outlook or Google Apps

  • Never Keep Personal Contacts and Business Contacts in the same Outlook file or Google Apps account
    • Or give them a Company Name of Personal or a Tag of Personal 
    • You are just not that important to mix all your contacts up, even if you are the owner of the company (says me who does just that - but I have Salesforce for my business specific contacts). 
  • NEVER import Outlook or Google Contacts into Salesforce - I guarantee you there will be rubbish in there, like the local Pizza shop, and the local tree-lopping service. 

Be Ruthless

  • Don't be afraid to delete any semi-crap data. 

Global and State-Based Companies

  • Have a defined structure as to how you will handle Global or State based Companies. 
  • Generally start with the base name as the company Name then have a child company for each location
    • Eg Smith and Sons Lawyers
      • Smith and Sons Lawyers (UK - London)
      • Smith and Sons Lawyers (UK - Manchester)
      • Smith and Sons Lawyers (Hong Kong)
      • Smith and Sons Lawyers (South Africa)
      • Smith and Sons Lawyers (New Zealand)
      • Smith and Sons Lawyers (Australia)
        • Smith and Sons Lawyers (NSW)
        • Smith and Sons Lawyers (VIC)
  • Notice I did not split up UK into UK and cities - that might be OK for an Australian based org - decide what's right for you. 
  • On each Account record have a Legal Name field
    • eg Smith and Sons Lawyers (Australia) may be Smith & Sons Australia Pty Ltd and the UK might be Smith and Sons Law Firm Inc
  • Have another Account field for Other Name(s)
    • eg When "Smith and Sons Lawyers" merge with "Jones & Co" to be "Smith, Jones and Co" have "Smith and Sons Lawyers" as the Other Names in the overall "Smith, Jones and Co" Account record. 

Company Names

  • Decide on shortened vs full names eg PwC vs Price Waterhouse Coopers. Stick to one and use the Other Name(s) field for the other name to aid in searching. 
  • If you are not sure, go to their website and check - eg Myob is just Myob now, not Mind Your Own Business. 
  • Have a Legal Name field or similar to store the entire name including the Pty Ltd. 

General Contacts

  • Have a rule for how to handle General Contacts either:
    • Last Name only - eg Events Coordinator
    • First Name = General, Last Name = Contact or just General Contact as Last Name
    • A checkbox? (not ideal). 
    • An email address on the Account (not ideal as they can't be included in Campaigns or emails). 

Not all Data

  • Have a rule about how to handle incomplete data
    • Eg no Last Name - Mary [Unknown]
    • Or do not allow them.
  • What is the minimum information you want to ensure you have to allow a Contact - eg for a business it should be
    • First Name
    • Last Name
    • Postion
    • Company
    • Email
    • Phone or Mobile

Capitalisation

  • Decide if you are picky about capitalisation of names etc
  • It is so surprising how many people enter their own names in lower case. 
  • You can't auto capitalise because of the van der and van den type names. 

Indicators

  • Always create indicators of contacts with low or bad data. 
  • Here's a Data Quality Score I set up earlier. This was based on a Blog Post from Salesforce, I think. 
IF( LEN( Phone) = 0, 0,10) + IF( LEN( MobilePhone ) = 0, 0,10) + IF( LEN( Email) = 0, 0,20) + IF( LEN(MailingStreet) = 0, 0,20) + IF( LEN(Title) = 0, 0,20) + IF( ISPICKVAL(Salutation,""), 0,20)
  • Here's a formula to add it to your indicators (see below) 
IF( DataQualityScore__c <= 20,IMAGE("https://login.salesforce.com/logos/Custom/Flag_Red/logo.png","Not enough Contact info",60,60),"")Here's a formula to add the data quality score to your Indicators (see below)
  • Decide if the Contacts should be deleted if the Data Quality Score is too low. 

Why does your Data Exist?

  • Why do they exist in your database? 
    • Is it just a Who's Who of your industry? 
    • Is it to email them or call them?
  • If it's just to do email marketing consider NOT having them in your database. 
  • If they have no Opportunities is there a reason for them to be there. 
  • It may be appropriate to have them in there for if they pop up again 
  • Consider the Privacy Act, GDPR and any other legislation that impacts you. 
  • Don't be afraid to delete crap data! 

Updating Data

  • Every time you call or email someone, just verify their data is correct, and update it. No one else is going to do this for you. 
  • Don't use third party tools to do this, they are so impersonal and spammy. 
  • Or look up LinkedIn and update the Link to their LinkedIn profile

International Data

  • Decide if you insist on ALL numbers to be in international format - eg +61 999 999 999
  • Decide on the format for all numbers - eg do you enter US numbers as (999) 555-5555 or +1 999 555 5555 (My preference is the latter). 
  • If you do do international format never do +61 (0)2 8989 8989 as it can't be dialed when you click to dial. Keep with just the international numbers. 
  • Install State and Country picklists! Just do it! 
    • Yes, add Hong Kong as a country rather than a Province of China, if your business deals with Hong Kong a lot. 

One Contact Many Companies

  • Set Up One Contact to Many Accounts
  • Decide how you deal with Former staff - especially if they have left but are related to Open Opps or long running Contracts. 
    • Put an X in front of their Last Name
    • Or put [LEFT] or similar indicator in front of their Last Name
  • One person may have multiple Titles at the same company - eg Director, Partner. 

Invalid Emails

NOTE: If you have GDPR requirements you need more than this. Seek help from the experts. 

  • Surface the formula field in Lightning because the status is not visible in Lightning. 

Use this if you also have an external app that is updating the Bounce status

IF(OR(NOT(ISBLANK(EmailBouncedDate)),EmailBounced__c=true),true,false)

Or this if it's just within Salesforece (and Campaign Monitor or Mailchimp for Salesforce). 

IF(NOT(ISBLANK(EmailBouncedDate)),true,false)
  • If you are using a Mailing App then set their Status to Bounced automatically from the app using Process Builder.
    • Make sure it is reset when the email address is changed. 

Sets Email Bounced Date (standard field) to the Last Modified Date from Campaign Monitor Subscriber List Member. 

  • Also set an Unsubscribed from CM field on the Contact 

Using Field State In Campaign Monitor Subscriber List Member

  • And set the Contact to un-set Bounced if the Email changes

  • Export Campaign Member Subscriber List object and update the Bounces and Unsubscribes into the Contact record. 
  • Have a checkbox for No Valid Email - the user can check it if they believe the email to not be good - it is still good to have the incorrect email there for future validation and duplicate checking.  
  • Have an indicator to show a Green or Red envelope icon for Yes or No to Email. 

This one has NPSP Do Not Contact included also. This also includes the letter B, V or O next to the envelope, to tell what issue it is. It's a bit ugly so remove that if not necessary. 

IF(ISBLANK(Email),"", 
IF( OR(HasOptedOutOfEmail = true, IsBounced__c = true, npsp__Do_Not_Contact__c = true, NoValidEmail__c = true), 
IMAGE("https://login.salesforce.com/logos/Custom/Mail_Red/logo.png","Do Not Email",20,20)& 
IF(OR(npsp__Do_Not_Contact__c = true, HasOptedOutOfEmail = true),"O",IF(IsBounced__c = true,"B",IF(NoValidEmail__c = true,"V",""))), 
IMAGE("https://login.salesforce.com/logos/Custom/Mail_Green/logo.png","Do Not Email",20,20)))

  • Add the extra fields to your Contact layout.

  • Do similar for Phone. 
  • Show it in an Indicator Action so it's prominent. 

This indicator shows: They are part of a Household; They have been included on Campaigns that are Events; They are a Campaign Monitor Subscriber; They have an issue with their email Address; They are affiliated with another Organisation (NPSP)

This is all done with a few key fields and Declarative Lookup Rollup Summary tool.