How do you manage company contacts in a CRM?

Keep the company and the person as two records with a link between them, not as one record with a company name typed into a field. A person changes jobs and a company keeps existing, and a database that treats the company as text on the person cannot survive either event. Once they are separate, the useful question becomes what you store on the link rather than on either side.

Why the company needs its own record

Type the company name onto each person and you get four spellings of the same company by the end of the year. Acme, Acme Ltd, Acme Limited and ACME will not group, and no report can count them.

A company record also holds the things that belong to the organisation rather than to any individual: the account owner, the contract, the renewal date, the total value of work done. A company earns a record on the same test a person does, which is whether a commercial decision would ever depend on it.

Put the role on the relationship

The interesting information is usually neither the person nor the company but the connection: this person is the budget holder here, that one is the day-to-day contact, a third is the technical reviewer.

Storing that as a field on the person breaks the moment they move to a different company, because their role there is not their role anywhere. Storing it on the link keeps both facts true.

One person, one record

When someone appears at two companies, that is one person record linked twice, not two people. Duplicating them splits the history in half and guarantees that whichever half the next colleague opens is the wrong one.

This is the same rule that makes finding duplicates tractable: the person is the thing that is unique, and the company is context.

Decide who owns what

Ownership at the company level and ownership at the person level answer different questions, and both get asked. The account owner is who is responsible for the relationship; the contact owner is who spoke to this individual last.

Small teams can collapse these into one, but write down which one you mean. It is the field most likely to be filled in inconsistently, and inconsistent ownership is what turns a clean database back into a messy one within two quarters. Agencies have a further wrinkle here, because the client relationship outlives the deal.

Frequently asked questions

How should companies and people be stored in a CRM?

As separate records with a link between them. A person changes employer and a company continues without them, so a design that stores the company as text on the person cannot survive either event. Separate records also stop the same organisation appearing as four spellings, which is what makes any count by company possible at all.

Where should someone's job title or role go?

On the relationship between the person and the company, not on the person. A role is only true in the context of one organisation: budget holder at this company says nothing about their position at the next one. Storing it on the link keeps both the person record and the company record accurate when they move on.

What if one person works with two companies?

One person record, linked to both. Creating a second person record splits their history, and whichever half your colleague opens will be missing the part they needed. The link is what carries the company-specific detail, such as role and start date, so two links express the situation without duplicating the individual.

Who should own a company record?

Whoever is responsible for the relationship overall, which is not always whoever spoke to a particular contact most recently. Those are two different questions and both get asked, so decide whether you are tracking one owner or two and write the definition down. Inconsistent ownership is among the fastest ways a tidy database becomes untrustworthy.

What belongs on the company record rather than the person?

Anything true of the organisation rather than any individual: the contract, the renewal date, the account owner, the total value of work delivered, the industry and size. If a field would have to be duplicated identically across every person at that company, it belongs on the company, because duplicated fields drift apart and then contradict each other.