> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.linkiasoft.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Customers and contacts

> The difference between a customer, a contact and a lead — and why it decides where conversations go.

Three record types, and mixing them up is the root of a lot of confusion.

| Record       | What it is                                                            |
| ------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Lead**     | A potential deal — see [Leads and pipeline](/help/crm/leads-pipeline) |
| **Customer** | A company or person you do business with                              |
| **Contact**  | A person, often attached to a customer                                |

A customer is usually the company; contacts are the people inside it. One customer can have
several contacts.

## Why this matters for your inbox

Conversations attach to a person, and a person's **owner** drives sticky assignment — their
messages keep returning to the same agent across every channel. See
[How assignment works](/help/routing/how-assignment-works#why-a-customer-keeps-the-same-agent).

So an unowned customer is not just untidy record-keeping: their conversations go back into
the general rotation each time, and they get a different agent on every contact.

## Working with them

Both pages offer table, card and list views with filters and sorting. From a record you can
see its timeline, log an activity, add phone numbers and social profiles, schedule a
meeting, set follow-ups and apply tags. Customer records also have call, SMS and email
actions.

## Tags

Tags are shared across contacts, customers and leads — one vocabulary, applied wherever it
is useful, and filterable everywhere.

They work best when the list is short and agreed. Ten meaningful tags used consistently
beat sixty invented ad hoc, which is what happens when everyone adds their own.

## Import and export

Both support CSV import and CSV/Excel export.

<Steps>
  <Step title="Download the template first">
    So the columns match. Guessing them is the usual cause of a failed import.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Include country codes on phone numbers">
    A number without one will not match an incoming WhatsApp conversation to this record —
    the customer arrives as a stranger with no history.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Import, then set owners">
    Imported records without an owner do not benefit from sticky assignment.
  </Step>
</Steps>

Export respects your current filters, so you can export a filtered subset rather than
everything.

## Converting a lead

A won lead can be converted to a customer — the move from "deal we are chasing" to "company
we do business with".