Contact View - Related Contacts Tab

The Related Contacts tab in the new contact view allows you to directly link any contact or contacts by relationship type. This not only helps your team maintain and understand relationships, but will help keep referrals and partners updated.

There are no limits to the number of contacts we can link through as Related Contacts, which is a great way to link:

1. Business Partners - Two contacts that work together or within the same company
2. Spouse/Domestic Partner - Two contacts that are in a permanent relationship - Can be those that live together and blend their finances.
3. Referred By - Linked by the fact the contact was introduced, recommended and provided by another contact. For example: A real estate agent provided us a new contact as a lead. We would want to link the agent as the 'Referred By' contact on the lead contact.
4. Co-Borrower - This is exactly as it sounds. Additionally, if a co-borrower is provided by our LOS on a loan/transaction, they will automatically be linked as 'Co-Borrower' contacts.

Some other great benefits of setting up and linking 'related contacts':

1. Sending email or text message to the related contact within automations.
2. Using merge fields that call data from a related contact.
3. Ability to quickly interact with a related contact without leaving the current contact we're looking at.
4. Send 'Partner Reports' to our referral partners with a few clicks.

Using the below image as a reference, we'll review each option available.

1. Quick Options for a linked contact
2. Related 'Type'
3. '+ Related Contact'
4. 'Preferred' contact
5. Send 'Referral Partner' Report

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Quick Options for a Linked Contact

This is another great efficiency feature. By clicking the ellipsis [...] next to any of the related contacts listed, we can do many important functions/actions without ever leaving the current contact.

• Unlink Contact - this will remove the 'related' link with the current contact.
• Mark as "Preferred" - this will only be an option when there is more than one linked contact of the same type. We'll go into more detail later in this article.
• Send Email - Provides the ability to quickly send an email to this related contact.
• Send Text - Provides the ability to quickly send a text message to this related contact.
• Add Note - Creates a note that is save on the related contact.
• Add Task - Creates a task that is linked to the related contact.
• Edit Contact - Will provide the Edit Contact drawer on the right and allow us to edit the related contact.
• View Contact - Will open the related contact. This will exit the contact we're currently viewing.
• Send Partner Report Email - Click here to learn more.

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Related Contact 'Type'

This is how we will identify the relationship between the contacts, and will make it easy to understand why each related contact is listed.

There are 4 options to choose from when linking a related contact that we defined at the beginning of this article.

In the next section, we'll go into a little more detail.

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'+ Related Contact' - Add Related Contact

Adding a related contact can take very little time, as long as the contact already exists within our team. If the contact we want to link does not exist, we must create it first.

In the below animated GIF, we'll add related contact with a type = Spouse/Domestic Partner

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'Preferred' Contact

This is an option available as we link a contact, when a related contact of the same 'type' already exist. The purpose is to identify the 'preferred' contact for sending automated emails, text messages and using merge fields in either of those communication methods.

When linking a related contact with the same type as an existing related contact, we'll see a check-box under the 'Relationship Type' drop-down. If we want to update the 'preferred' contact to the one we're adding, we'll simply check that box.

Additionally, we can adjust which contact is 'preferred' by using the quick options described above in this article.

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Send 'Referral Partner' Report

To send a Referral Partner Report to the current contact, we can click the ellipsis [...] button  at the top-right of the Related Contacts tab. If, after clicking the button, the option is not enabled, that means the contact we are viewing is not eligible to receive this report.

To learn more about setting up a contact to be eligible for a referral pipeline report, click here.