Client Connect CRM provides a central place to manage your contacts, companies, sales opportunities and follow-up tasks.

Rather than keeping customer details across spreadsheets, email inboxes and separate systems, your team can use one shared workspace to record conversations, monitor potential work and keep track of what needs to happen next.

Client Connect CRM is included with O’Brien Media website support packages and ongoing service agreements. It is currently available as a beta feature and must be enabled on your account before you can use it.

You can use Client Connect CRM to:

• Store contact and company details
• Manage prospective customers and sales opportunities
• Record notes and relationship history
• Create follow-up tasks
• Set task priorities and deadlines
• Track opportunities through your sales process
• Record successful and unsuccessful deals
• Import existing contacts from a spreadsheet
• Connect website enquiry forms
• See changes made by other team members

Client Connect CRM is currently available as a beta feature.

To request access, contact the O’Brien Media team or open a support case through Client Connect.

Once it has been enabled, you can access the CRM from Client Connect by selecting CRM from the navigation menu.

Additional team members can also be given access to the same CRM workspace. Contact O’Brien Media if somebody needs to be added to or removed from your account.

The dashboard provides an overview of your current CRM activity.

It can show:

• The total value of your open sales pipeline
• Deals expected to close during the current month
• Revenue from deals marked as won
• Your total number of contacts and companies
• Open and completed tasks
• Team activity and assignments
• Recent changes made within the CRM

The dashboard is intended to help you quickly understand what needs attention without opening each individual section.

Tasks shown on the dashboard are grouped according to their due date.

These groups can include:

• Overdue
• Due today
• Due this week
• Upcoming

Tasks can be marked as complete directly from the dashboard.

Completing a task updates its status throughout the CRM, including within any linked contact or company record.

A contact record represents an individual person.

You can use contact records to store information such as:

• Name
• Email address
• Telephone number
• Job title
• Company
• Notes
• Tags
• Linked tasks
• Associated deals
• Activity history

To add a contact, open the Contacts section and select the option to create a new contact.

Enter as much useful information as you have. You can return and update the record later.

Company records are used to store information about organisations.

A company can have several contacts linked to it, making it easier to see everybody you communicate with at that organisation.

A company record can include:

• Company details
• Internal notes
• Linked contacts
• Sales deals
• Tasks
• Tags
• Activity history

Where possible, link contacts to their company rather than entering the company name only as part of a note.

This makes it easier to search, filter and understand the relationship between people and organisations.

Select a contact or company name to open its detail panel.

The panel opens without taking you away from the page you are currently viewing.

Depending on the record, the available sections may include:

• Overview
• Notes
• Tasks
• Deals
• Activity

The Activity section provides a history of changes and actions connected with that record.

Use the search field to find a contact or company.

The search can match information including:

• Name
• Email address
• Telephone number
• Company name

Results are filtered as you type.

You can also filter contacts by company or use tags to narrow the list to a particular group.

Tags let you categorise contacts and companies in a way that suits your business.

For example, you could create tags for:

• Existing customer
• Prospective customer
• Supplier
• Referral partner
• Website enquiry
• Networking contact
• Industry
• Service of interest
• Lead source
• Customer status

Tags can be colour-coded, making different types of record easier to recognise.

Try to agree a consistent set of tags with your team. Creating several tags with very similar meanings can make searching and filtering less useful.

Notes can be added to contacts, companies, deals and tasks.

They can be used to record:

• Telephone conversations
• Meeting summaries
• Customer requirements
• Promised follow-ups
• Pricing discussions
• Important background information
• Progress updates

Notes are timestamped and attributed to the team member who added them.

Keep notes factual, relevant and appropriate for other authorised members of your team to read.

You can import contacts and companies using a CSV file.

This is useful when moving information from:

• An existing CRM
• A spreadsheet
• An email marketing platform
• A customer database
• Another contact-management system

The import process can create new records and update existing records.

It can also create and link company records using the company information contained in your file.

Before importing a large file:

1. Remove records you no longer need.
2. Check for duplicate email addresses.
3. Make sure names and email addresses are in separate columns.
4. Use consistent company names.
5. Keep a copy of the original spreadsheet.
6. Test the import with a small number of records first.

Contact O’Brien Media if you need help preparing or importing your data.

Contacts and companies can be exported to CSV.

Exports can be useful for:

• Creating reports
• Producing a backup
• Reviewing records in a spreadsheet
• Moving information to another approved system
• Checking the completeness of your CRM data

CRM exports may contain personal and commercially sensitive information. Store exported files securely and delete them when they are no longer required.

The sales pipeline provides a visual view of your current opportunities.

Deals are displayed as cards and arranged into four stages:

A potential customer or opportunity that has been identified but may not yet have been contacted.

Initial contact has been made or a discovery conversation has taken place.

A proposal, estimate or quotation has been sent.

The customer has agreed to proceed, but formal confirmation, payment or the start of work may still be outstanding.

Move a deal between stages by dragging its card into the appropriate column.

Each column shows the number and combined value of the deals currently within that stage.

To add a sales opportunity, open the pipeline and create a new deal.

Enter the available details, which may include:

• Deal title
• Estimated value
• Expected closing date
• Linked contact
• Linked company
• Notes
• Pipeline stage

Use a clear and recognisable deal title.

For example:

New website for Example Engineering

This is more useful than a generic title such as:

Website enquiry

Linking the deal to a contact and company makes its complete history easier to find later.

Select a deal card to open its detail panel.

From here, you can view:

• The deal’s value
• Its current stage
• The linked contact
• The linked company
• Notes
• Previous stage changes
• Its complete activity history

You can select a linked contact or company to open that record directly.

Mark a deal as Won when the opportunity has successfully completed your sales process.

This will move the deal out of the active pipeline and into the completed-deal archive.

Won deals can be used to calculate sales and revenue information shown on the CRM dashboard.

Mark a deal as Lost when the opportunity will not be progressing.

You can record a reason for the outcome.

Possible reasons might include:

• Customer chose another supplier
• Project postponed
• Budget unavailable
• No response
• Requirements changed
• Opportunity was not suitable
• Duplicate enquiry

Recording consistent reasons can help you identify patterns and improve your sales process.

Won and lost deals retain their notes and activity history and can be reopened when necessary.

Sometimes an enquiry initially entered as a sales deal turns out to be a support request, administrative query or another non-sales item.

Use Convert to Task within the deal detail panel to create a task from the deal.

The new task form will be pre-filled with information from the deal, including:

• The title
• Notes
• Linked contact
• Linked company

The original deal is marked as lost and an activity entry is added to the relevant records.

Tasks help your team keep track of follow-ups, calls, emails and other actions.

A task can include:

• A title
• Description
• Priority
• Due date
• Linked contact
• Linked company
• Notes
• Completion status

Tasks can be viewed from the task list, dashboard or their associated contact and company records.

Each task can be assigned a priority:

• High
• Medium
• Low

Use priority alongside the due date.

A high-priority task should represent something that is particularly important, rather than simply something that is due soon.

Overdue tasks are highlighted so that they are easier to identify.

A task can be marked as complete from:

• The dashboard
• The task list
• The task detail panel

Completed tasks move into a separate completed section.

A completed task can be reopened if further action becomes necessary.

Task notes provide a running record of progress.

You might use them to record:

• An attempted call
• A message left for the customer
• Information still required
• A reply received
• A revised deadline
• Work completed so far

Each note includes the date and the team member who added it.

Contact relationships let you record how different people are connected.

Examples could include:

• Reports to
• Works with
• Referred by
• Decision maker
• Finance contact
• Project contact
• Business partner

This can be particularly helpful when several people are involved in a company, project or purchasing decision.

Website forms can be connected to Client Connect CRM so that new submissions automatically create sales deals.

Where the contact or company already exists, the CRM can match the submission to the existing record. Otherwise, a new record can be created.

Duplicate checking helps prevent the same form submission from being added more than once.

Supported connection methods include:

• Generic JSON API connections
• Elementor Pro webhooks
• Zapier
• Make

Website form integrations normally require some technical setup. Contact O’Brien Media if you would like enquiries from your website to be added automatically.

Elementor Pro forms can send submissions to Client Connect CRM using a webhook.

Standard form fields such as name, email, company, telephone number and message can be mapped into the corresponding CRM fields.

This normally involves:

1. Creating or editing the form in Elementor.
2. Adding the webhook action.
3. Entering the Client Connect integration address.
4. Checking that the form field IDs are suitable.
5. Testing a submission.
6. Confirming that the contact, company and deal have been created correctly.

O’Brien Media can configure and test this integration for you.

CRM integrations use named security tokens.

Each integration should have its own token. This means that one token can be revoked without affecting your other connected forms or services.

Treat API tokens like passwords:

• Do not publish them on a public webpage.
• Do not send them through unsecured messages.
• Do not share one token between unrelated integrations.
• Revoke tokens that are no longer required.
• Replace a token if you believe it may have been exposed.

Tokens can be managed from your Client Connect profile.

The Activity Log records changes made within the CRM.

Logged activity can include:

• Contacts and companies being created, edited or deleted
• Notes being added, changed or removed
• Tasks being created, completed, reopened or deleted
• Tags being applied or removed
• Deals being created or moved
• Deals being marked as won or lost
• Deals being converted into tasks
• Contact relationships being added or removed

Entries include the date and the team member responsible for the action.

The log can be filtered by:

• User
• Record type
• Action
• Search term

This provides a useful history when several people work within the same CRM account.

All authorised team members use the same CRM workspace.

Changes made by one person are visible to the rest of the team, helping to provide a shared and current view of:

• Customer details
• Sales progress
• Notes
• Tasks
• Follow-ups
• Recent activity

Encourage team members to record important conversations and actions in the CRM rather than keeping them in personal notes or individual inboxes.

After Client Connect CRM has been enabled, we recommend completing the following steps.

Start with your existing customers, prospective customers and useful business contacts.

Link each person to the appropriate company where possible.

Create deals for enquiries and opportunities that are already in progress.

Move them into the appropriate pipeline stage.

Add tasks for calls, emails, meetings and decisions that are currently outstanding.

Set realistic deadlines and priorities.

Create a small, useful set of tags and agree what each one means.

Ask O’Brien Media to connect your website enquiries to the CRM so that new opportunities can enter the pipeline automatically.

A CRM is most useful when its information is current and consistent.

Encourage your team to:

• Add new contacts promptly
• Record notes after important conversations
• Link contacts to companies
• Keep deal stages up to date
• Close deals that are no longer active
• Give lost deals a meaningful reason
• Complete or reschedule overdue tasks
• Avoid creating duplicate records
• Use agreed tags consistently
• Review the dashboard regularly

The CRM is included with O’Brien Media website support packages and ongoing service agreements, but the beta feature must first be enabled on your account.

Contact O’Brien Media or open a support case through Client Connect to request access.

Yes. Contacts and companies can be imported using a CSV file.

Yes. Additional team members can be added to your shared CRM workspace.

The feature guide states that unlimited team members can be added.

Yes. Contacts and company records can be exported in CSV format.

Yes. The Activity Log records actions along with the responsible user and date.

Yes. Website forms can be connected through the CRM API, Elementor Pro, Zapier or Make.

Yes. Elementor Pro forms can be connected using their webhook action.

Yes. Use Convert to Task from the deal detail panel. Relevant contact, company and note information will be carried into the new task.

Yes. Completed tasks can be reopened.

Yes. Archived deals retain their history and can be reopened when required.

The feature guide states that CRM data is encrypted and backed up regularly. Access is limited to authorised members of your Client Connect account.

The O’Brien Media team can help with:

• Enabling Client Connect CRM
• Adding team members
• Importing existing contacts
• Preparing CSV files
• Connecting website forms
• Configuring Elementor Pro webhooks
• Setting up API integrations
• Reviewing your sales pipeline
• Answering questions about CRM features

Open a support case through Client Connect if you need help setting up or using the CRM.