How do you create rules for creating customers and contacts?

Required tools

• Clarified customer model — The rules follow from the model.
• Administrator access — For setting required fields and duplicate rules.

Set the framework

1. 1.Require a search before creation

   The most important habit: search for the customer before creating them. The duplicate check will alert you, but it does not catch spelling variations.

2. 2.Make the key required

   The organisation number of business customers. It is the only unique identifier, and without it, everything else is guesswork.

3. 3.Keep the number of required fields to a minimum

   Fifteen mandatory fields result in fifteen fields filled with nonsense. Require what needs to be correct for something to work, not what would be nice to have.

Follow up

1. 4.Enable duplicate checking and assign it an owner

   Rules that trigger alerts without anyone reviewing the matches are pointless. Assign a named person to spend half an hour on this each month.

2. 5.Measure the percentage of complete entries

   How many new customers have completed the key fields? Track this figure monthly. If it drops, the rules are either too strict or have not been explained.

3. 6.Explain why

   People follow rules they understand. “Without an organization number, we can’t connect to the accounting system” works better than a red field.