A Customer is an established account — an organization you have or want an ongoing business relationship with. Where Leads are prospects you're still qualifying, Customers are the companies you've decided to work with.
What a customer carries
- Name — the company name. The one field that's always required.
- Website, Email, Phone — primary contact details.
- Industry — light categorization for filtering.
- Notes — the account's history, key relationships, context.
- Status — active or archived (archive without losing the record).
Where customers come from
- Converted from a won lead — the most common path. When you win an opportunity and convert, the lead's data is preserved and it becomes a customer. See the funnel.
- Created directly — add a customer by hand for a deal that closed outside the lead pipeline (referral, inbound contract).
- Bulk import — paste a CSV, same as leads.
What attaches to a customer
- Contacts — the people you talk to (buyer, technical reviewer, finance approver).
- Opportunities — specific deals with amounts and close dates. Many open at once is normal.
Tips
- Don't pre-create customers for prospects you're still researching — keep them as leads so the Agent can keep working them (automation only touches leads).
- If a customer goes dormant, archive rather than delete — you'll likely re-engage, and the history is gold.
- The Notes field is a good home for the “how did we start working together?” story.