Leads and customers

Leads and Customers

Vaanexa helps you capture and manage people who interact with your business across conversations, forms, and advertising channels. New prospects can enter your lead workflow automatically, while customer records help you continue tracking people after they buy.

What are Leads and Customers?

A lead is a person who has shown interest in your business, such as by sending a message, submitting a form, or responding through an advertising channel.

A customer is a person who has purchased from your business. Vaanexa can continue tracking the customer relationship after the initial lead becomes a customer.

This gives your team a connected view of the journey from first interaction to purchase and ongoing customer activity.

Why use Leads and Customers?

Using leads and customers in Vaanexa helps you:

• Capture new prospects automatically.
• Keep customer identities organized across channels.
• Track where leads came from.
• View conversations and sales activity in one profile.
• Follow a lead through different stages.
• Keep important customer information available after a purchase.
• Reduce duplicate records when the same person contacts you through multiple channels.

Real-Life Use Case

The situation

Imagine UrbanNest Realty receives enquiries through WhatsApp, Instagram, lead forms, and advertising campaigns.

The problem

The same person may contact the business through different channels before making a purchase. Without a connected customer profile, the team may treat each interaction as a separate person.

What happens without the feature?

The team may:

• Create duplicate lead records.
• Lose track of previous conversations.
• Manually identify where a lead came from.
• Search across multiple platforms for customer information.
• Have difficulty understanding the customer's complete journey.

How Vaanexa helps

Vaanexa automatically captures new leads from supported interactions and links identities when the same person reaches the business through another channel.

The team can open the lead profile to see relevant conversations and sales information in one place.

The new workflow

First interaction → Lead captured → Conversations linked → Lead progresses → Purchase → Customer tracked

Case Study

Business

UrbanNest Realty

Challenge

UrbanNest receives enquiries from multiple channels and needs a consistent way to track prospects from their first interaction through purchase.

Objective

Create a connected lead and customer workflow that keeps conversations, sales activity, and source information together.

Vaanexa Solution

UrbanNest uses Vaanexa to automatically capture new leads from messages, forms, and advertising sources. When the same person interacts through another supported channel, Vaanexa links the identities into one profile.

The team can open the lead profile to review conversations, stage, score, tags, notes, tasks, appointments, quotations, and invoices.

Outcome

The team gets a more complete view of each prospect and can continue tracking the relationship when a lead becomes a customer.

How Leads and Customers work

Vaanexa can capture leads from several entry points:

1. A new person sends a message.
2. A person submits a lead form.
3. A person comes through an advertising source.
4. Vaanexa creates or updates the relevant lead profile.
5. The source is recorded for attribution.
6. If the same person contacts the business through another channel, Vaanexa links the identities into one profile.
7. The team manages the lead through its sales workflow.
8. When the person buys, they are also tracked as a customer.

Before you begin

Before managing leads and customers:

• Connect the communication channels you use to receive enquiries.
• Set up relevant lead forms where needed.
• Connect applicable advertising sources.
• Define the stages your team uses to manage leads.
• Make sure team members have the appropriate access to lead and customer information.

How to manage Leads and Customers

Automatic capture

A lead is created on the first message from a new number or profile.

Leads can also enter Vaanexa when someone:

• Fills out a lead form.
• Comes from an advertising source.
• Interacts through a supported customer acquisition channel.

The source, such as the channel, ad, form, or campaign, is recorded for attribution.

Link a person's identities

If the same person reaches you through another channel, Vaanexa can link the identities into one profile.

This helps your team avoid treating the same person as multiple separate leads.

View the lead profile

1. Open Leads.
2. Select a lead.
3. Review the lead profile.
4. View conversations across available channels.
5. Review the lead's stage and score.
6. Check tags and notes.
7. Review tasks and appointments.
8. Review quotations and invoices when available.

The lead profile provides a central place to understand the person's interaction and sales history.

Add a lead manually

1. Open Leads.
2. Choose New lead.
3. Enter the person's name.
4. Enter the phone number.
5. Select the appropriate stage.
6. Save the lead.

Understanding the feature

Best practices

1. Keep lead information accurate
   Review contact details and update information when necessary.

2. Use meaningful stages
   Keep your lead stages consistent so the team understands where each prospect is in the sales process.

3. Review the source
   Use source information to understand which channels, forms, ads, or campaigns are generating leads.

4. Use notes and tags consistently
   Give your team useful context without creating unnecessary or duplicate information.

5. Check for existing profiles
   When adding leads manually, avoid creating duplicate records for people who already exist.

6. Keep follow-up activities organized
   Use tasks and appointments to make sure important leads do not disappear into the digital void.

Common scenarios

New message from a prospect

A new person sends a message through a connected channel. Vaanexa creates a lead from the new interaction.

Lead form submission

A prospect fills out a lead form. The submitted information enters the lead workflow.

Lead from an advertisement

A prospect comes through an advertising source. Vaanexa records the source for attribution.

Same person, different channels

A person first contacts the business through Instagram and later sends a WhatsApp message. Vaanexa can link the identities into one profile.

Lead becomes a customer

A prospect completes a purchase. The person is then also tracked as a customer.

Common mistakes

Creating duplicate leads

Before manually adding a lead, check whether the person already exists.

Ignoring lead sources

Source information can help your team understand where enquiries originate and which acquisition channels are contributing leads.

Using inconsistent stages

If team members use stages differently, the pipeline becomes harder to understand.

Leaving important information outside the profile

Keeping notes, follow-up details, and other relevant information in separate places makes the customer journey harder to track.

Forgetting that customers can also have a lead history

A customer may have entered the business as a lead first. Do not treat the purchase as if the relationship began at that moment.

Frequently asked questions

What creates a lead automatically?

A lead is created when a new person sends a message from a new number or profile. Leads can also come through supported forms and advertising sources.

What happens if the same person contacts me through another channel?

Vaanexa can link the person's identities across supported channels into one profile.

What information can I see in a lead profile?

A lead profile can include conversations across channels, stage, score, tags, notes, tasks, appointments, quotations, and invoices.

How do I add a lead manually?

Open Leads, choose New lead, enter the person's name and phone number, select a stage, and save the lead.

Does Vaanexa record where a lead came from?

Yes. The source, such as a channel, ad, form, or campaign, can be recorded for attribution.

What happens when a lead buys?

When a lead buys, the person is also tracked as a customer, allowing the relationship to continue beyond the initial lead stage.

Related concepts

• Using the Unified Inbox
• Capture leads with lead forms
• Pipeline
• Customers
• Marketing campaigns
• Connect Instagram
• Connect a Facebook Page
• Connect WhatsApp
• Connect Threads
• Tasks
• Appointments
• Quotations
• Invoices