HubSpot Ideas

usmiclow

Automatic Phone Number Formatting

When a phone number field has data put into it, it is up to the User to format it the way they deem appropriate. That is not the most user-friendly or data-centric approach. This is a good way to allow users to enter incorrect or sloppy data and cause possibly difficulty with search results while also affecting adoption. There are many other CRM platforms out there (At least 12 I could find) which will automatically format a telephone number.   Hubspot does not currently have this basic feature.

 

Suggested solution: When a telephone number is typed into a phone field, the number should automatically format to the Contact's standardized country format with a country code in front of it.  So, for US, +1 (555) 555-5555, for UK, +44 5555 555555, etc.  Some countries do not have standardized formats, but widely accepted formats, or multiple formats depending on when the phone number was assigned. I do not know of an easy solution for that, but choosing one format or at the minimum, placing the correct country code in front of the numbers according to the selected country on the Contact or Company would be helpful. Possibly a non-editable drop-down with country abbreviation and code which auto-fills but is still selectable in case of error. This could also help with the calling feature if calling out of the country.

 

An admin User should be able to toggle in settings whether or not the field will auto format with country code. At the bare minimum, as a US based company, it should at least format any 10 digit numbers into standard US format (555) 555-5555.

162 Replies
MPacheco4
Member

Please, we need this, Hubspot!
When will development start?

Dylan
HubSpot Product Team

Hello HubSpot community! 

We understand how important it is to have phone numbers stored in valid formats in the CRM. Since my last update in March 2020, we have renewed our focus to improving our calling specific functionality. We do not have a concrete timeline or details that we're comfortable committing to yet. However, I am moving this idea to the "in planning" stage to better reflect our commitment to this improvement, as we currently are researching and prioritizing the work required to validate proper formatting for numbers stored in the CRM. 

We'll continue to monitor the use cases and needs submitted on this thread and will post updates as we have them. Your patience and continued feedback is very much appreciated as we work towards delivering a solution! 

Thank you as always for your continued feedback and support, it helps us build a better product.

GMe
Member

@Dylan wrote:

we have renewed our focus to improving our calling specific functionality. We do not have a concrete timeline or details that we're comfortable committing to yet. However, I am moving this idea to the "in planning" stage to better reflect our commitment to this improvement, as we currently are researching and prioritizing the work required to validate proper formatting for numbers stored in the CRM. 


Seriously @Dylan ?

 

It's not a tough ask. Really really simple solution. Takes half a manday to implement. Much less, if you see HubSpot Community - International telephone number input - HubSpot Community I am willing to bet that the implementation takes less time than the "researching and prioritizing" that you are claiming to be engaged in.

 

Remember, done is better than perfect. If you deliver a solution that fixes the issue for 90% of the customers, that's pretty good - don't go into the rabbithole of 100%, i.e. things like...well, IP addresses are not 100% reliable for all locations...blah blah.

LeonardoDVinci
Contributor

even by default, the phone number format with coutry code is locked in the phone number created by hubspot. this should be available as an option to either the number or short text input.

dominik
Participant

For us this would be a super important feature, as we would need to have all phone numbers formated in E.164 format. 

 

We are using the 3CX Hubspot integration and our phone system (3CX) cannot find the right record, as soon as spaces are added to the phone number, because the hubspot API only supports an equal match. 

dominik
Participant

This is super important for us!

 

Please add ist!

 

The Hubspot API can only do exact match. So we need to have a clean database, if we want to find contacts based on the phone number. 

3CX Integration also uses this. 

https://www.3cx.com/docs/hubspot-pbx-crm-integration/

LeonardoDVinci
Contributor

I really don't know, why cant they just make this a format option? they already did it for one, the default phone number. Heck, even the different form plugins on worpress have this feature, including email formatting and the complete address breakdown which is something that we requested as well. You know, there are a lot of functions that hubspot already has, I can't just get the logic of why they are making this hard for their customers by not giving access to it.

wicara
Participant

Any update on this as it is exactly what we are looking for to set for Australia +61 our customers only ever add the area code if we are lucky. for us it would be +61 remove the 0 from the number area codes can be 02 03 07 08 etc and mobiles are 04  so it should be achievable. 

Arcane
Member

Hi it could be great to put it in a workflow in order to auto format what we want? 

 

remove spacing or point 

 

exemple:

06.15.15.15.15.15 = 061515151515

+33615151515= 061515151515

06 15 15 15 15 =061515151515

061515151515@ = 061515151515

 

It is true this is an important feature that should be in the hubspot standard

JOpie
Top Contributor

Hi -

 

Just to put my two cents in: there is a standard for this, E.164, that HubSpot should adhere to.

 

Put simply, this an international ITU-T recommendation for the worldwide public switched telephone network. In other words, it's what the telephone companies use. No more than 15 digits, excluding the international call prefix. Prefix with + to indicate that the country calling code is included.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.164

 

The neat thing about this approach is that DNS mapping is then possible, i.e., any phone number can be mapped into a domain name, after which DNS queries can can locate the Internet service facilities to accept and process phone calls to the owner of record of the number, allowing direct end-to-end internet connections without passing to the public switched telephone network (and any fees they might charge. Unfortunately, not all countries support this, but some major European countries do...

 

John

 

 

 

gabherrera
Participant

Upvoting... and hoping for an ETA on this?

NicoleJ
HubSpot Moderator

Per another loyal customer, we are waiting to see this idea happen!

nweeks
Member

Really hope to see an update to this soon. We have big ideas that are being scratched because of way too many different ways our phone numbers are formatted into our portal. 

DKiwior
Member

This would be very helpful and a pretty basic need for any CRM. Hope an update is coming soon.

 

CRM maintenance is a constant bane for many companies.  Anything that can be done to assure the data is correct and formatted consistently is well appreciated and a selling point.

 

Thanks,

 

Dave

CPhichith
Member

Bump this up, we work with contacts all around the world and this has proven to be a big issue in our environment!

juliablkdg
Participant | Gold Partner

This would be so useful - our SMS keeps attempting sends to invalid numbers and there is no way to check this before they attempt to send.

maxclark
Participant

+1 on this feature

 

Having e.164 formatted phone numbers during import would automatically fix so many issues.

DDavis13
Participant

Totally agree! Hoping someone starts working on this feature improvement. 

JButler8
Participant

This seems like such a simple fix, i'm a bit shocked that Hupspot does not add this feature. I'm now having to look at outside resources to help maintain the uniformity of our inputted data.

 

Hubspot already has a drop down format option when creating a property. It would seem logical to include a choice between different styles of phone numbers right within the drop-down list.

 

Mike_Donnelly
Top Contributor

Folks - I've mentioned it before, but the simple fix for most (if not all) of your issues is to check out https://www.insycle.com/. We use them extensively for many of the reasons mentioned and it's a simple no-brainer.