HubSpot Ideas

jehiguese

Disable automatic contact creation for Conversations

HubSpot auto creates a contact for anyone that emails in - or is cc'd into a reply in conversations. For some customers who manage through support, this will mean a large number of contacts can enter the database. The only way to prevent this at the moment is by setting filtering rules, as all filtered emails do not create contacts. There is a use case from a customer in this post [Hyperlink removed by moderator as it linked to an archived Community post with duplicate information]

 

This is a request to build a "Create contact" rule giving us the option to disable automtically creating contacts for people we communicate with in Conversations.

 

324 Replies
stevecoachtrain
Member

We need this quickly.  Sooner the better.  We've had to disable our email to keep from polluting our database further.  Our support email has been in use for years and we don't want to disable that.  However, it is used by multiple team members and also receives a ton of spam, all of which are creating new contacts we don't want in the database.  Unable to fully implement our Ticketing system until this issue is fixed.

MArzt
Participant | Gold Partner

Any updates on this? Workarounds? Customer is thinking about disconnecting conversation inbox due to this problem. Automatic contact creation needs to be limited. Thank you.

stevecoachtrain
Member
I've not heard anything yet. Still trying to figure out how we're going to
work around this.
BMilaszkiewicz
Contributor

Any updates on this? It's been a submitted idea for a number of YEARS now. we work with partners AND end users so this is causing a lot of uneccessary 'fluff'i the CRM, and as the only admin it's becoming almost a full time job just catchig and cleaning all the contact and assocaiated company that Hubspot keeps auto creating. I'm sure I can't be the only one that finds this increasingly frustrating and time consuming?

stevecoachtrain
Member

I didn't realize how many years this has been in the queue.  Hubspot peeps - we really need someone to take a look at this and address our needs.  I've got a major project on hold waiting for the fix.  Implementing this as it is will create tons of extra work that we can ill afford.  Is there nothing that can be done to get this elevated?

MArzt
Participant | Gold Partner

Workaround:

I don't see why it should not be possible to simply write the source of a contact (e.g. "CONVERSATION") into an according (already exisiting) property to be able to create a data-quality workflow to at least be able to identify the contacts automatically created via conversation inbox. this would help to create further workflows to automatically delete the ones not needed in the database.

Thank you!

Cdubya
Member

If the user has the HS Outlook extension, there is a way to disable auto-contact creation. 

1.Cdubya_0-1657288051215.png

2.Cdubya_1-1657288078778.png3.Cdubya_2-1657288112658.png

 

Simply de-select New Contact Associations. This needs to be done per individual user. 

 

DBitting
Member

Wow it's been over 2 years! Hubspot come on!!! It's obvious you are choosing profit over your customers. 

TCareccio
Member

this is so needed!!!!

jwilkins
Participant

Come on guys, I thought Brexit took a long time to sort out, this might give that a run for it's money.

RCandy
Member

Someone from sales contacted me to try to sell me the system. I mentioned this and they were not aware of this as an issue.

They did not come back to me, so I would say this is something they are not looking at fixing.

I think they see this as a cash cow for companies who pay by number of contacts.

This issue made the system unuseable for us.

Curious business decission as I believe more companie would use Hubspot if this was fixed.

This would generate more income longterm as the companies who are using it have commented here and will eventually find another product.

stevecoachtrain
Member
I'm still struggling with this and it probably my biggest Hubspot pain
point.
gooieRob
Member

Looks like this has not been solved.

stevecoachtrain
Member
Not to my knowledge. Still waiting to hear from Hubspot about it.
RCandy
Member
This was the response in Jan 2020
 
cambria

 

HubSpot Product Team
 
January 14, 2020 02:04 PM

 

Hi everyone, my name is Cambria - I'm a Product Manager on the Conversations team. Thank you to everyone who has upvoted this discussion, shared your use cases, and added your thoughts and opinions over the past several months.

 

Before we dive into things, I just want to say that this feature was absolutely not designed to push any of our customers above their contact tier limit.

 

Contacts are the beating heart of HubSpot, and we want to empower teams using the Inbox to have remarkable 1:1 conversations, largely leveraging the power of contacts so they can have a 360 degree view of who they're talking to and previous interactions they might've had with their team.

 

That said, we know there's a few problems with our current system.

 

1) Contact tier limits - we know this is a problem and we're exploring solutions internally on how we can address this.
2) Filtering - we need to improve our system for filtering spam/undesirable emails so they never get to the point where they're being added as contacts anyway. We're planning on tackling later this year after some core email infrastructure work we're doing in the first half of the year.

 

I know this may not be the response you hoped for, but thank you again for all your feedback and patience with this issue. We'll keep this post updated when we have further announcements to share on progress here

-----------

This would lead you to believe they are looking at the Tier Limits not the problem

They also think the issue is spam or undesireable emails this is not the case

These are genuine businesses that we should be able to chose if we want them on our CRM as a contact

 

Why facilitate a forum if you are not going to listen to people concerns

They must monitor this, so therefore dont care if this is an issue

 

stevecoachtrain
Member
I love Hubspot but this response is now closing in on the 3 year mark and
still no resolution.
timothy2
Participant

The 2 solutions Hubspot will be working on do not directly address the issue on this thread.  The problem is not the amount of spam.  It is the unnecessary creation of contacts AND their associated companies from the many VALID but unintended email addresses.  A system that puts the contacts in a separate group, e.g. conversaion group,  and allows us to go through them and manually add the contacts (and automatically add the associated companies) is a much better solution.  This way, Hubspot doesn't need to work on option 1 as long as the contacts in this chat group do not count toward the contact tier limit.  Hubspot can take its time to improve the spam filter which will benefit everyone using Hubspot.



TCareccio
Member
The issue is actually a big problem. It’s the fact that conversations creates contacts and our emails are linked to the system. So for example, a conversation automatically creates my contact card and then all my employees can see my emails.

It’s a privacy concern.
aspen23
Member

Just received an email stating "data privacy and security as a top priority."

 

From August 22, any team members who aren't using two-factor authentication will start to receive an email to set up this security feature.


We understand your business puts its trust in HubSpot. This is why we continue to invest in our platform, with data privacy and security as a top priority. We've adopted a new policy to require two-factor authentication for all users of HubSpot accounts. HubSpot users in your organization will get an email with instructions to complete the setup within 30 days.

 

So now they want to inconveneince users by making them login/authenticate twice in the process surely collecting the login source yet they continue to log CC email addresses of users who do not consent have not been notified etc etc.

 

HubSpot you are going down the wrong track!   The additional cost of SF is starting to not look so bad!

marc_solomon
Member

This is still an issue, and we are suffering. Without admin oversight, we increased our contact count, but we have been creating junk contacts that are not adding value to our efforts. The team can't see the wood for the trees anymore and is suggesting we give up on Hubspot and just use a competing platform and I am inclined to agree with them.