Contact Email updation

[Raghavendra]

If a person from one company shifts to another, his contact in HubSpot should update the email ID, company name, and new company details in the existing contact instead of creating a new contact.

[George-Murray]

I would argue that whilst updating the existing contact with the new email and company name / association is usually the best case sometime creating a new one and setting a flag on the old contact (and removing marketing status) is sometimes better.

Imagine you base outreach (email paid ads etc) on previous conversations or properties withing your CRM. These may no longer apply to the new company that this contact has moved too. Conversations and subsequent notes on the contact record could also no be defunct and referenced in future follow ups. 

I do agree that normally updating is the way to help manage the number of contacts but sometimes it isn't the best answer.

[DilshadShaikh]

Greetings @Raghavendra,

Based on the results of documentation searches, here’s the guidance for managing contacts when a person changes companies:

1. Changing the Email Address:
   • If you manually update the email address in an existing HubSpot contact record, the changes apply to that record, and a new record is not created. However, if contacts are created through form submissions and the “Always create contact for new email address” setting is enabled, new contacts may be created for different email addresses instead of updating the existing contact. For most cases, updating the email directly in the CRM manually is the safest way to retain history and avoid duplicates. You can refer this KB(Knowledge Base) to create contact without email address: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/forms/how-can-i-allow-form-submissions-without-email-addresses-to-crea...

2. Updating Company Association:

   • HubSpot can automatically associate contacts with companies based on the domain in their email address. If you update the email to the new company’s domain, and automatic association is enabled, HubSpot will try to associate that contact with the correct new company or create a new company record if it doesn’t exist. However, sometimes you may need to manually update or adjust company associations to ensure the correct linkage, especially if the system can’t automatically match the domain or uses a freemail address (like gmail.com)

3. Company Properties and Sync:

   • Updating a contact’s company association does not automatically synchronize the company’s properties (like Company Name) to the contact record. You should manually update the Company Name and other relevant properties in the contact record to keep the information accurate.

Best Practice, when someone changes companies:

Manually:

• Edit the existing contact record.
• Update the email address (new company email).
• Update the associated company (and create a new company record if needed).
• Manually update key properties such as Company Name, Job Title, and any relevant custom properties.
• Review association settings to ensure the contact is linked to the correct new company.

Automation/Workflow:
If these updates happen frequently, you can streamline some of these processes using HubSpot workflows, but contact-company association sometimes still requires manual oversight for accuracy.

However these can lead to duplicate records, to Prevent Duplicates below steps can be followed:

• Avoid using form submissions or imports with a new email if you want to update an existing contact; use manual updates or API-based updates targeting the record’s unique ID.
• Audit your deduplication and association settings in HubSpot regularly

Hope this helps, if it does then help the community by marking it as a solution.

Happy HubSpotting.

Thanks & Regards,
Dilshad Shaikh

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @Raghavendra,

There is no such out-of-the-box feature – HubSpot deduplicates based on the contact email address. If there is no other identifier set up, HubSpot will create a new contact: https://knowledge.hubspot.com/records/deduplication-of-records

You could of course leverage deduplication tools (like Koalify) or workflows to automate some parts of this.

If you'd like to request an out-of-the-box feature, the ideas section of the community is the right place: https://community.hubspot.com/t5/HubSpot-Ideas/idb-p/HubSpot_Ideas

Let me know if you have any follow-up questions!