# Contacts

> One list of everyone your funeral home deals with, how people get into it, merging duplicates, consent for news and invitations, saved lists, and deleting someone's data.

**Contacts** is one list of everyone your funeral home deals with: the families
you served, people planning ahead and the relatives they invite, website
enquiries, newsletter subscribers, and people who wrote a condolence message or
answered a form. Open it from **Contacts** in the sidebar.

(Screenshot: The Contacts page: filters for families, planners, enquiries, subscribers and community, a saved list, a search box, and a list of people with their role, case and the news they agreed to.)

Each funeral home has its own list. If you manage several homes, you see the
list of the home you are working in.

## How people get into your contacts

You rarely add anyone by hand. Lethra adds a person the first time they reach
you, wherever that is:

- someone on a case's contact list,
- a person who plans ahead, and the relatives they invite,
- a callback request, a chat with First Call, or a newsletter sign-up on your
  website,
- an answer to a form on your website,
- a condolence message or a reply to a funeral invitation,
- an email or call that arrives in the inbox.

Lethra recognises the same person by email address or phone number, however the
number was typed (`0475 12 34 56` and `+32 475 12 34 56` are the same). When a
person comes back, for example when an enquiry becomes a case, everything is
added to the same contact.

Two people can share an email address or a landline, like a couple. When the
names clearly differ, Lethra keeps them as two contacts and asks you whether
they are the same person (see below).

Vendors and your own team are not part of Contacts. They stay in the inbox as
before.

To add someone yourself, click **Add contact**. If the email address or phone
number is already known, Lethra opens the existing contact instead of making a
second one.

## Finding people

Use the filters at the top: **Families**, **Planners**, **Enquiries**,
**Subscribers** and **Community** (people you only know from a condolence, a
funeral invitation or a form). Search by name, email, phone or the name of the
deceased, and sort by recent activity, name or date added. **Export CSV**
downloads the people in the current view.

A **Quiet period** label means the person is on a case where the death or the
funeral was recent. See [the quiet period](#the-quiet-period-after-a-death).

## A contact's page

Click a person to open their page. It shows their details and notes, their
consent, everything they are linked to (cases with their relation, plans,
website enquiries, condolence messages), and a timeline of the emails and calls
with them. Click an item in the timeline to open it in its case or in the inbox.

(Screenshot: A contact's page: details and notes, consent for each purpose, the case the person is on, and a timeline of emails.)

Click **Edit** to change the name, email, phone, language or notes. A case's
contact list keeps the details given for that case; the contact page holds the
latest ones.

You can also reach a person's page with **Open contact** in the inbox, on a
case's contact list and on a lead.

## Possible duplicates

When two contacts may be the same person, a bar at the top of Contacts says
how many there are. Click **Review** to compare them side by side.

(Screenshot: The possible duplicates window: two contacts with the same phone number side by side, one selected to keep, with Not the same person and Merge buttons.)

Choose the contact to keep and click **Merge**: everything linked to the other
one moves over, and empty fields are filled in. If they are different people,
click **Not the same person**. To merge two contacts Lethra did not suggest,
open one of them, click the **...** menu and choose **Merge with another
contact**.

## Consent for news and invitations

Being in your contacts does not mean you may send someone news or invitations.
Only consent does. The **Consent** card on a contact's page shows, for email
and text message, whether the person agreed to the **Newsletter**,
**Events** and **Aftercare**.

Consent is recorded in four ways:

- **Newsletter sign-up on your website.** The form shows what people agree to.
  They then get an email with a link, and the consent is recorded only once
  they open it and click **Confirm subscription**.
- **A form on your website.** A consent tick box can be set to count as
  agreeing to the newsletter, events or aftercare. Ask the website assistant
  for it when you add the form. A ticked box is recorded with the box's text.
- **The family portal.** Families can turn on **Keep me informed** on their
  case to hear about remembrance events and support after the funeral.
- **By you.** When someone agrees on a paper form, in person or by phone, click
  **Record consent** next to the purpose, choose how they agreed and write down
  what they agreed to.

(Screenshot: The Record consent window: how the person agreed, and a box for what they agreed to.)

(Screenshot: The Keep me informed switch in the family portal, with the text the family agrees to.)

Click **Withdraw** when someone changes their mind. Every email Lethra sends
about news or events carries an unsubscribe link: one click withdraws all
of that person's consents for email. **History** on the consent card shows
every change, with where it came from and the exact wording.

## The quiet period after a death

Families are excluded from marketing eligibility, not removed from lists, for a while after a death or a
funeral, even if they agreed to hear from you. The period is 8 weeks unless you
change it: click the settings button next to **Export CSV** on the Contacts
page.

## Lists

Open **Lists**, then **Create list** and give it a name. A list contains the people you choose, regardless of their category or permission to receive marketing. Lists are shared with staff of the active funeral home.

(Screenshot: Lists and their member counts.)

### Choose contacts

In **All contacts**, tick individual people or the checkbox above the results. Select-all includes only the displayed results. The toolbar shows the selected count; choose **Add to list** or **Create list**.

(Screenshot: Selected contacts and the list actions.)

On a contact's page, the **Lists** section shows their memberships. Use **Add to list** to choose an existing list or create one. The X removes this person from that list only.

(Screenshot: Choosing a list from a contact's page.)

### Manage members

Open a list to see all its members, including those without consent or in the quiet period. Search narrows the displayed members; **Export CSV** downloads those displayed people, not an approved marketing audience.

(Screenshot: A manual list with its chosen members.)

Choose **Add contacts** to search for more people and tick the ones to add. A person can be on several lists; adding the same person again does not create a duplicate.

(Screenshot: The searchable contact picker.)

Tick members and choose **Remove from list** to remove only those memberships. **Rename list** changes its name. **Delete list** asks for confirmation and keeps every contact. Merging contacts preserves their lists without duplicate members; deleting a contact's data removes their memberships. Personal-data exports include memberships.

Adding someone never records consent or bypasses the quiet period. Changing their category, language or consent does not change their lists. There is no newsletter composer or bulk invitation sender here.

Legacy dynamic records remain under **Saved filters**, separate from manually chosen lists.

## Deleting someone's data

When a person asks you to delete their data, open their page, click the **...**
menu and choose **Delete contact**. Lethra shows what is removed and what stays
before anything happens:

- **Removed:** their contact details, consents, newsletter and callback
  requests, form answers, and their name on condolence messages and replies to
  funeral invitations.
- **Kept:** entries on a case's contact list and on planning records. These are
  part of the case file or the plan.

**Export their data** in the same menu downloads everything Lethra holds about
the person, for when someone asks for a copy.

Source: https://lethra.ai/docs/communication/contacts/