Communications Centre

Communications Centre

The Communications Centre is Standout's central inbox for customer and prospect communications. It brings portal enquiries, website enquiries and Customer Portal conversations into one workflow so staff can see who contacted the agency, the property involved, who owns the enquiry and what has happened next.

What appears in the Communications Centre

Source	How it arrives
Rightmove	Scheduled RTDF import
OnTheMarket	Scheduled RTDF import
Zoopla	Leads API import when the shared Zoopla credentials are enabled
Homeflow	Secure push callback
Agency website	Website Enquiry API
Customer Portal	Portal conversation/messages

The inbox can be searched and filtered by status, branch, source and assignee. Summary cards highlight new/unread communications, assigned items that still need action, items awaiting the customer and communications received today.

Opening a communication

The enquiry screen brings together the original lead, customer/contact details, property, assignment, workflow status and the conversation history.

The conversation timeline can include:

• the original portal or website enquiry;
• emails sent from Standout;
• staff actions and notes;
• Customer Portal messages;
• Customer Portal attachments;
• merge/audit events where duplicate communications were combined.

This is intended to make the communication channel secondary: staff should be able to concentrate on the person and property rather than remembering whether the conversation began on a portal, website or Customer Portal.

Email customer

Use Email customer to compose the reply inside Standout. The editor opens as a full-page overlay using Standout's normal rich-text email editor.

When an email is sent successfully:

• the subject and message are recorded against the Communications Centre activity;
• the enquiry is marked as contacted where appropriate;
• first-response information is recorded;
• if the enquiry is linked to an existing CRM contact, the email is also written to that contact's normal Communications history.

This avoids opening the user's local Outlook/mail application and gives the agency a usable audit trail.

Contact matching and CRM actions

Standout tries to match an enquiry to an existing contact using reliable information such as email address and telephone number. Where the match is clear, the enquiry can be linked automatically.

The enquiry screen now shows why a contact is believed to match and a confidence indicator. It can also show alternative likely CRM contacts where the same email/telephone information is shared.

Staff can:

• search all CRM contacts and link the correct person manually;
• use Use this contact instead when an alternative match is more appropriate;
• unlink an incorrect contact without deleting the CRM record;
• create a new contact directly from the enquiry;
• add a missing Purchaser, Tenant, Vendor or Landlord role without removing roles the contact already has.

Do not create a duplicate CRM contact simply because an existing person is acting in a new role.

Property matching

Where the portal/website supplies a property reference, Standout attempts to link the enquiry to the relevant property. The property match can be corrected by staff using the exact property reference or Property ID, or removed if the source information was wrong.

Changing the linked property does not alter the original source payload; the original enquiry remains available for audit.

Create the next CRM action

For a linked contact/property, the Communications Centre can move straight into the normal Standout workflow.

Depending on the enquiry, actions can include:

• Book viewing – continue into the normal diary/viewing workflow with the customer and property already known;
• Book valuation – continue into the valuation diary workflow; where needed the property record is created first;
• Add match requirements from this enquiry – create a new applicant requirement set prefilled from the enquired property;
• add the appropriate buyer/tenant property interest or vendor/landlord ownership relationship.

When creating match requirements from the enquiry, Standout can prefill sale/rental context, property type/style, bedrooms, price, postcode/area and coordinates from the property. Review the values before saving. Existing requirements are not overwritten.

Customer Portal replies

If the linked customer has a Customer Portal conversation, staff can reply through the Customer Portal directly from the enquiry screen, including supported attachments. The reply remains part of the unified conversation and uses the normal customer communications history.

See Customer Portal and Using the Customer Portal.

Possible duplicate communications

Standout checks recent communications for likely duplicates using signals such as:

• the same CRM contact;
• the same email address or telephone number;
• the same property;
• the same customer name/source;
• how close together the communications were received.

Likely duplicates are shown with a score and the reasons for the suggestion. Staff can merge a duplicate into the communication they want to keep.

Merging is deliberately non-destructive: the duplicate is closed and linked to the retained communication, but the original source record is not deleted. Both records receive an audit entry.

Workflow status

Use the enquiry status to reflect what staff are waiting for. Typical states include New, Assigned, Contacted, Awaiting customer and Closed. Assignment and status should be kept current so the Communications Centre summary and usage reporting remain meaningful.

Good practice

• Link the correct contact and property before carrying out substantial follow-up.
• Use the internal email/Customer Portal reply tools so communication is retained in Standout.
• Correct weak or wrong automatic matches rather than creating duplicate records.
• Merge genuine duplicate communications instead of deleting them.
• Convert genuine viewing/valuation enquiries into normal diary activity rather than leaving the request only as a note.

See also: Inbound Enquiries · Website Enquiry API · Communications Centre Usage