(01)What we'll walk through
1 · Records
Retailers, brands and contacts — your accounts, with search, filters and exports.
2 · Pipeline
The board, the brand × retailer matrix, and the new open-deals view.
3 · Email & activities
Your inbox, connected — suggestions, filing, and emails on contact and retailer pages.
4 · Merge & AI summaries
Cleaning up duplicates yourself, and reading the AI account summaries.
(02)Shipped from your feedback
Everything below came out of the UAT rounds — reported by this team, built, and now live. You'll see each one in context during the tour.
| You told us | Now in the CRM |
|---|
| "My emails don't show up" | Email activity now appears on contacts and retailers — not just deals. History backfilled across the whole database. New |
| "Search couldn't find Terri Hall" | Search matches full names, not just single words. |
| "Sales managers missing from filters" | Owner dropdowns list the whole sales team. New |
| "Duplicate contacts and deals" | A merge tool you can use yourselves — contacts, deals and retailers. New |
| "Where are the rest of the deals?" | An explicit Open deals view, with the full list one click away. New |
CRÈME · CRM
Part 1 · Records · 03
(1)Records — retailers, brands, contacts
Everything starts in Records in the top nav. We'll open one of each and show what changed.
1.1 A retailer you know
- Go to Records › Retailers — filter by State or Owner, or search by name.
- Open the account: Overview, Relationships and Contacts tabs.
- On Relationships, sort the deals by stage; open one, then use Back to Relationships to land exactly where you were.
New — street addresses recovered for 7,000+ retailers; stage sorting; back-navigation; state & owner filters.
1.2 A brand + its export
- Go to Records › Brands, open a brand — retailers, deals and contacts roll up on one page.
- Brand profiles now carry established date, services with Crème, international availability and channel info.
- Click Export pipeline — formatted spreadsheet, no manual percentage or dollar clean-up.
New — enriched brand profiles; contact roll-ups on brand pages.
1.3 Finding people
- Go to Records › Contacts and search a buyer by full name.
Judge for yourself — the searches that failed during testing now resolve.
CRÈME · CRM
Part 2 · Pipeline · 04
(2)Pipeline — board, matrix, open deals
One thing to understand up front: dashboards focus on open deals — what's in play now. Closed history is all there, one filter away. This was the biggest source of confusion in testing, so we made the scope explicit.
2.1 The board
- Open Pipeline › Board — deals by stage, drag to advance.
- Filter by brand and by Owner — every sales manager is in the list now.
New — complete owner list, drawn from deal ownership rather than CRM logins.
2.2 The matrix + the full deal list
- Open Pipeline › Matrix — brand × retailer coverage at a glance.
- Use the stage dropdown's Open deals filter — or clear it to see everything, closed included.
- From Overview, View All Open Deals under Needs Attention now lands on this full list.
New — explicit open-deals scope; "Needs Attention" stays a top-10, the full list is the click-through. If a count ever looks off against HubSpot, tell us the example — we reconcile against the source.
Dashboard numbers
The Win Rate · Avg Sales Cycle · Deals Advanced · Doors Opened row reads from the same deal data — one source of truth, no separate report to maintain.
CRÈME · CRM
Part 3 · Email & activities ★ · 05
(3)Email & activities — the big fix
The most common UAT report was "my emails don't show up." Root cause found and fixed: email activity was linked to deals only. It's now linked to contacts and retailers too, with the full history backfilled — open a buyer you email with and their thread is there.
3.1 Connect your inbox (if you haven't yet)
- Top-right account menu → Settings → Integrations → Connect Google account.
- One consent screen → status reads Connected.
3.2 See your mail on the right records New
- Open a contact you email with → Activity — the correspondence is on their page now.
- Open that buyer's retailer — same thread, rolled up at account level.
Judge for yourself — this is the fix behind most of the round-2 feedback. If your own mail still isn't visible, flag it today.
3.3 File from suggestions
- Go to Activities › Suggestions — the CRM's guesses about unfiled client email.
- Pick one, confirm or adjust the Brand / Retailer / Deal / Contact links, click Log email.
Remember — nothing is filed until you click. Suggestions are guesses, filing is yours.
Your inbox stays yours
Reads to suggest only. The CRM never sends, edits, or deletes your mail; tokens are stored encrypted; Disconnect any time.
CRÈME · CRM
Part 4 · Merge tool · 06
(4)Merge tool — clean duplicates yourselves
The duplicates you flagged (two records for one buyer, doubled deals) are faithful copies of what HubSpot holds — so instead of silently rewriting data, you get a merge tool. It works on contacts, deals and retailers.
4.1 Merge a duplicate contact
- Open the contact you want to keep (the survivor).
- Choose Merge and pick the duplicate record.
- Confirm — done.
What happens — every reference re-points to the survivor; blank fields fill from the duplicate; both email addresses are kept; an audit note records the merge; the duplicate is removed.
Good first candidates
Buyers with two email addresses (two records), and doubled Brand × Retailer deals you know are one opportunity.
Why not automatic?
Only you know whether two similar records are truly the same buyer or deal. The tool makes your call fast and safe — it doesn't make the call for you.
Live demoWe'll merge one duplicate together in the session — bring an example you've hit.
CRÈME · CRM
Part 5 · AI summaries · 07
(5)AI summaries — the account brief
Short AI-written briefs of where a deal or relationship stands — last contact, open threads, what's next. Testers reported these missing; two fixes later they draw on the full activity history, including the newly linked email.
5.1 Read one on a deal
- Open a deal with some history → its AI summary panel.
- Click Refresh to generate against the latest activity.
Judge for yourself — does it capture where the deal actually stands?
5.2 Read one on a contact New
- Open a buyer you correspond with → their AI summary.
- Contact summaries were structurally empty before the activity fix — they now read from the same linked history.
Judge for yourself — a useful brief before a call: what was last said, what's pending.
Treat it as a brief, not gospel
Summaries compress real activity — they can miss nuance. If one is vague or wrong for an account you know well, flag it with the account name; that's exactly the feedback that improves them.
CRÈME · CRM
What's next · 08
(6)Between now and cutover
This week · Re-check
A short pass on your own account: your emails visible on contacts & retailers, AI summaries, the open-deals view. Same feedback sheet as before.
Jul 14 · Cutover
Fresh HubSpot re-import, then a blue-green switch with a 15-minute delta sync. HubSpot stays untouched throughout.
After · Feature waves
Your requests are in the backlog and delivered in waves after cutover — dedicated Deals tab, contact-email exports per brand, and more.
Still testing? Perfect timing
Four feedback tabs are still open — with this week's fixes live, it's the best moment to do your pass. Every item reported so far was either fixed or is tracked; nothing gets lost.
(7)Your takeaway
UAT status deck
The companion deck — every finding, its fix, and what remains before cutover — is yours to keep and share internally.
Questions during the week — same channel as always.