How it works
Every CRM comes with standard fields: name, phone, email, company, deal value. Custom fields let you add the details your team actually asks about. Common field types include:
- Dropdown / single select: service type, lead source, preferred language
- Multi-select: services interested in
- Number or currency: square footage, budget range
- Date: event date, lease end, preferred start
- Text: anything that doesn’t fit a fixed list
- Checkbox: consent recorded, site visit done
Because fields have fixed types, you can filter, sort and report on them. “Show all open deals where service type is Commercial and start date is in the next 30 days” only works if those are fields, not sentences buried in a chat.
Example
A property-management company adds these deal fields: property type (dropdown), number of units (number), current manager (text) and contract end date (date).
A landlord sends a WhatsApp message: “I’ve got a fourplex in Riverside, current manager’s contract ends in March.” The rep fills in four fields from that one message. In February, the team filters for deals with a contract end date in the next 45 days and follows up with each.
Why it matters for messaging teams
Customers share key details casually, in the middle of a chat. If those details stay in the message history, they’re hard to find and impossible to report on. Custom fields turn answers to your qualification questions into structured data the whole team can use.
Common mistakes
- Creating dozens of fields nobody fills in. Start with the five or six that change what you do next.
- Free-text fields where a dropdown would work, which produces “Comm.”, “commercial” and “Commercial” as three different values.
- Duplicating standard fields.
- Collecting sensitive information you don’t need. Only store what you have a reason to keep.
Custom fields in inChat are in development as part of launch scope. AI-suggested field updates are also in development, and are designed so a person approves each change before it is saved.