Pomio CRM links every contact to a company and keeps the contact’s owner, labels, notes and activity timeline on the record. People change jobs far more often than companies change names, so every sales team regularly gets the same news: “Anna no longer works here.” What the team does with Anna’s record decides whether the customer’s history stays intact and whether open deals quietly lose their contact.
Why moving the contact causes problems
It is tempting to open the contact, change the company to the new employer and update the email address. The record looks tidy, but everything attached to it moves along: the meetings with the old customer, the quotes they received, the deals they were primary contact on. The old company now shows fewer people and a gap in its history, while the new company appears to have a past with you that it never had. Reports that count activities or won deals per company become wrong in both places. The contact record describes a person in a role at one company, so the link to that company should stay as it was.
A practical rule for most SMEs
Keep the old contact on the old company and archive it once the handover is done. Add a short note with the leaving date and, if known, the person’s new employer. If the person is still relevant to you, for example because they buy similar services in their new role, create a new contact linked to the new company, with their new work details, and mention the former employer in a note. Two records for one person is correct here: they represent two different business relationships. Use the same pattern when someone moves between two companies that are both customers.
Hand over open work before archiving
An archived contact should not leave loose ends. Check every open deal where the person was the primary contact and replace them with whoever takes over at the customer. If they were the decision-maker on an open deal, treat that deal as at risk until you know who decides now, and review its stage and expected close date. Reassign or close open tasks and follow-ups that mention the person. Only then archive the contact. This is the customer-side counterpart of reassigning deals when your own colleague leaves.
Find the successor at the customer
A departure is also a sales moment. Ask the leaving contact, or the company, who takes over their responsibilities, and add that person as a contact on the same company record. The contact owner on your side is the natural person to do this, within a week of hearing the news. A company with active business but no current contact is a risk: renewals, invoices and questions end up with nobody, and a competitor may get to the successor first.
Archive rather than delete
Deleting the old contact removes its activities and the links to past deals, which makes the customer’s history incomplete. Archiving keeps the history while taking the person out of active lists, searches and mailings. The exception is a privacy request: if the person asks for their data to be erased, handle that as a formal request rather than a routine clean-up. Archived contacts also fall under the retention period you chose, just like leads that never became customers; archiving is not a reason to keep data forever.
Do not carry over contact details
The old work email address and direct phone number belong to the old employer and will usually bounce or reach a colleague. Do not copy them to the new contact. Use the person’s new work details as they share them, and do not add private numbers or addresses just because you have them. Under the GDPR, the new record needs its own reason to exist, such as an existing business relationship or a clear interest in what you offer. If you are unsure, ask the person whether they want to stay in touch in their new role.
How Pomio CRM helps
In Pomio CRM contacts are linked to companies, and each contact carries its owner, labels, notes and activity timeline. Open deals show their primary contact, and tasks have an owner and a due date, so the handover can be checked on the records themselves. Contacts can be archived instead of deleted, which keeps meetings, emails and deals on the old company, and the audit trail shows who archived what and when. Privacy requests are handled inside the same tenant as the CRM data. An overview of the capabilities is on the features page.
A practical checklist
Keep the contact on the old company; note the leaving date and new employer; replace the person as primary contact on open deals; review deals where they were the decision-maker; reassign open tasks; add the successor at the customer; archive the old contact instead of deleting it; create a new contact at the new company only if the relationship continues; do not copy old work details; check contacts with bounced emails in the monthly data-quality check.
Further reading
How do we find out that a contact has left?
Usually through a bounced email, an out-of-office reply or a changed profile. Treat a hard bounce from a customer address as a signal to check, not as proof, and confirm with the company before archiving.
What if the person moves to another department at the same customer?
Then it is the same company and the same relationship. Update the role and details on the existing contact and note the change; there is no need to archive anything.
Should the old contact keep its labels?
Labels can stay for history, but remove labels that put the person on active lists, such as newsletter or event invitations, so archived contacts are not selected by accident.
Can the new contact keep the same owner?
Yes, if the same colleague handles the new company. Otherwise give it the owner of the new company, so contact and company are looked after by the same person.