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A contact is a customer. Everything else in ShineCRM (estimates, jobs, invoices, conversations) hangs off a contact. Contacts are managed by owners and admins.

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The contacts list

Open Contacts in the sidebar. You get a searchable table (by name, phone, or email) with a pipeline-stage filter, recent or alphabetical sort, and summary cards across the top: total contacts, new leads, in flight, and completed. Select one or more rows to reveal a bulk action bar. From there you can set the pipeline stage, set the customer type, set the lead source, export to CSV, or delete.
Bulk delete is owner/admin only and is permanent. It cascades: deleting a contact also deletes their jobs, estimates, and invoices. ShineCRM refuses to bulk-delete any contact that has a paid invoice, to protect your financial records.

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Add a contact

Click New contact. Enter the name, phone, email, company, and notes. You can add a primary service address with Google address autocomplete, and set the pipeline stage (defaults to Lead), customer type, and lead source. There’s also an SMS opted out toggle for customers who shouldn’t receive texts.

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The contact page

A contact’s page saves as you edit (no Save button). The header has a New menu to start an estimate, job, or invoice already linked to this customer, a call button when in-app calling is available, and an AI summary that reads the full history and tells you where things stand. The cards below cover:
  • Contact info with field history you can restore (handy when a number changes)
  • Addresses (a contact can have several)
  • Recurring services for this customer
  • AI activity with suggestions from Suds AI
  • Notes for your team (internal, never shown to the customer)
  • Pipeline stage
  • Card on file (see below)
  • Segmentation: customer type and lead source
  • Messaging: the SMS opt-out, plus mute automated messages
  • Reviews left on Google, Facebook, and Yelp
  • Related records: every estimate, job, and invoice

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Card on file

Request a card from the customer with a secure link sent by text or email. Once saved, you can charge their invoices without sending a payment link each time. Cards are stored by Stripe, not by ShineCRM; deleting a card here removes it from Stripe too.

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Mute automated messages

Turning this on stops job reminders, review requests, and auto-replies for this contact on every channel. Manual messages you send yourself still go through. Use it for a customer who has asked you to stop the automated nudges without opting out of texts entirely.

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Frequently asked

Where do addresses live? On the contact, under Addresses. A contact can have multiple service addresses, and the first one is the primary. Can a technician see contacts? No. Contacts are owner/admin only. What happens to a contact’s jobs and invoices if I delete it? They’re deleted too. That’s why ShineCRM blocks deleting any contact tied to a paid invoice.