By default, new contacts receive a user activation email with a link to verify their contact and login to your customer portal. To control this, go to Admin > Workflows > Email Notifications. Go to the Requester Notifications tab and toggle User Activation Email or click Edit to change the email content.

Freshdesk has 2 deletion states for contacts— a "soft delete" (Delete button) and a "hard delete" (Delete forever button).

You can soft delete a contact by:

• Going to their details page and clicking the Delete button.
• Going to the list page, clicking the overflow menu (triple dot menu) next to their entry, and clicking Delete.
• Going to the list page, selecting multiple contacts and clicking the Delete button.

To hard delete contacts:

1. From the contact list page, click the Views button in the top-left corner and select Deleted contacts.
2. Click a contact from the list to see their details.
3. Click Delete forever to permanently delete the contact. This takes a few moments.
4. Alternatively, click Restore to reverse the soft delete of the contact.
   

A customer might reach out from multiple contact points, such as via an email and via your Facebook page. In such cases, they might be recorded twice within Freshdesk. You can merge such contacts and get a more accurate picture of their relationship with you.

When you merge contacts, you designate one as the primary contact. That primary contact receives all the tickets, notes, and contact information from the selected secondary contacts. After that, the secondary contacts are deleted and cannot be restored.

Important: You can have a maximum of 10 emails, 20 companies, 1 work phone, and 1 mobile phone saved to a contact. In case of overlapping data between contacts, you choose which information to retain during the merge process.

To merge contacts:

1. From the Contacts page, open one of the contacts and click Merge.
   
2. In the Merge contacts panel, search for the other contacts to merge and click the Plus icon.
   
3. The first contact is marked Primary by default, but you can click the stamp next to a selected contact to mark them as Primary instead.
   
4. Review the contacts and click Continue.
5. In the Review and confirm merge panel, review the contact information, select which overlapping data to retain, and click Confirm. Your primary contact receives the selected information and your secondary contacts are deleted. This is irreversible.
   

In some cases, you may want to associate a single contact with multiple companies. For example:

• A reseller wants to raise tickets on behalf of customers that buy your product from them.
• A contractor you hired wants to create tickets on behalf of your clients.
• An account manager wants to raise issues for customers they're handling.

Customers cannot do this themselves. This can be done by Admins and agents with the "Create or edit contact or company" permission. To associate a contact with multiple companies:

1. In the Contacts page, click the contact and click Edit.
2. In the Edit contact panel, scroll down to the Company field and add a company if there isn't one.
3. Click Associate another company to add another field. Search for and add another company. Repeat for each company you want to add.
   • For each company, click the Ticket icon to allow that contact to view all tickets from the company.
     
   • From the companies you've added, use the radio button on the left to select the Primary company. If a ticket is opened without specifying a company, it is associated with the primary company of the requester. We recommend keeping the contact's actual workplace as their primary company.
     
   • To remove a company, click the Trash icon.
4. Review the companies you've added and click Save.

In your support flow, Companies are seen as part of tickets rather than contacts. When a contact is associated with multiple companies, a Company field is added to your ticket fields. This means:

• You can go to Admin > Workflows > Ticket Fields and modify the Company field. See Modify a Ticket field.
• Tickets created by these contacts have the Company field in the properties widget.
• The New ticket form on both the customer portal (frontend) and agent portal (backend) will have the Company field when the requester is set to such a contact.

The feature to associate a contact with multiple companies is enabled by default. If you disable this feature, tickets will not be affected, but any secondary companies will be deleted from all existing contacts. To disable this feature:

1. Go to Admin > Support Operations > Customer Fields and select the Contacts tab.
2. Scroll down to the Company field and click Change.
   
3. Toggle off the Associate one contact with multiple companies button and click Done.
   

The Notes tab for contacts and companies is available from the Pro Plan onwards.

Sometimes, you may need to capture details about your customers that you're tracking via documents, spreadsheets, or other tools. Rather than switch between tools, use the Notes tab in a Contact or Company to capture detailed information such as:

• Implementation or installation details
• Subscription information and contract documents
• Feature requests
• Testimonials, and more.

Information added to the Notes tab is only visible to agents visiting the profile and seeing the Notes tab. It is not replicated anywhere else.

To add a note to a contact or company, go to the Contact or Company details page and click the Notes tab:

1. Click the Add notes field to expand it, and fill it out.
2. Provide a title and description using the available formatting options.
3. Optionally, attach files up to 20MB in size.
4. If writing a note for a Company, select whether the note is General or Testimonial.
5. Review your note and click Add note.
   

The latest note added is displayed first by default. Hover over a note to see the Edit and Delete icons. You can edit notes at any time. If you delete a note, it cannot be recovered.

Every customer has a To-do widget on their details page to track multiple tasks or notes. You can use the To-do widget in the following ways:

• To add a task to the widget, type it in the text field and press Enter.
  
• Once the task is added to the ticket, it is viewable by anyone with access to the contact. The task also appears on your Dashboard.
  
• Hover over the task to see the Edit and Delete buttons for it.
• To mark an item as done, click the checkbox next to it. You can uncheck marked items at any time.