If you get a "Possible Company Match" message when you save a new Lead, the company may already exist in the system.
It is worth seeing if the unqualified lead you are working on corresponds to a valid company record in your system. If it does, you can link the raw lead details to the company by matching the two together. This provides you with a valuable source of information on the company you are dealing with, which may assist in the lead qualification process.
To match a lead to an existing company:
If the company exists but not the person, you can go ahead and add a new person. You can do this now or wait until later. You are not required to do this until you have fully qualified the lead and are ready to convert it to an opportunity. Remember that the unqualified lead data is separate from your core "clean" data. If the person does not yet exist in your Person records and the lead turns into a dead end, you have added a low value contact into your core company database.
If there is a potential company and person match, priority is given to company. When you select the company to match it, the person is automatically matched to an existing person in that company. You can keep the default matched person, or you can add the unmatched person (whose details are on the Lead Contact Details) to CRM and then match them to the lead instead.
If the lead turns into a potential sale (opportunity), you are required to incorporate the Lead Company and Person into the main Company and People records. For more information, please refer to Converting a Lead to an Opportunity.
See Also: