Contacts: New vs Returning Contact Classification
N
Nabilah Binti Salleh
Business Problem
- The current New/Returning classification logic under the Conversation Opened trigger ties "new" to the contact's creation method — only contacts created via an incoming message are classified as "new."
- Contacts brought in via import, manual creation, or API are always classified as "returning" the first time they message in, even if they've never had a conversation with the business before.
- This creates a gap for customers who rely on external lead capture (web forms, CRM integrations, lead-gen automations) and expect a "new contact" workflow to trigger on the contact's first inbound message.
- Customers currently work around this with branch steps that check whether any outgoing messages exist for the contact — which works, but is non-intuitive and adds workflow complexity.
Desired Outcome
- Contacts who have never sent an incoming message should classify as "new" the first time they message in, regardless of how the contact record was created.
- Customers using New/Returning routing workflows can rely on the classification matching their intuitive expectation of "first-time chat" without workarounds.
Impacted modules: Contacts, Workflows, Reports modules.