You have the freedom to choose your own salutation for individuals in your CRM. With this new setting, you can deviate from the standard forms of address such as 'Dear' or 'Esteemed'. For example, you could use 'To the one of' or a more informal greeting that suits your organization. We want to offer more options here to personalize and make the salutation your own.
In this article, you'll learn more about how to configure this and what effect it will have on quotes and invoices.
Setting a custom salutation
You can set a custom salutation for a person in the CRM. Here's how:
Go to CRM > people > the relevant person > personal details > use different salutation. Check this box. What you enter here will be reflected in quotes, invoices, and accompanying emails.
You configure the salutation for quotes and invoices by adding it as the placeholder [P] in a quote, invoice, or accompanying email. The [P] placeholders are available in the following locations:
Sales settings:
Quote template: standard text block + email content (email template)
Quote editor in a sales process:
Edit text block
Send quote > message
Invoice settings:
Invoice template: footers and note on the invoice + email content (email template)
Invoice editor of a draft invoice:
In the note field
Send invoice > message
The result of using a custom salutation
The table below shows in column 2 the result when using the standard salutation. Column 3 shows the result when using a custom salutation named ‘Heirs of’.
This is based on the following personal details in the CRM:
Name: Wessel Leerdam
Gender: male
Initials: W.
Placeholder | Result without custom salutation | Result with custom salutation: ‘Heirs of’ |
T.a.v. | Attn. Mr W. Leerdam | Heirs of W. Leerdam |
Salutation | Dear Mr W. Leerdam | Heirs of W. Leerdam |
Formal salutation | Dear Mr Leerdam | Heirs of Leerdam |
Informal salutation | Hi Wessel Leerdam | Heirs of Wessel Leerdam |
Note: The placeholder [P] named ‘Attn.’ is only available in a quote template or when editing a quote (also known as the quote editor).
Good to know
Gender and salutation in combination with a custom salutation
When using a custom salutation, it will override gender-based addressing. In the table above, you can see that in cases where gender would normally be used, it is no longer applied when a custom salutation has been set.
Custom salutation in combination with placeholders for quotes and invoices
As described in the table above, the custom salutation will replace the greetings ‘Dear’ and ‘Hi’ in the placeholders salutation, informal salutation, and formal salutation. These placeholders apply in the accompanying emails of quotes and invoices.
If you still want to use ‘Dear’ or ‘Hi’ before a custom salutation, you can do so in two ways:
1. Create a separate quote and invoice template for this. In the accompanying email, you can manually type the desired greeting (e.g. ‘Dear’ or ‘Hi’) so that you can then place the desired placeholder after it.
This would then look as follows:
Quote and invoice template in the settings:
Accompanying email when sending the quote/invoice:
2. In the custom salutation at the individual level in the CRM, you can also include ‘Dear’ or ‘Hi’ before the custom salutation. This way, you don't need to create a separate quote or invoice template.
Note: The full custom salutation will then also appear in the address section of the invoice.
In the example below, the custom salutation ‘Heirs of’ has been used:
If you use 'Dear heirs of' as the custom salutation here, it will also appear in the address section of the invoice.
