One of the reasons HubSpot has been able to claim so much of the CRM market is its inherent user-friendliness. Where competing platforms took dozens (or hundreds) of hours to configure, HubSpot CRM did a lot of what most companies needed right out of the box.
But as more enterprise organizations switch to HubSpot, the company is learning to accommodate their need for more customizable and configurable CRM experiences. Everyone rejoice!
HubSpot has been on a roll with new customizable CRM features, and the latest batch to drop has got the HubSpot nerds at Salted Stone really excited. That’s because they alter the UI and UX of object records, making the platform more customizable and easier to configure than ever.
Read on to get up to speed on the latest customization features inside HubSpot, and make them your team’s superpower.
Why customize HubSpot CRM records?
HubSpot CRM was designed with user-friendliness baked in, so why would anyone ask you to customize the way information is displayed? Let us explain.
Most sales and customer service team members spend majority of their time in HubSpot looking at individual record pages. Think basic contact and company records, or department-specific records like deals for sales teams or tickets for service teams.
Across all HubSpot records, the default interface is straightforward and good enough for most use cases. Check out this company record example:
The left sidebar hosts all of the record properties; the center panel displays all timestamped activities; and the right sidebar links the associated objects.
As you can see, the sidebar on the left details information (either default or custom data inputs) about the company, such as its industry, company size, and region. You’ve also got the center panel containing the activity record for recent communication with or actions taken by the associated contacts. And you’ve got the right sidebar, which shows you previews of the associated CRM records and cards for external data.
Seems intuitive enough, right?
Sales and service teams might be adept at navigating records like the one shown, but because these team members spend hours in records each week, small changes that eliminate extra steps or improve CRM data quality can massively impact productivity.
A few tweaks could prevent hours of annoying fact-finding, and repurpose that time into helping grow the business.
New record customization features
HubSpot, being the ever-evolving platform it is, regularly rolls out new features. (Just take a look at the growing features on Operations Hub!)
A handful of the latest record customization features are included here, but keep in mind some are in beta and/or restricted to certain HubSpot membership tiers. For any features you’re eager to try, we can help you figure out which ones you have access to and set them up.
Customizable HubSpot CRM cards
These cards appear in the right sidebar, or, if you prefer, they can be configured to appear in the overview tab. The data displayed can be from within HubSpot or external apps, centralizing more information for teams to leverage.
For example, at Salted Stone, we use cards that show us information from our proposal and billing tools on associated contact, company, and deal records. Our teams don’t have to leave HubSpot and ping between tools to find what they’re searching for.
But customized CRM cards aren’t just time-saving; they prevent missed or duplicated data too.
The new HubSpot CRM Card Builder makes it easier for developers to mock up and code custom cards that can do all sorts of awesome things.
Basically, you can take any HubSpot or external data that can be accessed via API and configure it to appear however you want within a card on the record page. HubSpot has provided some UI extension examples, but the possibilities for customization are pretty much endless.
Sidebar customization
For a long time, only the left sidebar was customizable — much to the frustration of HubSpot users. Thankfully, the platform now enables admins to customize the right sidebar to display specific cards in their preferred order.
Developers can also create custom right sidebar views for different teams sourcing different information. This feature helps HubSpot CRM users see the most important information upon opening the contact record, reduce distracting clutter, and improve productivity.
Overview and custom tabs in center panel
With all of the new capabilities allotted by custom cards, you might need more screen real estate to display and interact with them. That’s where the central overview and custom tabs come in.
HubSpot has recently made the center panel of record pages much more robust and customizable, so you can adjust them to your team’s desires. In addition to the activity record, users now have access to a configurable “overview” tab, and an optional new “custom” tab, both of which can display both default and custom HubSpot CRM cards.
In essence, every record page now becomes its own mini-dashboard.
We should point out that in some HubSpot membership tiers, all of these new customizations can be further configured to only display on records of certain types or specific team members.
With work, you can make it so that every user sees precisely the right information and has quick access to exactly the right tools on all record pages.
Unleash your superpower, or ask the experts
There are so many possibilities for customizing HubSpot CRM record pages, and you might not know where to begin. Don’t sweat — ask our HubSpot experts.
We can help you connect your CRM strategy to your business strategy and build custom HubSpot solutions to maximize your team’s efficiency and productivity.
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