Stage, custom field or segment? Choosing where a detail belongs
"VIP", "Booked", "Calls due today": where should each one go? Voxido gives you three main tools to organise contacts. Pick the wrong one and your filters, reminders and AI agents get confused. This page helps you choose.
The quick test
Ask these questions in order. Stop at the first "yes".
| Ask yourself | If yes, use | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Is it a step every contact moves through, one at a time? | Stage | A contact is in exactly one stage. Moving on means leaving the old one. |
| Is it a fact about the person that sits next to other facts? | Custom field | A contact can have many facts at once: VIP, a budget, a date. |
| Is it a list of people you want to find again, built from other details? | Segment | A segment is a saved search. It updates itself as contacts change. |
| Is it something only your team needs to read? | Note | Notes are free text for people. See Notes and call outcomes. |
| Is it who looks after the person? | Owner | Owners get calls and requests first. See Owner, Backup owner and Reporter. |
How they compare
| Stage | Custom field | Segment | |
|---|---|---|---|
| How many per contact | One | As many as you create | A contact can be in many |
| Who changes it | Your team, the AI, rules | Your team, the AI, imports, connected systems | Nobody: it follows the rules you saved |
| Where you see it | Stage tabs and the stage pill | The contact's Details, Key fields, table columns | Segments tab and Filters → Segment |
| What it powers | Stage tabs, the Move contact to a stage skill, triggers on a stage change, Terminal ends, what counts as won | Placeholders in greetings, the Update contact information skill, date-based reminders, filters | Quick lists, exports, a starting point for a campaign audience |
| Example | Booked | Appointment date | "Booked, appointment in the next 7 days" |
Worked examples
| Business | Stage | Custom field | Segment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brightway (a service business) | Booked | Service (picklist), Appointment date (date) | Booked contacts with an appointment in the next 7 days |
| Clinic | Follow-up due | Doctor (picklist), Next visit (date) | Patients in Follow-up due who see Dr. Rao |
| School admissions | Application sent | Grade (picklist), Parent's name (text) | Grade 10 applications added in the last 30 days |
| Real estate | Site visit booked | Budget (currency), Preferred location (picklist) | Leads with a budget over 1 crore who were never called |
| Loan recovery | Promised to pay | Amount due (currency), Promise date (date) | Promises due in the next 3 days |
| Retail or online shop | Ordered | Preferred size (picklist), Last order value (currency) | Customers whose last order was over 5,000 |
| Hotel | Booked | Check-in date (date), Room type (picklist) | Guests checking in next week |
Common mistakes
Making "VIP" a stage. When your VIP books, you move them to "Booked" and lose the VIP mark. Make VIP a Checkbox field instead. Then "VIP and Booked" is easy to find.
Saving dates as text. "14th Oct", "14/10" and "Oct 14" can't be compared. A Date field can, so "within next 7d" works.
Using a segment as a step. You can't move a contact into a segment, and the AI can't either. If people should move in and out of it by hand, it's a stage. If it follows from other details, it's a segment.
Too many stages. "Called once", "Called twice", "Called three times" are not steps. Keep one stage, and filter by Call Count.
Set it up
- Stages: Contact stages
- Custom fields: Custom fields
- Segments: Segments and filters