[QUICK START] Organizing Contacts

Cloze will create a contact profile for every person and company you know from the accounts you connect. When you get started we recommend organizing the people and companies you are currently working with using the options provided in the Relationship section.

Here is some background context on how to think through organizing your contacts in Cloze.

When you tap on a contact you’ll find a section within the profile called "Relationship". Relationships can be organized by Stages (a), Segments, Next Steps, and Custom Fields. On your phone, tap on About to see the Relationship section. On cloze.com look for it on the right side of the screen.

When to Use Stages and Segments

Stages reflect where someone is in their process (e.g., Warm, Hot) and Segments reflect who they are (e.g., Buyer, Seller). Each one comes with Next Steps, which act like a repeatable checklist of tasks that move your work forward.

Think of Stages as the big milestones—Warm, Hot, In Contract, Closed—and Next Steps as the smaller tasks you complete to get from one stage to the next. This makes your process consistent and repeatable, so nothing slips through the cracks.

In sales, Stages and Next Steps form your pipeline or sales funnel.
In projects, they track the work needed to win and deliver an engagement.
In real estate, they outline the steps to help a client buy or sell a home.

When to Use Tags

Stages, Segments, and Next Steps are powerful tools for tracking your process and embedding your workflow into Cloze. They show you exactly where someone is in their journey to becoming your client.

But because Stages and Next Steps change as you move through the relationship, you also need a way to organize contacts that cuts across all Segments. That’s where Tags come in.

Tags let you group people by shared characteristics—regardless of their Stage or Segment. For example:

Track everyone you met at a specific networking event.
Organize a holiday card list that spans potential clients, current clients, and partners.

Tags give you a flexible way to organize contacts across your entire database, making it easy to find the right people at the right time.

Stage

A “Stage" sets if the contact is… Warm, Hot, In Contract, Closed, or Lost.

As you make progress with your contact, you will move from Warm to Hot to In Contract to Closed. Stages work in tandem with Segments.

Segments

A segment shows who the person is to you—like Buyer, Seller, Customer, or even personal ones like Family or Friend.

Business segments – People you work with or do business with, like clients, customers, or coworkers. On a team account, these can be shared with the team.
Personal segments – Friends, family, and other personal contacts. These are always private, even on a team account.
Custom segments – If none of the default segments fit, you can create your own to better organize your contacts.

For example, your leads would be classified as the Stage "Warm" and Segment "Buyers".

The Customers you are actively working with now would be classified as "In Contract Customers".

Learn More about Stages and Segments:

Next Steps

Next Steps help you stay organized by focusing on what needs to be done next.

They work like a checklist you can reuse for each Stage and Segment combination.

In Settings, you can define Next Steps for each type of relationship.
Each Next Step can include its own reminder and email template to keep you consistent.
As you complete tasks, you’ll always know what’s been done and what’s still ahead.

Think of Next Steps as your built-in playbook—making it easy to move clients forward without missing a step.

Here are step-by-step instructions to set up Next Steps.

Each person in Cloze can only have one Stage, one Segment, and one Next Step at any given time. For example, a contact cannot be classified as both a Client and a Partner at once.

We recommend setting their primary business relationship as the Segment. If you need to track additional details or sub-types, you can do this with Custom Fields (see section below).

Custom Fields

Custom Fields let you add details that go beyond the standard Stage, Segment, or Next Steps. They give you a flexible way to classify People, Companies, Projects, or Deals so you can track exactly what matters most to your business. Learn more here: Overview of Custom Fields.

You can make Custom Fields:

Always available (across all Stages of a Segment)
Limited (only in certain Segments or Stages)

For example, you may want to capture a client’s Type, Role, Department, or Lead Source, or create your own custom classifications. You can also organize your Custom Fields into Custom Sections.

If you’re on Cloze Business, Custom Fields are also shared across your team for consistency.

Field Types Available

Text – Free-form entry (e.g., Account ID)
Pick List (one) – Choose a single option from a list
Pick List (many) – Choose multiple options from a list
Date – Add a calendar date (no time)
Round Number – Whole numbers (e.g., 1,000)
Decimal Number – Numbers with fractions (e.g., 1,000.25)
Currency – Track money values (e.g., $1,000)

Audiences

With an Audience, you can quickly access groups of contacts without setting up filters each time. Audiences are built using filters you choose—such as Stage, Segment, Tag, or Custom Fields—to focus on specific groups of people.

There’s no single “right” way to define an Audience. It’s flexible, letting you tailor outreach and marketing to each subset of contacts so your communication feels more relevant and personal.

Audiences are dynamic so as you organize your contacts they will be automatically added. For example, an audience defined with Cloze tags will update automatically as these tags are added or removed from contacts.