Chato's own CRM

Chato has its own CRM: the sales pipeline, deals, and tasks live right next to chats and calls. You don't need to buy a separate system or switch between windows — a deal is created from a conversation in one click, and the customer's whole history is collected in its card.

How to turn it on

The CRM is available to every company. Open the CRM button in the left menu (above "Chats & calls") or the CRM tab next to "Chats" and "Calls".

If you see the "CRM is not turned on yet" screen, click Turn on CRM. Chato will create a "Sales" pipeline with these stages:

• New request
• In progress
• Invoice sent
• Won
• Lost

You can rename the stages and add more. The CRM can be turned on by the owner or an admin — a manager will see a hint to ask them to do it.

Pipelines and stages

• Several pipelines — for example, "Sales" and "Service". Use the Pipeline switcher at the top: it also has "New pipeline", "Rename pipeline", and "Delete pipeline".
• Stages — the "⋯" menu → Stages: add, reorder ("Up" / "Down"), pick a color, delete. If the stage you're deleting has deals in it, Chato will ask where to move them.
• Each stage has a type: In progress, Won, or Lost. Moving a deal to "Won" or "Lost" closes it.

You can also close a deal like this: start dragging the card, and the "Won", "Lost", and "Delete" zones appear. When a deal is lost, Chato may ask for a reason (for example, "Too expensive" or "Chose a competitor"). A closed deal can be brought back with the Reopen button.

Deals

From a chat or call. The chat header has a Create a deal button — the customer, chat, and source are filled in automatically. The arrow next to it lets you pick a different pipeline or stage. If the customer already has a deal, the button will say "Go to deal". The same button is in the "Calls" section.

Manually. The Deal button at the top of the board opens a form: contact, name, amount, pipeline, and stage.

Automatically. In the "⋯" menu → CRM settings → Inbound, you can choose for each channel whether to create a deal from a new inquiry: "Don’t create", "Into “Unsorted”", or "Straight into a stage". The same place lets you choose who is responsible: the operator assigned to the conversation, round robin, a specific employee, or no one. New messages from a customer with an open deal are added to it instead of creating a new one.

Unsorted holds new inquiries waiting for a decision: you can Accept them (choose a pipeline and stage), Reject them, or Link them to an existing deal.

Deals are shown as a kanban (columns by stage, cards you drag with the mouse) or as a list. There's search by name, customer name, or number, filters, and quick buttons "My deals", "No tasks", and "Overdue".

The deal card has the contact, amount, responsible person, stage, and a feed: messages, notes for colleagues, tasks, calls, and events. You can also message the customer from here.

Tasks

You can add a task to a deal: Call, Meeting, Write, or Other (you can add your own task types in the CRM settings). A task has a due date and a responsible person. When the due date comes, the responsible person gets a notification in Chato.

All tasks are collected on a separate page — the calendar icon at the top of the board, with the number of overdue tasks next to it. Tabs: "Overdue", "Today", "Upcoming", "Completed".

More features

• Custom fields — your own deal fields: number, date, list, phone, and more (CRM settings → Fields).
• Import — the "⋯" menu → Import deals from a CSV or Excel file. Exports from amoCRM and Bitrix24 work as they are.
• Automation — the "⋯" menu → Automation: when a deal moves to a stage, create a task, message the customer, change the responsible person, add tags, and more.
• Deleted deals (the "⋯" menu) — deleted deals are kept for 30 days and can be restored.

Who sees what

The owner can always see and do everything. For everyone else, permissions are set in the "⋯" menu → CRM settings → Access (set up by the owner and admins):

• Which deals are visible: "All deals", "Own and unassigned", or "Own only". "Own" means deals where the employee is responsible or handles the customer's conversation.
• Separate permissions: delete deals, export to CSV and Excel, edit closed deals, assign deals to other employees, manage CRM settings.

Permissions are set per role (managers, admins) and, if needed, separately for a specific employee.