Managing Contacts and Conversations in Alivo
Your starting point for contacts, conversations, owners, custom fields, and table layout.
A contact in Alivo is anyone your business is talking to, whether they called in, filled out a web form, or came in from a lead source. Every contact lives in your Audience, and every back-and-forth with them is a conversation tied to one of your AI agents. Keeping contacts organized and conversations reviewed is how you stay on top of what your agents are doing and make sure nothing falls through the cracks. This guide walks through the main tools Alivo gives you and points you to deeper guides on each one.
Where to Find Your Contacts and Conversations
Your main workspace is the Audience page in the sidebar. From there you can work in two views:
- Table view. A sortable list of all your contacts with columns like Name, Source, Current Agent, Latest Activity, and Review Status. Click any row to open a quick preview, or click through to the full contact page.
- Pipeline view. A kanban-style board where contacts move through stages. You can also group the board by review status or a dropdown custom field.
On the dashboard, Live Activity shows everything that happened in the last 24 hours: texts, calls, emails, bookings, and more. It is a good place to catch activity you have not reviewed yet.
What You Can Do With Contacts and Conversations
Alivo gives you a handful of tools that work together. Here is what each one is for and where to learn more.
| Topic | What It Does | Dedicated Guide |
|---|---|---|
| Review conversations | Read agent threads, mark contacts as reviewed, and give feedback on how the agent handled a conversation. | How to Review Conversations in Alivo |
| Assign owners | Put a team member in charge of a contact so the right person gets notified and Sales Reps only see their own leads. | How to Assign Contact Owners in Alivo |
| Custom fields | Track extra details on each contact, like roof type or job status, and let your AI agents fill them in during conversations. | How to Configure Custom Fields in Alivo |
| Audience table layout | Choose which columns show up in your contact list, including any custom fields you have set up. | How to Customize Your Audience Table in Alivo |
Reviewing Conversations and Agent Activity
Your AI agents handle a lot of conversations on their own. Reviewing those conversations is how you confirm they are doing what you expect and catch anything that needs a human touch.
From the Audience table, the Current Agent column tells you which agent is handling a contact's most recent conversation. The Latest Activity column gives you a one-line summary, like "Text Received" or "Event Booked." The Review Status column tracks whether you have looked at that contact yet.
Click a contact to open the conversation thread. You will see texts, calls, emails, and a Conversation Summary. You can mark the contact as reviewed, give a thumbs up or thumbs down on the conversation, or step in with Stop AI if you want to take over manually.
For the full walkthrough, see How to Review Conversations in Alivo.
Assigning Owners to Contacts
Every contact can have an Owner, a team member who is responsible for that lead. You can set the owner when you add a contact, change it inline in the Audience table, or let an automation assign it for you.
Owner assignment matters most for Sales Reps. A Sales Rep only sees contacts they own, and they only get notifications for contacts they own. Company Admins and Members see all contacts and get notifications based on their own notification settings.
For details on how to assign owners and how that affects notifications, see How to Assign Contact Owners in Alivo.
Custom Fields on Contacts
Out of the box, Alivo tracks standard contact info like name, phone, email, and address. Custom fields let you track anything else your business cares about, like job type, roof material, or lead temperature.
Some custom fields come from your CRM integration. Others you create yourself under Settings → Templates → Custom Fields. Either way, your AI agents read the conversation and fill in empty custom fields automatically as they talk to the lead.
For field types, CRM setup, and how the AI populates values, see How to Configure Custom Fields in Alivo.
Customizing Your Audience Table
Not every business needs the same columns in their contact list. Alivo lets you pick which fields show up, drag them into the order you want, and pin important custom fields so they appear on the contact detail page too.
Click the gear icon on the Audience table to open Table Settings. Your column choices save automatically in your browser, and pinned fields save to your user account so they follow you across devices.
For step-by-step instructions, see How to Customize Your Audience Table in Alivo.
Good to know: Contacts, conversations, owners, custom fields, and table layout all connect. A contact gets an owner, the agent fills in custom fields during the conversation, and you review the thread and mark it reviewed from the same Audience page.
Managing contacts and conversations in Alivo comes down to four habits: review your agent activity regularly, assign owners so the right people get notified, set up custom fields for the details you care about, and arrange your Audience table so the info you need is right in front of you. Start with whichever guide matches what you need most right now.
Still have a question this didn't answer? Reach out to our support team support@alivo.ai and we'll be glad to help.