When diving into your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, you encounter two crucial contact fields: Designation (Job Title) and Hierarchy (Role/Level). Many sales teams capture the Designation but undervalue the Hierarchy field, leading to wasted time and lost opportunities.
The difference between these two fields is the difference between knowing a name and knowing who can make a decision. If you’re serious about closing bigger deals faster, you must stop guessing and start leveraging contact hierarchy strategically.
It is absolutely vital to capture the person’s Job Title (Designation) in your CRM (both in Leads and Contact records). This is for immediate context and proper personalization.
However, relying only on the Designation field presents a major roadblock to efficient sales: Lack of Standardization.
No Universal Rules: Different companies use wildly different titles to describe their employees’ roles and responsibilities. A “Director of Sales” in a small startup might be an individual contributor, while a “Vice President” in a large corporation might have less decision-making power than a “General Manager.”
The Confusion Factor: Even if two companies use the same job title, the actual responsibilities, budget authority, and decision-making power can differ dramatically. This makes it challenging to accurately find and group contacts based on job titles alone.
If you talk to someone who lacks the authority to make a purchasing decision, no matter how great your solution is, you will not close the sale.
This is where the standardized Hierarchy field comes into play. The Hierarchy field provides a uniform, actionable structure that cuts through the confusing language of different job titles.
Instead of capturing the person’s specific, non-standard title, the Hierarchy field categorizes the contact based on their level of influence, function, and authority within the company.
The hierarchy system is typically a customizable dropdown menu within your CRM, allowing you to categorize people based on strategic roles that matter to your business model:
Top Management: (CEO, CFO, C-level, Executive, Board Member)
Decision Maker/Budget Holder: (VP, Director, Head of Department)
Influencer/User: (Manager, Team Lead, Specialist)
Gatekeeper: (Executive Assistant, Administrator)
This standardization allows your sales and marketing teams to instantly identify and target the person who has the power to sign off on a purchase, regardless of their specific Designation.
Hierarchy makes your outreach campaigns and sales efforts exponentially more effective:
| Goal | Without Hierarchy | With Hierarchy |
| Targeting | Search for dozens of similar titles (“VP Sales,” “Sales Director,” “Head of Biz Dev”). | Filter by one Hierarchy option: “Sales Director/VP/Top Manager.” |
| Relevance | Send a high-level strategic email to an entry-level “Analyst.” | Send tailored, high-level content only to the “Top Management” segment. |
| Sales Process | Guess who needs to be looped in next based on their job title. | Follow a process designed to move from “Influencer” to “Decision Maker.” |
The best part of the Hierarchy system is that it’s flexible and should align with what you are selling:
Selling a CRM/Software: Your hierarchy might focus on roles like: Top Management, Sales Director, Service Team Lead, Finance Director.
Selling Factory Equipment: Your focus shifts to functional roles like: Purchasing Department, Factory Manager, Maintenance Department.
This level of customization ensures that the data you collect is directly linked to your pipeline requirements.
To summarize the importance of using both fields:
Designation (Job Title) provides Precision for personalization.
Hierarchy (Role/Level) provides Standardization for segmentation and strategic targeting.
By diligently capturing both fields, you move past the guesswork. You empower your sales teams to accurately identify the decision-makers, deliver the right message to the right person, and significantly increase their chances of making a successful, high-value sale. Stop selling to titles; start selling to authority.
