Maximize the power of your CRM by seamlessly calling, texting, and emailing your leads—all within the platform. Save valuable time by creating email and text message templates for frequently sent communications. Playground’s comprehensive tracking system enhances your relationships with potential families by consolidating all interactions in one place. With a quick glance, you can recall key details, making every family feel valued and understood.
Calls
Calls can be placed directly from Playground CRM using your CRM phone number. You can set up call forwarding so that any calls made to your CRM phone number will ring on your preferred device.
When calls are made to your CRM phone number, the call will be recorded and saved to the lead's profile.
💡 If you are an enterprise user that has multiple locations in Playground, you can set up a different phone number for each location.
Create a CRM Phone Number
From your CRM Dashboard, navigate to Settings on the left sidebar, and then click the Connections tab at the top of the screen.
Click Add
Search by State or area code.
A set of available phone numbers will be generated. Choose your preferred number and then click Select & Finish.
🚨 Update your website and any other mentions of contact information with the new CRM phone number to ensure calls are tracked in Playground CRM
Set Up Call Forwarding
If you would like calls forwarded to another number, add that number here. Calls made to your CRM phone number will ring on the device of the indicated forwarding number. Call forwarding is required to receive calls, but not to make them.
Call a Lead from a Lead Profile
Leads can be called directly from their profile or from the Conversations -> Calls tab. To call a lead, follow the steps below:
From your CRM Dashboard, click into your Leads tab and click the lead you want to call.
If you want to manually enter phone numbers instead, navigate to the Conversations -> Call tab and select the blue Make a call button.
The dialer will open in the bottom right corner of your screen. Enter the lead's name or type a phone number directly using the keypad. It can be clicked and dragged across your screen. By default, Record this call is toggled on. You can turn this off before placing the call.
For compliance, you may need to announce that the call is being recorded. Requirements vary by state.
If you want to call within the lead profile on the lead profile, the right-hand side of your screen, click the Call button to start the calling process.
Clicking Call will open up your Dial pad, which can be clicked and dragged across your screen.
By default, the call will be recorded. However, you can disable the recording feature by turning the Record this call toggle off.
Select Call now to begin the call. You will then have the option to Mute yourself or End the call.
After the call ends, you will have the option to record the call's outcome as Answered, Left voicemail, Busy, or No answer.
Once an outcome has been selected, you will have the option to View and add notes, Make another call, or not take any additional action by clicking Close.
If you select View and add notes, a side window will open for you to add notes to the call. Make sure to save your changes after adding the note.
Make a Call from Anywhere in CRM
You can also open the dialer without navigating to a lead profile. Click the phone icon in the top right navigation bar from anywhere on the CRM platform to open the dialer instantly.
Enter the lead's name or type a phone number directly using the keypad. It can be clicked and dragged across your screen. By default, Record this call is toggled on. You can turn this off before placing the call. Select Call now to begin the call.
Listen to Recorded Calls
All calls placed to your CRM phone number from CRM leads will be recorded and saved to the leads profile. To listen to a recorded call, refer to the instructions below:
Navigate to the lead's profile in Playground CRM.
The communication history with the lead will appear on the left side of the screen.
Locate the call you would like to listen to and click Listen to Recording.
Log an Offline Call
If a call was placed to a number other than your CRM number, you can manually add notes for the call to Playground.
Navigate to the lead's profile in Playground CRM.
Click the white Actions button in the top right corner of the screen and then select Log a Call.
The log call window will open.
Fill out the required fields and then click the blue Save button.
To: the guardian you spoke with
From: the number they called, or the number you called them from
Outcome: select the result of the call from the dropdown.
Direction: select inbound if they called you, and outbound if you called them
Notes: optionally, add notes
Click Save to save your communication history with this lead
Emails
Administrators can send emails to leads from CRM, allowing you to manage everything for your marketing process, all from one place! You can even save time by creating email templates for emails that you send frequently.
💡 If you are an enterprise user that has multiple locations in Playground, you can set up a different email for each location.
Connect your Email
Emails can be sent through Playground CRM. Connecting your email allows you to send emails from CRM. Connect the email that you would like emails to be sent from. Follow the instructions below to connect your email:
From your CRM Dashboard, navigate to Settings on the left sidebar, and then click the Connections tab at the top of the screen.
Click the Add button.
A new browser window will open with a screen to log into your email provider.
Once this process is completed, your email address will be listed on the Connections page.
💡 If you are an enterprise user that has multiple locations in Playground, you can set up a different email for each location.
Send an Email
From Playground CRM, navigate to the profile of the lead you want to email.
Click the Email Icon next to the guardian email you want to contact. The send email window will open.
The Send Email window will open. From the From dropdown, select which email address you want to send from.
If the lead has more than one guardian, click the recipient dropdown at the top of the window to select which guardian or guardians you'd like to email.
Enter a subject line and type your email. From this window you also have a few other options:
Click Select a Template to search for and apply one of your saved email templates.
Al Suggestions for Al-powered writing help. Options include:
Help me write this - generates an email for you
Fix spelling & grammar - cleans up your text
Make text more formal - adjusts the tone to be more professional
Make text more concise - shortens and tightens your message
Make text more friendly - softens the tone
Click the attachment icon to attach a file.
Click Personalize to add personalized properties to your email.
When you are ready, click the blue Send button.
Once sent, the email will appear in the lead's activity.
💡 Email attachments can be up to 25MB total per email. This makes it easy to send larger PDFs, forms, and marketing materials without needing to split files up. PDF attachments can also be previewed directly from the lead's activity feed by clicking on the attachment.
Reply to an Email
You can reply to any email directly from the lead's activity feed. Hover over the email and two options will appear in the top right corner of the message.
Click the Reply icon to open the email composer with the recipient and subject line pre-filled. From there, write your response and click Send when ready.
Click Camber Icon to have Playground draft a reply on your behalf. The suggested reply will appear in the composer, where you can review and edit it before sending.
SMS/Texting Verification
Businesses must complete a verification process before they can text their customers. For full details on requirements, timelines, and templates, see the dedicated SMS/Texting Verification article.
SMS Messaging
SMS text messages can be sent and tracked within your CRM dashboard. In order to do so, you must activate SMS texting. Follow the steps below to do so.
Send a SMS from the lead profile
After your account has been verified for SMS messaging, you can start messaging leads by following the steps below.
From Playground CRM, navigate to the profile of the lead you want to text.
Click the white SMS button in the top right corner of the screen
The Send SMS window will open. If the lead has more than one guardian, click the recipient dropdown at the top of the window to select which guardian or guardians you'd like to email.
Type your message. From this window you also have a few other options:
Click Select a Template to search for and apply one of your saved SMS templates.
Click Al Suggestions for Al-powered writing help. Options include:
i. Help me write this - generates an message for you
ii. Fix spelling & grammar - cleans up your text
ili. Make text more formal - adjusts the tone to be more professional
iv. Make text more concise - shortens and tightens your message
v. Make text more friendly - softens the tone
Click Personalize to add personalized properties to your email.
If your message is promotional or marketing in nature, turn on the Marketing/Promotional toggle at the bottom of the window. This adds the required opt-out language to your message. Sending promotional SMS messages without this toggle on may affect your ability to send SMS messages in the future.
When you are ready, click the blue Send button.
Once sent, the text will appear in the lead's activity.
Send SMS in Bulk
SMS messages can be sent in bulk to saved lists, making it easy to reach multiple leads at once.
From your CRM Dashboard, navigate to the Marketing tab and click SMS.
Click the SMS template you want to send.
Click the blue Send SMS button in the top right corner of the screen.
The Send SMS window will open. Search for the list you want to send to and select it.
Playground will show you how many leads in that list are opted in to receive SMS messages and how many messages will be sent. Review this before proceeding.
Click Send SMS to send.
💡 Only leads who have opted in to receive SMS messages will receive the text. Leads who have not opted in will be excluded automatically.