What's The Best Way To Handle Households w/Activities

[JagStyles]

I'm an advisor and many times, one of the spouses is the decision maker where the other spouse has very little ongoing involvement. Up until now, I've created two contacts for both spouses and then linked them using the "Relationship" tab.

However, I'm wondering if there is a better way of handling all this.  For example, any meetings or activities I have, I usually link the activity/history with both contacts which makes me wonder whether I'm not just duplicating everything.  

Wiould the household functionality of the Act provide better functionality? How are other advisors here handling households and even things like children who aren't yet of adult age etc.

Thanks

[jonmklub]

Rule of thumb is that is you deal with them as a couple. list them as a couple

Dr and Mrs James SMith can have a salutation of Mom and Dad and your correspondance would always go to both of them

if you deal with either of them individually (Dr. James Smith) is your Dentist. give Dr James SMith his own record with company name.  

If Mrs James Smith is your Interior designor, she would also have her own record.

Each of these records would have their own history etc associated with that relationship.

[JagStyles]

So the suggestion is you create a new contact record if you have any services with the spouse, but if they are not involved in any way, you simply record them as a spouse for the existing contact record? That makes sense, other than the fact that the spouse may want to receive my quarterly newsletters even though they are not a direct client of mine. 

There's also the issue of storing the spouse's contact info like cell phone, email address, work info etc.  Hard to incorporate that into one contact record for both spouses.

[jonmklub]

It's not necessarily a perfect solution, but in my experience it's a good rule of thumb to follow.  You would have extra records on the phone, etc

I add a check box that says omit from news letter or add to news letter and filter against that when sending email correspondence.

to your final point, I only put enough info to make the contact relevant.  Usually it makes sense.  it allows you so segmant your database easily.