CRM Modes: B2B, B2C, and Hybrid
One setting, chosen at setup, that decides how much organisational context your CRM carries by default
What It Is
Your CRM mode tells Zyntro how your business relates to the people in it: whether you sell to organisations, to individuals, or to both. It is chosen when your CRM is set up, and there is no settings screen to change it afterwards — it shapes the custom fields and the pipeline that were designed around it, so changing it is a support request rather than a toggle.
There are three modes.
B2B (Business-to-Business) — You sell to organisations. Contacts are expected to belong to an entity, and the Add Contact form starts with the entity card ready for you to search or create one. SI reads the organisation's context alongside the individual's when it decides how to engage anyone at that company.
B2C (Business-to-Consumer) — You sell to individuals. Contacts stand on their own, and the Add Contact form starts with Skip entity already switched on so you are not asked about a company you do not have.
Hybrid — You do both. Some contacts belong to an organisation and some do not, and you decide which as you go. This is the mode to pick when neither of the other two describes half your business.
What the mode does not do is decide what is possible. Since September 2026 the entity card appears on the Add Contact form in all three modes, and a Skip entity toggle in its header decides each contact individually. The mode only sets where that toggle starts — on in B2C, off in B2B and Hybrid. A B2C business that picks up one corporate client can record that company; a B2B business can record a sole trader with no company behind them. Neither has to change mode to do it.
Why It Matters
The mode is a default, not a restriction, and knowing the difference saves you from working around a limit that is not there.
How It Works
What the mode actually changes:
Contact creation — The entity card appears in every mode. The mode decides whether Skip entity starts on (B2C) or off (B2B and Hybrid), and the submit button names what your choice will do: Create Contact, Create Entity & Contact, or Create Contact & Link Entity.
Contact detail view — A contact that is linked to an entity shows that entity, its fields, and the other contacts at the same organisation. A contact with no entity simply does not show the section, whatever the mode.
Custom fields — Your mode shapes the field set Zyntro recommends at setup. B2B and Hybrid get entity-level fields as well as contact-level ones; B2C concentrates everything on the contact.
Pipeline design — The pipeline Zyntro builds for you is designed around the mode: an entity-and-contact structure for B2B, contact-only for B2C, and a Hybrid pipeline that does not assume every contact has a company behind it.
Imports and the API — These follow the mode more strictly than the manual form does. In B2C, entity data supplied to an import or to the Add or Update Contact API is ignored rather than created. If you are in B2C and need organisations on imported records, add them from the contact's page afterwards.
SI behaviour — Where a contact has an entity, SI reads the organisation's data alongside the person's, so company-level context informs what it says to any individual there. Where a contact has none, SI works from the individual alone.
What each mode does
| Behaviour | B2B | B2C | Hybrid |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entity card on the Add Contact form | Shown | Shown | Shown |
| "Skip entity" starts switched on | No | Yes | No |
| An entity is required to save a contact | No | No | No |
| Entity data accepted on import and via the API | Yes | Ignored | Yes |
| Entity custom fields recommended at setup | Yes | No | Yes |
| SI reads entity context | When linked | When linked | When linked |
| Changeable from a settings screen | No | No | No |
Tip: If you are unsure which mode fits, choose Hybrid. It carries both contact-level and entity-level custom fields and builds a pipeline that works whether or not a given contact has a company behind it, so it is the mode with the fewest assumptions baked in.
Info: Looking for Mixed? That was this mode's earlier name. It is called Hybrid now — same mode, and nothing about your data changed.
