The Backstory: Your team works in an industry with job titles that do not fit the standard categories, so contacts keep landing in the wrong department or seniority. Rather than accepting these mismatches or correcting them by hand, you set up Custom Title Classification with your CSM to reclassify titles the way your business actually uses them. This gives you cleaner persona data, more accurate segmentation, and reporting you can trust.
Custom Title Classification lets Backstory sort your contacts into the departments and seniorities that match your business, even when their job titles do not fit the standard categories. Backstory normally classifies contacts using a built-in model, but that model cannot be edited directly, so a custom classification fills the gaps for specialized roles or industry-specific titles. You work with your CSM to define the rules, and Backstory then applies them automatically to the contacts it creates and updates. Custom and default classification work together, so any title your custom rules do not capture is still covered by the default model.
Set Up Custom Title Classification
Custom Title Classification is configured with help from your Backstory team. The steps below explain what to expect during the process.
Reach out to your Customer Success Manager (CSM) to start the process.
Attend a discovery session where your CSM learns about your business needs and the titles your team works with.
Decide whether you want custom classification for Department, Seniority, or both.
Decide whether to reclassify titles into existing departments or seniorities, or create new ones.
Identify the roles you want to reclassify and note any that already have a mapping.
Review the list of classification rules your CSM builds from this information. Rules match titles at the keyword level, so a single rule can cover title variations such as Solutions Engineer and Sr. Solutions Engineer. See the example custom title list below.
Confirm the finalized list. Your CSM works to validate that the classifications produce the expected results and to catch any errors.
Once checks are complete, the list is added to Backstory's contact creation engine. Going forward, every contact Backstory creates or updates is run against your rules and classified to your specifications.
Example Custom Title List
Title | Classification |
Information Systems | IT |
Chief Information Officer | IT |
Consultant | Customer Service |
Marketing | Marketing |
Technical Consultant | Customer Service |
Technical Project Manager | Operations |
Technical | Engineering |
Finance | Finance |
Frequently Asked Questions
What happens if a title does not match any rule?
Any title your custom rules do not capture is handled by the default classification model. If a title cannot be classified at all, it is returned as NULL, and you can work with your CSM to resolve it.
Do I need to recalculate to apply this to past contacts?
No. The classifications are applied to your existing contacts automatically, so no recalculation is required to capture them historically.
Which contacts get reclassified?
Backstory updates the contacts it creates or updates. Coverage can extend to additional contacts if your organization has Premium Contact Enrichment or has seniority and department updating enabled in Summary Push.
Does this work for non-English titles?
Yes. Titles in any language can be supported.
How does this affect the Executive Engaged flag?
The Executive Engaged flag only counts a contact as Executive if their seniority level is Vice President or Executive. Any persona you want to count toward that flag must be configured for one of those two seniorities.
Need Help?
Contact your Customer Success Manager or support@backstory.ai.