Converting a Lead does not bring over Lead Fields

[BillyD]

We have leads that are generated all the time from our web site or from our Marketing team, part of their daily role is to open the lead, check for duplicates (merge where appropriate) or convert the leads into contacts.

When a lead is a new lead (existing contact does not exist) and it is converted the lead fields are properly updated when the lead becomes a contact.  This is of course using the 'Lead Custom Field mapping'.

What we noticed is when a lead is converted and it's converted into an Existing account and into an existing contact the custom fields that were selected are not mapped across on the existing lead.

Why is this, does the existing contact never get updated using the field mapping, should there not be sometime of mapping guide to allow you to select the fields that should correct on the contact (like the Account merges)?

I am looking to solve this or find out why this is happening as we have lots of data from a trade show that is causing us to do a lot of manual updating.  Any help is appreciated!

[Harry James · Accepted solution]

Populated fields in the existing Contact are not over-written.  The exception is that there is an option to change the Lead Source in the Contact record.

The only workaround that I know of is to create a new Contact when converting and then merge the duplicate Contact records, choosing the values to retain in the surviving Contact record. 

[BillyD]

That is what I suspected, thanks Harry!