Recommend Contacts
Get AI-ranked contact recommendations at a target company, personalized to your ZoomInfo interaction history and CRM win patterns — with engagement priority guidance.
Overview
The Recommend Contacts skill surfaces AI-ranked contact recommendations at a specific company, personalized to you based on your ZoomInfo platform activity and — when integrated with your CRM — your historical win patterns. It answers the question revenue reps face constantly: "Who at this account should I actually talk to?"
Unlike a generic contact search, recommendations are ranked by both relevance to your past engagement patterns and contact reachability (accuracy score). The skill supports three distinct use cases that pull from different signals: cold prospecting based on your ZoomInfo browsing history, deal acceleration based on contacts in closed-won new business, and renewal & growth based on contacts in expansion wins.
Results are enriched with full contact details — email, direct dial, title, department — and the skill explains why each person was recommended based on the reference contacts that drove the suggestion. A final engagement priority section identifies who to contact first, with reasoning about entry point vs. decision-maker sequencing.
What It Does
- Three recommendation modes: Prospecting (based on ZoomInfo platform activity), Deal Acceleration (based on CRM closed-won new business), and Renewal & Growth (based on CRM expansion wins)
- Personalized ranking: Recommendations reflect your team's specific engagement history, not generic popularity
- Full contact enrichment: Each recommended contact is enriched with email, direct phone, management level, and accuracy score
- Why-recommended explanations: The reference contact driving each recommendation is surfaced so you understand the signal behind the suggestion
- Engagement priority guidance: Top 5 contacts to engage first, with reasoning about sequence — entry points vs. decision-makers
Use Cases
Net-New Account Prospecting
When entering a new account cold, use the Prospecting mode to get a ranked list of contacts based on who you and your team have engaged with at similar accounts on ZoomInfo. The recommendations prioritize personas that have historically been high-signal for your team — not just the most senior titles.
Deal Acceleration
During an active opportunity, use Deal Acceleration mode to find additional stakeholders at the account who match the contact patterns from your past closed-won deals. Expand your coverage of the buying committee with contacts most likely to be relevant to your specific selling motion.
Renewal and Expansion Planning
Ahead of a renewal cycle or expansion conversation, use Renewal & Growth mode to surface contacts whose profiles align with the champions and influencers from your successful renewal playbook. Identify who to loop in before the contract conversation starts.
Skill Definition
The raw markdown Claude uses when this skill is invoked.
--- name: recommended-contacts description: Get AI-powered contact recommendations at a target company based on your ZoomInfo interaction history. Provide a company name or domain and optionally a use case. --- # Recommended Contacts Get ML-ranked contact recommendations at a target company, personalized to your ZoomInfo usage and CRM data. ## Input The user will provide via `$ARGUMENTS`: - A company name, domain, or ZoomInfo company ID (required) - Optionally: a use case — "prospecting", "deal acceleration", or "renewal" (defaults to PROSPECTING) - Optionally: how many results they want (defaults to 25, max 100) ## Workflow 1. **Lookup metadata first** — before calling any other MCP tool, use `lookup` to load reference data for any fields relevant to the request. Use the returned `id` values (not display names) in all subsequent API calls. This ensures accurate parameter resolution and result interpretation. 2. **Resolve the company** if the user provided a name or domain: - Use `search_companies` with `companyName` or `companyWebsite` to find the company — use lookup `id` values for any filters. - Extract the ZoomInfo company ID from the result. 3. **Enrich the company** using `enrich_companies` with the resolved `companyId` to get firmographic context (industry, size, revenue, business model). This context is used to interpret the recommendations. 4. **Map the use case** to the correct enum value: - "prospecting" or default → `PROSPECTING` (based on contacts you've viewed, copied, or exported on the ZoomInfo platform; has cold-start support) - "deal acceleration" or "new business" → `DEAL_ACCELERATION` (based on contacts in closed-won CRM opportunities for new business) - "renewal", "growth", or "expansion" → `RENEWAL_AND_GROWTH` (based on contacts in closed-won CRM opportunities for renewals) 5. **Get recommendations** using `get_recommended_contacts` with: - `ziCompanyId`: the resolved ZoomInfo company ID - `useCaseType`: the mapped enum value - `pageSize`: user-specified count or 25 6. **Enrich the top contacts** using `enrich_contacts` on the top 10 results (batch of 10) to get full contact details including email, direct phone, and accuracy scores. ## Output Format ### Target Company One-line summary: [Company Name] — [Industry], [Employee Count] employees, [Revenue], [HQ Location] ### Use Case State which use case was used and what it means: - **PROSPECTING**: "Recommendations based on contacts similar to those you've recently viewed, copied, or exported in ZoomInfo." - **DEAL_ACCELERATION**: "Recommendations based on contact patterns from your CRM's closed-won new business deals." - **RENEWAL_AND_GROWTH**: "Recommendations based on contact patterns from your CRM's closed-won renewal deals." ### Recommended Contacts | Rank | Name | Title | Department | Management Level | Email | Direct Phone | Accuracy | Score | |------|------|-------|------------|-----------------|-------|-------------|----------|-------| | 1 | | | | | | | | | | 2 | | | | | | | | | For each contact, use the `meta` field from the recommendation response to explain WHY they were recommended. The meta describes the reference person the recommendation was based on. Present this as a "Why Recommended" note below the table or as an additional column. ### Recommendation Analysis Group the recommended contacts by pattern: - **By Department**: Which departments are most represented? (e.g., "8 of 25 are in Sales, 6 in Marketing") - **By Seniority**: What management levels dominate? (e.g., "Heavily weighted toward Director and VP") - **By Function**: What job functions appear most? (e.g., "Strong signal toward revenue-facing roles") Use the resolved lookup values to categorize accurately — do not guess department or management level labels. ### Engagement Priority Rank the top 5 contacts to engage first, with reasoning: - Who has the highest combined relevance (recommendation score) and reachability (accuracy score)? - Who is the likely entry point vs. the likely decision-maker? - Suggested outreach sequence ### Next Steps - Use `/zoominfo:enrich-contact` to deep-dive on any specific person - Use `/zoominfo:find-buyers` if you need to filter by specific persona criteria beyond what recommendations provide - If recommendations are sparse, note that PROSPECTING recommendations improve as you use ZoomInfo more (view, copy, export contacts). DEAL_ACCELERATION and RENEWAL_AND_GROWTH require CRM integration. ### Important Notes on Scores - The `score` (general similarity) and `reRankingScore` (propensity-adjusted) are not directly comparable to each other - Higher scores indicate stronger fit but do not guarantee response rates - Recommendations refresh daily based on your latest platform and CRM activity
Created by
Rowan Bailey
Senior Director, Product
Provided by
ZoomInfo ↗Capabilities
- Personalized recommendations based on your ZoomInfo activity
- CRM-informed recommendations for deal acceleration and renewals
- Three use case modes: Prospecting, Deal Acceleration, Renewal & Growth
- Enriched contact details (email, direct phone, accuracy score)
- Engagement priority ranking with reasoning