I think it is very efficient and important for all users to be able to merge contacts regardless of ownership while a user is in the conversation tab, where merge button is available and would allow user to select a dropdown to choose where to merge that contact. It is very painful for users and business owners to always have to go to contacts while cleaning the conversation tab just to merge phone numbers from inbound.

Also, there should be an option to allow any fields (custom or not) in contact to be hidden to any users regardless of role. What if on that contact, we are adding a fee, and other users should not be able to see that field but will need access to that contact as followers, etc for communication purposes. We as business owners should also have an option to hide specific contacts from any users regardless of the role for our high-level client that any users or admin should not have any visibility but us.

This is extremely critical and is lacking privacy for a lot of us business owners who spent a lot of money for Saas here.