Customers

What it does

Customers are the business accounts your WhatsApp contacts and store users belong to, each identified by a reference and carrying the attributes your segments target.

If you also use ProConnect E-commerce, every account in your B2B Store appears here automatically under its customer ID, usually within minutes of your customer or account file being imported. It arrives without a name or attributes until you add them, and its page lists the store users that sign in under it.

When to use it

Use it to add a customer account by hand, correct a customer's name, keep attributes such as region or store type current so segments target the right accounts, check which contacts and segments a customer belongs to, or take a copy of your customer list.

For bulk changes, upload a file instead. See Import WhatsApp customers.

Steps

Find a customer

1. Open CRM → Customers.
2. Type all or part of a reference in Search by reference.... The list narrows as you type.
3. Select a reference to open that customer.

The search matches the reference only, not the name or attributes.

Create a customer

1. Open CRM → Customers and select Create Customer.
2. Under Customer details, enter the Reference. Use letters, numbers, hyphens, underscores and ampersands, up to 36 characters, unless your company uses 9-digit references, in which case enter exactly nine digits. References are saved in lowercase.
3. Enter the Name if you have one. It is optional and is what the customer is listed under.
4. Under Attributes, fill in Key and Value for anything you want to segment on, for example a key of region with a value of North. Select Add attribute for another pair, or Remove attribute to delete one.
5. Select Create Customer.

Fill in both Key and Value on any attribute you add, and use each key only once. Leave a pair completely blank to ignore it.

Edit a customer

1. Open the customer and select Edit.
2. Change the Name or the Attributes, then select Save Changes.

The Reference cannot be changed after creation. If a reference is wrong, create the customer again under the correct reference, move each linked contact to the new customer from the contact's own page (see Contacts), then delete the old record. Contacts left on the deleted customer stop being included in campaigns sent to a segment.

Saving replaces the customer's whole attribute list with what is on screen, so remove a pair only when you want that attribute gone.

Delete a customer

1. Open the customer and select Delete.
2. In Delete customer?, select Delete to confirm, or Cancel to keep the customer.

The record is kept and shown with a Deleted badge; it no longer appears in the customer list and cannot be edited.

Export your customers

1. Open CRM → Customers and select Export.
2. Choose Excel (.xlsx) or CSV (.csv).

The export covers every active customer, not just the ones matching your search, and includes a column for each attribute key in use.

Import customers

1. Open CRM → Customers and select Import WhatsApp Customers.
2. You are taken to WhatsApp → Imports with the Import WhatsApp Customers CSV dialog open. Choose an Import mode before selecting a file.

The file format and import modes are covered in Import WhatsApp customers.

What you'll see

The customer list shows newest first, with Reference, Name, Contacts, Attributes and Created. The Attributes column shows the first three attributes and a count of any others. Deleted customers are not listed. With no customers saved the table reads No customers yet., and a search with no matches reads No customers match your filters. Long lists are split into pages of 50, with page controls above and below the table, and the count names your search, for example Showing 1–3 of 3 customers matching “A1023”.

A customer's page is headed by its name, or its reference where no name is saved, with the reference shown beside it as a badge. Below that:

• Customer details - Reference, Name, Store users (companies with a B2B Store; each links to the user under eCommerce → Users, or None), Contacts linked, Created and Deleted at.
• Attributes - every key and value saved against the customer, or No attributes recorded. where none are saved.
• Matched segments - the active segments whose conditions this customer currently matches, each linking to the segment, or This customer does not match any active segments. See Segments.
• Contacts - the WhatsApp contacts linked to this customer, each linking to the contact, or No contacts linked yet. where none are linked. See Contacts.

Some accounts are marked Internal. These are managed for you and offer no Edit or Delete buttons.

If something goes wrong

• A customer with this reference already exists: the reference is already in use, and references are matched in lowercase, so CUST001 and cust001 are the same reference. Search the customer list and edit that record. If it is not in the list, the reference belongs to a customer you deleted - deleted customers keep their reference. Use a different reference, or re-add the customer through Import WhatsApp customers, which restores a deleted customer with that reference.
• Check the form and try again: the reference must be letters, numbers, hyphens, underscores or ampersands up to 36 characters, or exactly nine digits if your company uses 9-digit references. Every attribute needs both a key and a value, and each key can only be used once.
• Unsupported customer attributes: this customer holds attribute data that cannot be edited on screen, so editing is switched off to avoid overwriting it. Contact your onboarding manager.
• You do not have access to update customers for this company: you are signed in to an account without access to this company. Contact your onboarding manager.
• This customer could not be found: the customer has been deleted, or the page address is out of date. Return to CRM → Customers and search again.
• We couldn't save this customer. Please try again: reload the page and save again. If it keeps failing, contact your onboarding manager.
• We couldn't export. Please try again: large lists take a moment to build. Wait, then select Export again.
• A customer is missing from the list: check the later pages, then check you are searching by reference rather than name, and that the customer was not deleted. Newly imported customers appear once their import has finished.
• A customer I deleted is back in the list: it was included in a later customer import, which restores it. Remove the row from the file you upload, or see Import WhatsApp customers. If you use ProConnect E-commerce, a customer that is still in your store's customer or account file is restored by the next import of that file.
• A customer matches no segments: compare the customer's attribute keys and values with the segment's conditions. Keys and values must match what the segment looks for.

Attributes and segments

Attributes are free-form key and value pairs, such as region / North or store_type / Cafe. Segments match on these values and on the customer reference, so keep keys and values consistent across your customers - North and north east in the same key will not match the same condition.

Keys are matched exactly too, including capitals: an attribute added by hand as region will not match a segment condition built on an imported REGION column. Copy the key from an existing customer or from your import file's column heading. The same customer cannot hold two keys that differ only in capitals.

Attributes arriving from an import use your file's column headers as keys, so reuse those same keys when adding a customer by hand.