Customers

What it does

The customer importer creates and updates your customer accounts in bulk from a CSV file, including the attributes your segments target.

When to use it

• You have a fresh list of trading accounts to load before you start using WhatsApp.
• You need to refresh attributes such as region or store type so your segments target the right accounts.
• A back-office change means names or attributes are out of date.
• You want your ProConnect customer list to match a list you maintain elsewhere exactly.

Import customers before contacts, because contacts are linked to customers by the customer reference in the file.

For one or two changes, edit the customer by hand in CRM → Customers instead. See Customers.

Steps

1. Open WhatsApp → Imports.
2. Select Import WhatsApp Customers.
3. Under Import mode, choose Add or update or Replace current list. See Import modes below for what each one does. Pick CSV file stays disabled until you choose one. Companies with a B2B Store do not see this step: their store's customer file is the list, so every upload adds or updates.
4. Optional: under Example CSV, select Download to get a template to build your file from.
5. Select Pick CSV file and choose your file. It must end in .csv, and the upload starts as soon as you choose it.
6. Wait for Upload complete. Import is processing now and will appear in Imports shortly. The dialog closes itself a moment later; you can also select Close.

What you'll see

Your upload appears on the Imports page within a few seconds, with Folder showing customers. The status moves from Ongoing to Success or Failed, and the page updates on its own while it runs. See Imports for what each status means and where to read the error. ProConnect does not email you the result, so check the page.

When it finishes, open CRM → Customers to check the result. Each imported customer is listed under its reference, with its name and attributes on its page, and its attributes become available to segments.

An Add or update file with some bad rows finishes as Failed even though the good rows were saved. The error reads like Processed 500 rows: 498 succeeded, 2 failed. row 14: REFERENCE is required; row 221: ..., listing up to 25 rows and then the number of further failures. Fix the listed rows and upload the file again. Row numbers count the header row, so row 2 is the first customer in the file.

If something goes wrong

A failed Replace current list import reports the problem as a single row 14: ... or rows 2-501: ... message, and nothing in that file was applied.

• "Choose an import mode before selecting a CSV file.": select Add or update or Replace current list first; Pick CSV file stays disabled until you do.
• "Please select a CSV file.": the file you chose is not a .csv. Save or export your spreadsheet as CSV and choose it again.
• "We couldn't upload this CSV file. Please try again.": the file never reached ProConnect, so nothing was changed. Try again, and contact your onboarding manager if it keeps failing.
• "Use a CSV with REFERENCE as a required column, NAME as an optional column, and any extra columns for customer segmentation fields.": the header row is wrong. Check that REFERENCE is present and spelled in capitals exactly, that no header cell is blank, and that no header appears twice. Nothing in the file was applied.
• "CSV cannot include both REFERENCE and CUSTOMER_NO. Use only one reference column.": keep whichever reference column you use and delete the other.
• "CSV cannot include both NAME and CUST_TRADING_NAME. Use only one name column.": keep whichever name column you use and delete the other.
• "REFERENCE is required" on a row: that row has an empty reference cell. Remove the row or fill the reference in.
• "REFERENCE can only contain letters, numbers, hyphens, underscores, and ampersands" or "REFERENCE must be 36 characters or fewer": correct the reference shown in the message. If your company's references are fixed at nine digits, you will see "REFERENCE must be exactly 9 digits" or "REFERENCE must contain digits only" instead; the message quotes the value it received.
• "CSV file does not contain any data rows": a Replace current list file needs at least one customer row below the header. Nothing was changed.
• The import shows Success but nothing changed: an Add or update file with only a header row and no customer rows below it imports nothing and still reports Success. Open the file, check it has customer rows below the header, and upload it again.
• "Another customers import is already running for this company. Please wait for it to finish and try again." or "Another import is currently running for this company": wait for the Ongoing customer import to show Success, Failed or Stopped, then upload your file again. Nothing from the rejected file was applied.
• "Import stopped after 25 consecutive row failures": 25 rows in a row could not be saved, which points at a temporary problem saving data rather than at your file. Rows saved before that point are kept. Wait a few minutes and upload the whole file again — re-uploading the same file is safe because each row is matched on its reference. If it happens again, contact your onboarding manager with the Started time of the import.
• Customers are missing after a replace: upload your complete list again. A customer removed by an earlier replace comes back with its name and attributes when a later file includes its reference.
• An attribute has disappeared: each import replaces a customer's whole attribute set with the extra columns in the file. Keep every attribute column in every file, including the ones you are not changing.
• Names have been cleared: the file included a NAME column with blank cells. Leave the column out entirely to keep existing names.
• The same customer appears with different details than expected: if a reference appears on more than one row, the last row in the file wins. Remove the duplicate rows.
• Status shows Stopped: part of the file may have been applied. Check your customer list, then upload the complete file again. Very large files are the usual cause, so split the file and upload the parts.
• Still stuck: contact your onboarding manager with the Started time of the import and the error it reported.

Import modes

Add or update

• Adds customers whose reference is new, and updates customers whose reference already exists.
• Leaves customers missing from the file exactly as they are.
• Keeps going when a row fails, so the valid rows are still saved.
• Replaces the attributes of every customer it updates with the extra columns in this file.
• Replaces the name only when the file includes a NAME column.

Replace current list

Not available to companies with a B2B Store, whose customer list comes from the store's customer and account files. A replace upload from such a company fails with Replace current list is not available for companies with a B2B Store. Use Add or update.

• Makes your file the complete customer list in one import.
• Removes every customer missing from the file from your active list, so they stop matching segments.
• Applies nothing at all if any row fails, leaving your current list untouched.
• Needs at least one customer row below the header.
• Replaces attributes, and names, on the same terms as Add or update.

Columns

Header names must be in capitals exactly as shown, every header must be filled in, and no header may appear twice. Unlike the eCommerce importers, headers in a different letter case are not recognised. Cell values are trimmed, so surrounding spaces are ignored. There is no limit on the number of rows or the file size, but larger files take longer to finish.

References are saved in lower case, so CUST001 and cust001 are the same customer.

CUSTOMER_NO and CUST_TRADING_NAME are still accepted in place of REFERENCE and NAME for older files, but a file must not contain both spellings of the same column.

Anything you send as an extra column is kept on the customer verbatim, including blank values, so keep your column names and their spelling stable between imports.

Example CSV

REFERENCE,NAME,REGION,STORE_TYPE
cust001,ACME Ltd,North,Retail
cust002,XYZ Corp,South,Cafe

Download the sample customer CSV to use as a template.