Looking after customers

The customer list

Open a shop and go to CRM → Customers. The list shows every customer for that shop, with columns for their Ref, Name, the date they were added (Since), their Last Invoice date, number of Invoices, and Sales. You can search the list and sort by any of these columns.

You can filter the list down using a global search box (it matches names, and postcodes when you type one), by Tag, by Country, and by whether a customer has ever placed an order or not.

Adding a customer

Press Create Customer on the list. The form is short and sits under one section, Contact:

• Company — the customer's company name, if they have one.
• Contact name — required. The person you deal with.
• Email
• Phone
• Address — a full address form, pre-filled with the shop's own country.
• Tax number

Saving the form creates the customer and takes you to their page.

The customer page

Opening a customer from the list takes you to their page, which is organised into tabs:

• Overview — the showcase summary of the customer.
• Timeline — a history of activity.
• Journey — the customer's journey through the shop.
• History — an audit trail of changes.
• Attachments — files attached to the customer.
• Payments
• Credit transactions
• Favourites — products the customer has favourited.
• Reminders
• Dispatched emails — emails aiku has sent them.
• Offers

From here you can also reach the customer's orders, invoices, delivery notes, returns, replacements and upcoming transactions — each has its own screen linked from the customer's page.

Customer states and status

Every customer carries two separate readings, and both show as coloured badges.

The state tracks where a customer is in their relationship with the shop:

• In Process — still being set up.
• Registered — has an account but has not become a regular yet.
• Active — currently buying.
• Potential Comebacks — used to buy, has gone quiet, but may come back.
• Dormant — has not bought for a long time.

The status tracks approval:

• Pre Registration
• Pending Approval
• Approved
• Rejected
• Banned

A customer usually needs to be Approved before they can trade normally — this is a separate decision from their state.

Web users: the customer's website logins

A customer can have more than one login to the shop's website — useful when several people at the same company need their own account. You manage these from the customer's Web Users screen.

Each web user has:

• Type — Customer or API user.
• Username — must be unique on that shop's website.
• Admin — a toggle marking this login as an admin login for the customer.
• Password

Press Create Web User from the list to add one; opening a web user shows their username as the page title and lets you edit their details.

Addresses

A customer keeps a contact address (used for correspondence and tax purposes) and can have delivery addresses used on their orders, both captured as full address forms — country, postcode, and the rest — on the customer's own record and when creating or editing the customer.

Prospects: people who are not customers yet

Prospects are a separate list from customers, kept under CRM → Prospects on the same shop. A prospect moves through its own states as you work them:

• No contacted
• Contacted
• Fail
• Success

Prospects have their own Create Prospect button, their own export, and their own mailshots for reaching out to them in bulk. When a prospect becomes a real customer, aiku matches them up rather than leaving two separate records behind.