Viewing Customer Information

To locate a customer, select Customers > Locate a Customer. You can perform your search using a number of filters. You can also browse all registered customers by clicking on View All. A list of customers matching your search criteria will be shown: you can then sort them by last name, phone number, company name, or customer type (wholesale vs. retail customers). The customer type column shows not only whether the customer is a retail vs. wholesale customer, but also the pricing category, if any.

When you find the customer you were looking for, click on the Edit button to view the customer profile. The page looks the same when you are editing or adding a new customer.

Here is a brief description of the fields shown on the add/edit customer page:

• Lock the customer account
  The customer will remain in the database, but he/she will no longer be able to log in and/or place orders.
• Suspend the account
  The customer can log into the account and browse the catalog, but not place an order. The difference between locking and suspending an account is that in the first scenario the customer can no longer log in (e.g. to view previous orders, etc.).
• Customer type
  Change the customer type from retail to wholesale (or vice versa). For a list of differences between retail and wholesale customers, please refer to the corresponding section. If pricing categories have been added to the store, you will also be able to assign the customer to a pricing category. Depending on whether the selected pricing category has been setup to have wholesale privileges, the customer will also be considered a wholesale customer or not.
• Billing and default shipping address
  You can review and edit the customer’s billing address and default shipping address (if any). You cannot review and edit other shipping addresses created by the customer.
• Newsletter preferences
  Subscribe or unsubscribe the customer to the list of customers that opted to receive news from you (if the feature has been turned on). If you want the ability to manage multiple newsletter lists (e.g. a customer could opt to receive “product updates”, but not “partner offers”), review the integration with the MailUp newsletter management system.
• View/update the customer’s accrued Reward Points.
• Place an order on behalf of the customer
  When you click on this button, ProductCart will load a new browser window and automatically log you into the customer account so that you can place an order on behalf of the customer.
• View the customer’s Gift Registries or add a new one.
• Consolidate Account
  this feature allows you to consolidate orders from multiple customer accounts so that they all appear under the same account. For example, the same customer might have registered more than once with your store. To properly keep track of his or her orders, it might make sense to consolidate under one account all of the orders placed by same customer.
  • Ask the customer which account they prefer to use, and then locate any of the accounts that they do not wish to maintain. When you load the customer details page for one of those accounts, click on the Consolidate Account button. A search page will be displayed.
  • Look for the customer account to which you would like to reassign the orders now listed under the current account.
  • Click on Move Order to Selected Account to complete the task. A confirmation page will confirm that the two accounts have been consolidated successfully.
  • At this point you can delete from the customer database the customer accounts that no longer have orders assigned to them.
• Delete the customer
  When you click on the Delete button, the following occurs:
  • If there ARE NO orders associated with the selected customer, the customer account is permanently deleted from the database. If the customer had initiated, but not completed one or more orders (i.e. incomplete orders), they are also deleted.
  • If there ARE orders associated with the selected customer, you will be prompted to either Remove the customer account, but keep the associated orders in the database, OR Delete the customer account and all of the associated orders from the database.
  • When a customer is deleted from the database, ProductCart will also delete all Wish List entries made by the customer and all the credit card information submitted by the customer (if the store is using offline credit card processing).

On the customer search results page, click on the Place Order link to be automatically logged into the storefront as the selected customer. You can use this feature to place orders on behalf of one of your customers.

Click on the View Orders link to view all orders placed by a customer. The page displays the total number of orders submitted by the customer. The total amount purchased is net of canceled and incomplete orders. By default, orders are sorted by date, with the latest order shown first. Click on the arrow at the top of the page to change the order in which records are shown. The order number, total order amount, order date, and the current order status are shown. Click on View Invoice to view a printer-friendly version of the order.

Click on View & Process Process Order to move to the Order Management area of the Control Panel. Refer to that chapter for detailed information about how to process an order, and to understand the “order status” and its implications.