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A customer’s profile is a single page holding everything your store knows about that person. Part of it is a record the store keeps as they shop: what they have spent, every order they have placed, and the store credit and gift cards they hold. The rest can be set or changed from the dashboard: their contact details and addresses, the groups they belong to, their tax registration, and the tags and notes your team keeps on them. Open a customer profile whenever a customer gets in touch. Their order history can answer a lot of questions before you even have to ask anything. A customer chasing a parcel, querying a payment or waiting on a refund is answered by the badges beside each order: whether it has shipped, whether it was paid for, whether money has already gone back, and whether it was canceled. A profile is updated whenever something about the customer changes. Often that happens on the customer’s own side, as they place an order, change their address or update their email. The rest of the time a member of staff makes the change for them, which covers everything the customer could do themselves and a few things they cannot, such as: assigning them to a group, issuing store credit, or leaving an internal note. To open a customer’s page, navigate to Customers in the admin dashboard and click their email address.

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Reviewing a Customer

A customer's page, with their details, addresses, orders and store credit Across the top of the page is a strip of figures covering the whole relationship: Below it, the page consists of a number of cards arranged into two columns. Some are a record of what the customer has done and can manage themselves. The rest are yours to change, if and when necessary, each from its own card.

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How to Manage a Customer

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Profile

Their email address, phone number, whether they are subscribed to marketing, and when they became a customer. Edit opens a form holding:
  • Email - Their email address.
  • First name and Last name - Their name.
  • Phone - A contact number.
  • Tags - Your own labels. Typing a word that does not exist yet offers to create it.
  • Subscribed to marketing - Whether they have agreed to receive marketing.
Tags are how you find a group of customers again later, using the Tags filter on the customers list. They are also the quickest thing to set in bulk from that list.

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Customer Groups

Which groups the customer belongs to, if any. A customer can belong to multiple groups at once, so someone can be in both the Wholesale and VIP groups without the two conflicting. Edit opens a searchable picker for adding and removing them. Membership is what a promotion’s customer group rule reads, and what a catalog reads when a group has been set as its audience, so this is the card that decides which offers the customer qualifies for and which assortment and prices they are shown on the storefront. This card is one of only two places membership can be set. The other is the customers list, where ticking rows gives you Add to group… and Remove from group… for several people at once. A group’s own page cannot add or remove anyone, so this card is where a single customer’s membership is managed. See Customer Groups.

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Addresses

Every address on file, each under its own label, with badges marking which one is the default for billing and which for shipping. There is no limit on how many a customer can keep, though no two of theirs can share a label, so a second address called Home has to be named something else. Add address takes:
  • Label - Your own name for the site, such as Home or Office.
  • First name and Last name - Who the parcel is for, prefilled from the profile.
  • Address and Apartment, suite, etc. - The street address.
  • Country, City, State / Province and Postal code - Where it is.
  • Phone - A contact number, prefilled from the profile.
  • Default billing address and Default shipping address - Whether this becomes the default for either purpose, or both.
Which of these are required depends on the country, which is why a state has to be picked on a US address and no postal code is asked for on an Irish one. Each address has its own Actions menu, offering Edit, the option to set it as one of the defaults, and Delete. Deleting the default billing or shipping address does not leave the customer without one: the most recently added of their remaining addresses takes its place.
These are the customer’s own saved addresses, and an order keeps its own copy of the address it was placed with. Changing or deleting an address here leaves orders already placed exactly as they were, so correcting where a parcel is going is done on the order itself. See Processing Orders.

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Tax Registration

Two tax registrations on one customer, an EU VAT number and a UK one The VAT or business numbers the customer trades under. A number recorded here appears on the customer’s invoices, and it is what makes EU B2B reverse charge possible. Add registration takes:
  • Kind - Which registration this is: EU VAT, UK VAT, Swiss VAT, Australian Business Number or US EIN.
  • Number - The registration number itself.
One registration of each kind can be held at once, so a customer registered under more than one tax regime keeps them all on this card. A UK trader selling into the EU is the usual case, holding a UK VAT number at home and an EU VAT registration for what they sell into Europe. Having both on the profile saves the team going back to the customer to ask, and gives the store a registration to hand to its tax service when an order’s tax is worked out.
A number is only format-checked where the store has a checker for that kind of registration, and a stock Spree store ships one for EU VAT. A registration marked Not checked has not been confirmed against the tax authority’s own register, which is a separate step from the check made when it is saved.
A registration on a person is for someone trading in their own name. A business buying through a company account has its registrations on the company instead. See Companies.

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Internal Note

Anything your team should know about this customer, such as what was agreed on a phone call. It takes formatted text, and only staff see it.

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Last Order Placed

The Last order placed card, showing the most recent order and what was on it The customer’s most recent order, with its number, its payment and fulfillment badges, how long ago it was placed, its total, and the items that were on it. It is the card that answers a customer who has just got in touch, because the order they are calling about is almost always this one.

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Orders

The Orders card, listing every order the customer has placed Every order the customer has placed, with its date, status and total. Click an order to open it. Both cards are a record and cannot be edited here. Changing an order happens on the order itself. See Orders.

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Store Credit and Gift Cards

The Store credit card after a credit was issued Store credit lists every credit the customer holds, and Issue store credit adds one. Any gift cards attached to them appear alongside. Both are balances you owe, so they are worth checking before you settle anything else with the customer. See Store Credits and Gift Cards.

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Custom Fields

The Custom fields card on a customer's page The extra customer fields your store has defined, each edited in place on the profile. They suit anything your team needs to record against a customer that Spree has no field for, such as the account manager looking after them, how they prefer to be contacted, standing delivery instructions, or the payment terms agreed with a trade buyer. Which fields appear, and which are required, is set under Custom Fields.

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Metadata

Structured data that apps and integrations write to the customer, such as an identifier from a system your store is connected to. It is read-only: nothing on this card is filled in or edited by your team.

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Privacy and Data

The Privacy and data card, with the Export data and Erase personal data buttons The last card on the page answers a data protection request, whether the customer wants a copy of what you hold or wants it removed. It also records when their marketing consent last changed. Both of its buttons matter. Export data gathers everything the store holds about the customer into a file. Erase personal data strips those details out of the store and cannot be undone, which makes it the one control on the profile worth being certain about before pressing.

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How to Export a Customer’s Data

Export data downloads a complete record of what the store holds about that person: their account and marketing consent, their addresses, their orders, split-checkout order groups, draft orders and carts, their payment sources and connected logins, their store credits, gift cards and wishlists, their custom fields, and any companies and tax identifiers. The file downloads straight away, and nothing is sent to the customer. The request is recorded against your store, so there is a record that it was answered.
This is a different thing from the customer export on the list, which gives a spreadsheet row per person. Use this one when someone asks for everything you hold about them.

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How to Erase a Customer’s Personal Data

Erase personal data removes the customer’s personal details from everywhere the store holds them, and asks you to confirm first. A customer's page after erasure Afterwards the page is marked as erased, the name and email are replaced, and the record shows the date the erasure happened. The customer drops out of the default customers list, and the Erased filter is how you find them again.
Erasing cannot be undone. The customer’s orders and balances are kept, because your books still need them, but the person behind them can no longer be identified.
Erasing is the only removal the dashboard offers. There is no way to delete a customer outright, which is deliberate: their orders are part of your trading record, and deleting the customer would take that with them.

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Further Reading

  • Customers - The list, its filters, and adding a customer
  • Customer Groups - What a group changes for the people in it
  • Companies - Business accounts and the people who buy for them
  • Orders - The orders on this customer’s page
  • Store Credits - Issuing and tracking credit