View Customers

Overview

The Order Manager builds and maintains a customer list as you import new orders from your shopping cart or enter orders manually. The View Customers screen provides an interface to manage the data associated with each customer. This article contains some information and images that reflect new features of the Order Manager Version 6, and they are noted as such, throughout the article.

It is also possible to import customer information from a text file, and tailor the way that the program attempts to match new customer information on incoming orders or customer records to existing customer records when using the Customer Matching feature. Both of these topics are out of the scope of this article. Please refer to the links provided for more details about each one.   

The View Customers screen can be accessed from:

1. • Main Menu> View Customers

   • View Orders>Addresses tab>View Customer Info button

Understanding the View Customers screen

• Use the navigation arrows at the lower left-hand side of the screen to scroll between customer records.

• In the upper right-hand corner of the screen there is a row of "Action" buttons that perform various functions against the currently viewed Customer record.

• • The Telephone button can be used to call the customer by placing the cursor in the phone number field on the Customer record and clicking the button. This feature requires system parameter ShowPhoneButtons to be set to TRUE or the button will not be visible. There must also be a phone line connected to the workstation for the feature to work.

  • The Apply Payment button allows the user to record payments made against one or more orders. See the example, Apply Payment, for more details.

  • The Print Statement button opens a customer filter form that allows the user to select the customer(s) for whom statements should be printed. See the example, Print Statement, for more details.

  • The Search button opens the Search for Customers window where the user can search for a customer by a variety of data, such as company name, address, email address, contact name, balance information or items that they have purchased, to name a few. Searches on any of the text fields on that screen are "wild card" searches. Fields labels that are marked by an asterisk can only be searched by themselves (you can only specify criteria in one field). See the example, Search for Customers, for details.

  • The Add button opens a blank customer record. Complete the fields on the main upper portion of the screen and click Save to create a new customer record. See the example, Add Customer Records, for more details.

  • Use the Edit button to change information related to an existing customer record. Refer to the example, Edit Customer Information, for more details.

  • The Delete button will remove the customer record from the database. Use this button with caution as there is no way to reverse its action. See the example, Delete Customer Records, for more details. 

  • The Close button will cause the program to exit the View Customers screen.

• In the middle of the screen there are two additional buttons and two check boxes:  

• • If checked, the Do not ship to this customer box will cause program to issue a warning to the user when an order for this customer is being packed, thereby allowing them the opportunity to stop the shipment. If system parameters PackingAllowIfDoNotShip or QuickShipAllowIfDoNotShip are set to TRUE, the user will still have the option to ship the package. If CancelOrdersFromDoNotShipTos is set to TRUE, all orders from that customer will be cancelled by the program. Do not confuse this with the DoNotShipTo list in the List Maintenance feature that is used for Approval Rules, which provides another method for weeding out orders from undesirable sources.

  • The Do not mail to this customer box allows the user to exclude this customer from any bulk e-mailings. The Do not ship to this customer box must also be selected.

  • The Send Email button opens the Send Email (Enter Subject and Message) window, which allows the user to send an email based on any of the email templates in the Select Template list to any of the email addresses that are associated with the current customer record.

  • The Validate button will cause the program to contact the Endicia.com servers (USPS partner) to verify the street address entered on the customer record.

• In the upper right-hand side of the screen there are other miscellaneous settings such as:

• • Tax Information - check the Customer is Tax Exempt checkbox and enter their Tax ID in the field provided, if the customer should not be charged sales tax.

  • Discount - Enter a percentage in the Discount% field OR in the Cost Plus% field to record a reduction in cost to be applied to all of a customer's orders.

  • Price Level - If Price Levels have been defined within the program, the user may assign a particular price level to each customer by selecting it from this drop-down list. If Price Levels have not been defined, this field will not be visible.

  • Source of Initial Order - will reflect the shopping cart from which the order originated. If the order was placed manually, this field will remain blank.

• The lower portion of the screen is divided into tabs which organize additional information related to each customer. Click on a tab to see the data that is stored there. The tabs are Orders & Transactions, Notes, Custom Fields, Web Data, Quotes and Contacts. The Custom Fields tab is not visible unless a custom, customer field has been defined. For more information, see Configuring Custom Fields.

The Orders and Transactions Tab

• The Orders & Transactions tab provides a summary of the customer's most recent orders, transactions and account balance.

• In the upper right-hand corner there are buttons that allow the user to review RFM Data& Order History information for the customer, View (a particular) Order, or create a New Order for that customer.

• • RFM Data & Order History button - RFM is a method used for analyzing customer behavior based on Recency (when was the last order?), Frequency (how many orders has this customer placed?), and Monetary Value (what is the value of this customer's orders?). Click the button, select a date range and see the summary of the Recency, Frequency and total Monetary Value of orders placed in that time frame at the top of the screen. A summary of the orders in the subset will be available in the lower portion of the screen. Use the navigational arrows in the lower left-hand corner of the screen to scroll through the orders to see more details about each one. This functionality is also available via the Show RFM Data button on the Addresses tab of the View Orders screen and via the Order History button on the Addresses tab of the Enter Orders Manually screen. See article Export Customer Data & Send Bulk Email for information about generating customer reports filtered by range of order frequency and/or order value within a selected date range.

The Web Data Tab

• The Web Data tab contains the information that the customer uses to login to their online store. This is only applicable to certain shopping cart systems, such as Yahoo! Store and Yahoo! Merchants Solutions.

The Quotes Tab

• The Quotes tab will display information about any quotes that have been entered into the system for the current customer record. Select a quote by selecting it from the list and clicking the View Quote button. For more information about creating quotes, see the article Saving Orders as Quotes.

Appendix A: Specific Examples of using the "Action" buttons at the top of the View Customers Screen

Apply Payment

The Apply Payment button allows the user to enter a payment and apply it to multiple orders from the current customer with outstanding balances due. This function is primarily for use when accepting payment by check for multiple orders.

1. Open the customer record from whom the payment is being received.

2. Click the Apply Payment button.

3. In the Amount of Payment field at the top, left corner of the screen, enter the amount received. Select the Payment Method and if payment is by check, enter the Check #.

4. Click Allocate Amounts to apply payment to the Amount (Amt.) Due. The Order Manager will apply payment to the oldest orders first, working up to the newest orders. If there is a credit (i.e., payment was greater than amount due), it will be applied to the most recent order.

6. Click Save Payments.

Print Statement

The Print Statement button allows Customer Statements (unpaid orders) or Customer History statements (paid orders) to be printed.

The default report setting for the Print Statement button is Customer Statement. The system parameter, CustomerStatementTemplate, controls which type of statement is active.

To switch the type of statement to be printed:

1. Go to Maintenance Menu> Set System Parameters> Parameter Group> Reports.

2. Select CustomerStatementTemplate.

3. From the drop-down list, select Customer History or Customer Statement.

4. Click Save.

To print a statement:

1. Click Print Statement.

2. In the Customer Statement Filter box (Select Customers window shown below), select the time frame for the orders to be included on the statement. Choose from the buttons provided or type specific dates in the Starting and Ending date fields.

3. You can print a statement for the selected customer using the drop-down menu, or check the All Statements checkbox to print all customer statements.

4. Click Print Report. A preview window allows the report to be previewed or cancelled before printing.

Search for Customers

This section applies to the Search screen that is accessible from the View Customers screen. If you would like more information about the Search screen that is accessible from the Enter Orders Manually and the Point of Sale screens, see Search for Customers. For information about available Quick Search functions, see the Knowledge Base article, Keyboard Shortcuts and Useful Functions.

1. On the View Customers screen, click Search.

2. The Search for Customers dialog box opens.

3. Each of the asterisked (*) fields can be the only search criteria for a given search since the values stored in these fields in the customer records are unique.

4. All other text fields are "wildcard" search criteria. If you wish, you can enter only the first few letters or numbers of a value. The program will search for all customer records with values in the same field that begin with those characters. For example, if you enter "Rob" in the First Name field, the program will return a list of customers who first names are Rob, Robin, Robert and so on.

5. If you enter selection criteria in more than one field, the program will search for customers that match the combination of all of the criteria you entered.

6. You can search for customers who purchased a particular product by entering the product’s SKU in the Purchased this item: text box.

   1. Click Show All to see all SKUs in the Order Manager. Click on a SKU and click Begin Search.

   2. Click on a letter to see all SKUs that start with the letter. Click on a SKU and click Begin Search.

   3. Clicking on the # (pound) button to see all SKUs in the Order Manager that begin with a number. Click on a SKU and click Begin Search.

7. After you enter your search criteria, click Begin Search.

8. You can cancel the search at any time by clicking Cancel.

9. When the search is complete, your view returns to the View Customers screen.

   1. If the search was unsuccessful, you will see a message box stating that no customers were found.

   2. If the search was successful, you will see a count of the records returned in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen. Use the navigation buttons to browse through the search results.

10. To remove the filter and view all customer records:  

    1. Click Search.

    2. Click Begin Search without entering any search criteria.

    3. OR click the Remove Filter icon on the Microsoft Access toolbar (it looks like a funnel).

Note: If you want to search on phone numbers without formatting, set the CustomerSearchField2 system parameter (in the Program group) to Phone - No Formatting; the program removes all non-numeric characters from the number entered prior to performing the search.

Add a Customer

1. Click Add. A blank View Customers screen appears. Enter the customer's information.

2. Click Save.

3. Clicking Close will return you to the View Customers screen without saving any information you may have entered.

Updated 3/29/10

Modified 11/18/11