Find customers and avoid duplicates

Overview

• POS and Back Office customer search can use customer identity/contact information; the customer service also supports searching names, email, phone, POS hint, notes, and Customer Group.
• Duplicate profiles split order history and loyalty context, so searching before Quick create is important.
• Email uniqueness prevents one common duplicate case, but customers without email can still be duplicated accidentally.

When to use this

• Use search whenever a returning customer says they already have points/account history but staff cannot immediately find them.

Step-by-step

1. Search by name first.
2. If uncertain, try phone or email.
3. Compare customer group and recent-order context before selecting a similarly named profile.
4. Only use Quick create when you are confident the customer is genuinely new.
5. If you discover incorrect details after selecting the right person, edit the existing customer rather than creating another.

Common mistakes

• Do not create a new profile because a customer changed phone number.
• Do not assume two people with the same name are the same customer; confirm contact details.
• Do not attach an order to a similar-looking profile just to award points.

Troubleshooting

• If search by formatted phone is awkward, try the digits/name/email because phone values are normalized for lookup.
• If duplicate profiles already exist, avoid adding further transactions to the wrong profile while deciding how to correct the records.