Customers

This standard governs the customer directory in the customer record system: how customers are found, added, and edited, and how the directory's figures are to be read. It applies to front desk staff, who search, add, and edit customer records daily, and to managers, who merge duplicates and review data quality. The directory holds one row per real person. Every write path finds or creates a customer by email address, so the same person booking twice lands on the same row instead of minting a duplicate. The desk's duty is to protect that rule: search first, create second, merge when the rule breaks anyway. Customer data is handled under the Privacy Policy: it is used for the single purpose of serving that customer, and it shall not be exported without authorization.

The directory

Each directory row is enriched with figures drawn from the customer's real records

• Pets: the pets linked to the customer.
• Lifetime value: the sum of succeeded or captured payments carrying this customer's identifier. Most payments do not carry a customer identifier, so most customers honestly show $0. The directory uses the payment ledger, not a stored lifetime value figure. Where the ledger proves no value, the value is $0; staff shall not correct it by hand.
• Balance: the customer's outstanding balance.
• Last visit: the latest start time among completed appointments, falling back to the stored last-visit date.
• Next appointment: the earliest future appointment that is not cancelled, completed, or no-show, with its service names.
• Assigned staff: the assigned staff member or preferred groomer, otherwise the groomer on the most recent appointment. Where no real assignment exists, the field stays empty.

Search covers first name, last name, email, and phone, by partial match. The list shows 200 rows by default, newest first. For a base of thousands, staff shall search rather than scroll. Missing data shows as empty. Staff shall never assume a missing value; ask the customer.

Adding a customer

Staff shall search before creating, every time: email first, exact; then phone; then last name. The thirty seconds this takes is cheaper than any merge.

When the Add Customer action is used, the system finds or creates by email

• Email is the identity. Two records with the same email, case-insensitive, are the same person to the system. Entering an email that already exists returns the existing row; the system refuses to duplicate.
• No email, no matching. A customer added without an email cannot be matched later. Staff shall always obtain the email. A phone number alone does not match records.
• New rows start as new customers in the lifecycle, under Customer Lifecycle. Abandoned-booking leads, created automatically by the system, start as new leads instead, under Rebooking and Automation.
• Lead source shall be set at creation, from the lead source list: Website, Google, Referral, Social Media, Phone, Walk-In, Campaign, Other. It is how marketing attribution works later, and it cannot be reconstructed after the fact.

Editing a customer

Open the record, change the field, and the change is saved. Three fields require more care than the screen suggests

• Email. This is the matching key and the destination for receipts, reminders, and marketing. Changing it re-points all of those. Confirm the new address verbally with the customer; a typo silently diverts the customer's reminders to a stranger.
• Marketing opt-ins, do-not-call, and do-not-contact flags. These are hard stops, not suggestions. Every sending path checks the record's flags before sending, and lead capture does not override them. If a customer says "stop texting me," staff shall set the flag while the customer is present and tell the customer it is done.
• Phone. Booking information may fill an empty phone field, but it never overwrites a number staff entered. The desk's entry prevails.

The two record sets, plainly

The business keeps an older booking-side record set: customers, dogs, and bookings written by the website booking process and older flows: and the customer record system itself, which every administrative screen reads. A bridge carries each booking into the customer record system: one booking becomes one appointment, one customer (found or created by email), and one pet (matched by the booking's dog record first, then by customer and pet name). The customer record keeps a link back to the booking-side record, as do the pet and the appointment, which carries a human-readable appointment number.

Two consequences follow for the desk

1. A booking without an email never reaches the customer record system. The appointment record requires a customer, and no email means no customer row, with no exceptions. If a walk-in books without giving an email and cannot later be found, that is why. Obtain the email at booking; it is the condition of admission to the whole system.
2. Statuses are converted in transit. The booking side writes forms such as "Completed," "CONFIRMED," and "Checked In"; the customer record system stores completed, confirmed, and in service. If an appointment appears stuck at scheduled when it should be in service, this conversion is the first place to look, under Troubleshooting (CRM Troubleshooting).

Controls

• One person, one row. Staff shall not create a second row for a person who already has one; duplicates are merged under Data Management.
• Customer data shall be used only for serving that customer. No export of the directory, in whole or in part, is permitted without authorization.
• An empty record set means the connection for it is not built, never that it is unused. Staff shall not work around an empty record set with a spreadsheet or a parallel process; flag it so the connection gets built. Spreadsheets become duplicate factories.

Records

Each customer created or edited creates or updates a customer record carrying identity, contact details, lifecycle stage, lead source, opt-in and do-not-contact flags, assigned staff, and outstanding balance, with pets, appointments, and payments linked from their own records. These records are kept in the customer record system.

Escalation and review

Managers review duplicates, records missing email addresses, and opt-in flags that were not honored. A directory fault that the store cannot resolve shall be reported to support@aapawz.com. Legal process concerning a customer record, including a request under the Privacy Policy, shall be directed to legal@aapawz.com.