Customer management in Sharefox
- How to create customers and access their information
- Private versus Business customer types
- Specific Business customer features such as: Discounts, amounts to display excluding VAT
- Different address types
Customer overview
The Customer module is available in the Admin menu to users with customer management privileges and gives a quick and simple overview of the customers in the Sharefox system. The list is searchable on all relevant attributes and names, and is meant to give a quick overview of all the customers in the system.
It is possible to create new customers/users from this screen, as described below. Clicking on a row takes you to the customer page for the selected customer.
Customer details
The customer screen gives the overview of one customer/user. The customer and user objects are tightly connected, and the screen shows the login details this customer can use to log onto the Sharefox shop.
It is possible to have two types of customers: Private and Business customers. The customer type is shown in many places where the customer is displayed, in order to help identify what type of customer this is. Some differences between the two customer types are:
- Business type customers can have a discount related to them. This is a shop wide discount applied to all purchases
- Business type customers will often have amounts displayed excluding VAT while placing Manual Orders in the Administration site
The customer overview for a single customer is pictured below, with each section explained.
The name and Sharefox customer Id is shown here. The icon on the left hand side of the name also identifies the customer type.
Business customers will have a suitcase icon:
Private customers will have a silhouette icon:
2: Navigation
It is possible to navigate between the Information page, the order overview and the address list using the tabs shown.
3: Customer information
This section contains contact information for the customer. The email and phone values are taken from the General address.
The Status toggle can be used to set the customer inactive, for example in the case where one does not want additional orders to be created for this customer, or any other usage.
4: User
Section includes the user and log in details used by this customer to log onto the Sharefox shop, as well as information related to when the customer was first created.
A user and a customer are closely related, and one customer will always have one and only one user. Any orders created by the person login in with the user information here will be allocated to this customer.
5: Activity
Activity shows general information about the activity of the customer, including information on all previously created orders, regardless if these are orders created manually in Admin or by the customer directly through the Shop.
A generic customer level discount can be set and edited by using the edit button.
All future orders for this customer will have the final amount reduced by the discount percentage; 7% in this example. Only Business customers can have a discount. This field will not be available for Private customers.
6: Actions and Login as customer
Clicking the Actions button will allow the user to edit the Customer information. It is not possible to edit the user email used to log into the shop, while all other fields and values can be changed. It is also possible to change the customer type between Business and Private.
The Log in as customer button will navigate the user to the Sharefox shop where the current Customer will be logged in.
Orders
The orders screen shows all orders created for this customer. It is possible to click individual orders to navigate to the order screen and see additional details for the order.
Addresses
A customer can have 4 types of addresses, and this list displays all addresses for a given customer. An address can be added using the Add Address button on the top right of the table.
- Type: General There can be only one General address per customer. Can not be deleted, only changed. This address is used in the Information page to display general contact information for the customer, and will be the default address for new orders
- Type: Invoice There can be only one active Invoice address per customer. Can not be deleted, only changed. This is an optional address that can be used when creating invoice documentation from the Order page. For example, it can be used when an invoice should be sent to a different address than the general address, eg. in case of electronic invoicing email address. It is possible to choose between General and Invoice addresses when creating and sending invoice documentation
- Type: Delivery Multiple delivery addresses allowed per customer. Can be deleted. The delivery address is an optional address to record different delivery locations for a given customer
- Type: Contact Multiple contact addresses allowed per customer. Can be deleted. The contact address is an optional address to record different contact persons for a given customer
Addresses can be edited by using the edit icon on the right side. Addresses of some types can also be deleted.
Tips
In Sharefox you can set up extra fields under the address, to ask for more than just the standard user address and info. For example you could set up a field for a project reference number, or delivery address. To have this set up for your shop, please contact support@sharefox.no detailing what fields you want to have set up for your shop.
If enabled for your shop, the same fields are then shown both in your admin on creating a manual order, and in the shop for your customers to fill out. Note that in the example the titles are "Extra info" and "More information", but they could often have titles like "Project number" or "Driver's name", etc.
These extra information field values will show up wherever the address fields show, like in the order view, emails and invoice bases.
Notes
Under the notes section, you are able to save a note on the customer. It could be related to things like product preferences, or any other thing relevant on a customer level. This information is only shown here, and will not show up on any customer facing area, or any other place in the Sharefox admin system.
How to create a new customer?
A customer in Sharefox can be created in three ways:
- In the Customers module, by an Admin user
- In the Orders module during the placement of a manual order, by an Admin user
- Via the Shop application, by the customer him-/herself
We will further describe the steps to create a new customer starting from the Customers module.
To create a new customer from the Customer List page, just click the Add Customer button. This will open a pop-up that will guide the user through the process of entering the required fields.
You will be asked to choose if this is a Private or Business type customer. This is meant as a switch to help differentiate different types of customers. Additionally, Business type customers will have access to a company wide discount as described earlier in this article.
After entering a name, organisation number and a login email, the main contact for the Customer is entered.
Finally a general address must be added for the customer. It is possible to also add an invoice address at this stage, this is optional and can be entered at a later time in the Address page.
When a customer is created from the admin system, unless this has deliberately been turned off by the Sharefox Customer Success for your shop, your customer will then receive an email asking them to create a password. Reach out to support@sharefox.no to have this turned off.
How to handle Company Accounts with multiple users?
There are two ways of handling this:
- One account is created for the company. The employees in that company then have to share the login email address and password internally, to use the same account when placing orders. Example of company name:
BigCompanyName
Pros
- Easy to handle the company account internally in Sharefox
- Customer discounts set once
Cons
- Security - many people sharing the same password, it can get lost
- People often forgetting to fill out extra information fields (the bottom lines in the address fields in the shop), and the department/address is wrong
- Note that it is possible to lock some fields from being changed, like the company name etc. in the shop checkout, if many people are using the same account placing orders. Contact support@sharefox.no if you want this to be enabled for your shop.
- Each contact person in the company gets a separate account. Example of company name:
- BigCompanyName co/Paul Nilsen
- BigCompanyName co/Stan Paulsen
BigCompanyName co/Kari Sand
Pros
- Each person might have a different billing address (department), and each responsible person gets all order updates directly to their own email address.
Cons
- Several accounts per company
- Company discounts has to be set per account
- Remember that you are able to change the company name yourself, after the customer has created their account with the generic company name, in the "Customers" page found in the main menu:
