Customer memory and privacy

Your customer list

Every booking, call-back request and message adds the person to your customer list, or updates them if they're already there. People are matched by phone number or email, so the same person booking from the website and texting later stays one customer. If someone spells their name differently, the other spelling is kept as an alias so you can still find them.

You can also add customers by hand, or import a spreadsheet (CSV). The import looks for columns named name (or first and last name), phone (or mobile or cell), email and notes. You can export your list as a CSV at any time.

What the receptionist remembers

Things the customer tells it about themselves. If a customer says something lasting, like "I like a short fade", "I'm allergic to latex" or "texts are better than calls", the receptionist saves it as a note on their profile. It only saves what the customer actually said, never guesses. Notes are grouped as preference, note, family, health, contact or other.

Their usual. From their recent bookings we work out their usual service, person, day and time, once a pattern shows up at least twice (or after their first booking). The receptionist can offer it: "The usual with Dana, Thursday around 4?"

Their history. Visit count, no-shows, total spent and their last visit, worked out from their bookings.

To stop the receptionist saving new notes, turn off Remember facts in the AI settings. Notes already saved stay until you delete them.

Where you see and edit it

Open the customer in the dashboard. Their profile shows:

• name, phone, email, aliases, tags and your own notes, which you can all edit
• the saved notes from conversations, each of which you can delete, plus a box to add your own
• their usual, upcoming bookings, past bookings and recent conversations
• whether they've opted out of texts

Booking history stays private until we know who it is

The receptionist won't reveal, move or cancel anyone's bookings until it knows it's really them:

• On the phone and by text, the number they're calling or texting from has to match the number on their customer profile.
• In web chat, it sends a 6-digit code to the phone or email on file and asks for it. Codes expire after 10 minutes. After 5 wrong tries, or 3 code requests in half an hour, it asks them to call you instead.

Once someone has entered a code in a browser, the receptionist recognises them in that browser next time.

Until then, it can still answer questions and make new bookings. It just won't say whether a person has bookings, or what they are.

Deleting a customer

If a customer asks you to delete their details, open their profile and delete them. That:

• replaces their name with "Deleted customer"
• removes their phone, email, aliases, tags and your notes
• deletes every note the receptionist saved about them
• deletes the messages of their chats, texts and call transcripts
• clears the notes and visit addresses on their bookings, call-back reasons and request details

Their bookings stay in your calendar and numbers, but they no longer show who the person was.

Only the owner and managers can delete customers.

What the widget stores in the browser

The website widget doesn't use cookies.

• When someone just looks at your site, nothing is stored on their device. Visits are counted with a code made from their internet address and browser that changes every day, so a visitor can't be followed from one day to the next.
• Only once they open the chat or send a form does the widget save two things in the browser's local storage: a random visitor code and the current conversation, so the chat survives a page reload.

For the full picture of what's stored and who we share it with, see our privacy page.