Duplicate customer accounts - Allow one account per email address
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Jenna Lees - Head of Customer Support
At the moment multiple customer accounts can be created against a single email address.
This request is to change that so that it is recognised when an attempt is made to create a new account using an email address that is already registered. It should flag that an account already exists and allow the user to log in or reset their password.
Neil McQuillan - CEO Citrus-Lime
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Neil McQuillan - CEO Citrus-Lime
The new checkout prevents the creation of multiple accounts with the same email address. This part of the code is completed, but the feature will need to launch in the spring to be implemented.
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PM
When a customer makes their account online using the built in Citrus-Lime postcode lookup feature does it generate an address with a space in the postcode, as Royal Mail do have a space and i think Citrus-Lime remove it resulting in 2 different postcodes which is another duplicate customer.
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Storm.J
Neil McQuillan - CEO Citrus-Lime Have there been any further thoughts on this? We are having increasing issues with customers accidentally creating duplicate accounts using the same email address and then different passwords. This results in a lot of confusion when they are logging in to multiple accounts, and not seeing the order history they expect.
Every other retailer website I've used will alert you if you use the same email address when trying to check out, and prompt you to login or reset the password - it seems like madness to allow an unlimited number of duplicate accounts, as it's just confusing the customers.
I suspect we probably lose more customers who are confused about a lack of order history or rewards points, than we would through having to reset their password, which should be quick and easy.
It also means our CS team have to deal with these queries over the phone, with no satisfactory solution for the customer all with the likelihood that the customer will simply make the same mistake the next time and start the process again.
Neil McQuillan - CEO Citrus-Lime
Storm.J: We're certainly chewing it thru. What happens if at the point of trying to place an order the customer does not have access to their email to reset the account? Effectively we'd block the ability to order, rare but it does happen.
Whilst our email here is reliable I've completely stopped using PayPal due their SMS only 2FA, I have no mobile signal in my house so now I've moved completely to ApplePay for quick transactions on my mobile phone.
I was never particularly a fan of the anonymous checkout approach but we got talked into it by a conversion rate optimisation company many years ago but I'm just trying to put some balance into the debate and explain the rationale behind the current approach.
I'm working on our ecommerce roadmap today and a complete rewrite of the checkout is going to happen, but we're trying to decide what order to tackle various projects in based on what brings our customers the biggest benefits.
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Delta Bikes
Testing this out, it appears that in the user's account on the website, no order history is shown if the account is a duplicate.
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PM
the mobile phone number would also need to be concidered to help eliminate duplicate customers, as every shops cuatomer data bas is a mess with duplicate customers. it would be helpfull if Citrus Lime informed new dealers using Cloud POS that they may wish to tidy up the customer database before migrating or even start again as no sales history is carried over anyway
Neil McQuillan - CEO Citrus-Lime
This is an interesting one, we allow this deliberately in case a customer forgets they have an account and checks out anonymously, or cannot remember their password. I appreciate you could then reset the password however this delays the checkout process and might lead to abandonment of the basket if they cannot be bothered to reset the password.
We de-dupe on download to Cloud POS as long as the addresses match.
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Ben
Neil McQuillan - CEO Citrus-Lime: This continues to cause confusion for our customers who end up with multiple accounts without access to a single location for purchase history and then struggle to link rewards accounts. If it is important to allow anonymous checkout could you not still allow this but the email address link to a single record Cloud MT customer record? Though there would be several things to consider in doing this.
Or, could you allow us the ability to merge accounts where an issue does arise that our CS team needs to deal with and allows us to grant customers their wishes of viewing their purchase history in a single place?
Neil McQuillan - CEO Citrus-Lime
Ben: I agree this needs work, I’d want to try and automate the merge in some way. We have this tech in Customer Rewards.
I’m pondering the idea of blocking anonymous checkout if an account exists, this benefits loyal customers over transient one off shoppers, what do others think?
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Ben
Neil McQuillan - CEO Citrus-Lime: Automated merging sounds good. Also I agree with the concept of blocking anonymous checkout if accounts exist. We would rather encourage our customers to make full use of their account and keep info in one place.