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Manage Customer Groups and Filters

Directory Filters

Filters make it easy to search, group and analyse your customers within Customer Directory. Segmenting your customer database also allows you to communicate with and market to a target group, as well as providing you with insights into customer trends. You can filter customers by purchase criteria (items purchased, amount spent, location, etc), customer criteria (creation source, feedback, groups, Square Loyalty status, etc), or booking criteria for Square Appointments sellers (booking dates, booked service or booked with staff).

If you’ve created visible, custom fields with the field types of Toggle or Selection, they will automatically be added to the list of filters in your directory.

To view and apply filters:

  1. go to Customers > Directory on your online Square Dashboard.

  2. Click Filters.

  3. Apply filters for the customer details and see how many customers match the criteria, as well as what percentage of your customer base.

    • Click + Add filter to add additional filters for more specific about the customers in this group. For example, customers who made a purchase six months ago and are members of your loyalty programme.

  4. Click Apply once you’ve added all filters.

  5. Once you have your new list of customers, click Save as group.

  6. Name your Smart group, then click Create group.

  7. If you use Square Email Marketing, you can send email marketing campaigns to that group of subscribed customers by clicking Send campaign.

To go back to view all customers, click Group: all customers.

Note: you can apply filters through your online Square Dashboard, Square Point of Sale app or the Audience Creation section of Square Email Marketing. However, not all filters are available through your Square app at this time – your online Square Dashboard offers a more comprehensive list of customer filters.

Directory Groups

You can easily save sets of customers as Groups to keep track of them.

Manual Groups

Create a Manual Group to hand-pick a list of customers according to your needs. Manual Groups come in handy when importing customers in bulk or quickly adding a new customer from a sale. Manual Groups will only change if you add or subtract customers, unlike Smart Groups.

To create a Manual Group:

  1. go to Customers > Directory on your online Square Dashboard.

  2. Click +Create Group.

  3. Select Manual group > Next.

  4. Manually select customers and click Next.

  5. Name your group then click the Create group button.

Smart Groups

Smart Groups continuously update on their own based on your customer’s activities and the filters you put in place. Smart Groups can be created by both you and your customer’s interactions with your business. You can create a custom Smart Group or use a suggested template to make a Smart Group.

To create a Custom Smart Group:

  1. go to Customers > Directory on your online Square Dashboard.

  2. Click +Create Group.

  3. Select Smart group > Next.

  4. Select Custom smart group or select from the suggested templates, then click Next.

  5. Apply any relevant filters to the Smart Group, then click Next.

  6. Add additional filter details if needed, and click Next.

  7. Name your group then click the Create group button.

  8. Using Square Marketing, you can send email marketing campaigns to that group of subscribed customers by clicking Send Campaign. You can also access groups you create in Directory when creating a campaign via Square Marketing.

Examples of prebuilt Smart Groups include:

  • Lapsed: customers who have visited your business three or more times but have not returned in six to eight weeks.

  • Regulars: customers who have visited your business two to three times and have visited within the last six to eight weeks.

Smart Group rules may also vary depending on your business type. You can view the rule sets for each business type below.

Business Type Regular Lapsed
Charities & Education 3+ visits, last visit < 8 wks ago 3+ visits, last visit >= 8 wks ago
Contractors, Repair, Leisure 2+ visits, last visit < 6 wks ago 3+ visits, last visit >=6 wks ago
Food Related 3+ visits, last visit < 8 wks ago 3+ visits, last visit >= 8 wks ago
Health & Beauty 3+ visits, last visit < 6 wks ago 3+ visits, last visit >= 6 wks ago
Health Services 3+ visits, last visit < 8 wks ago 3+ visits, last visit >= 8 wks ago
Individuals 3+ visits, last visit < 8 wks ago 3+ visits, last visit >= 8 wks ago
Retail 3+ visits, last visit < 8 wks ago 3+ visits, last visit >= 8 wks ago
Services 3+ visits, last visit < 8 wks ago 3+ visits, last visit >= 8 wks ago
Transportation 2+ visits, last visit < 6 wks ago 3+ visits, last visit >= 6 wks ago

Note: to edit the rules for Lapsed and Regulars, select the group in your directory > click Actions > Edit Group > make edits to settings > Save.

Other pre-built smart groups available:

  • All customers: customers who have visited your business more than once in the last 12 months.

  • Loyalty Members: customers who have enrolled in your Loyalty programme.

  • Email Subscribers: customers that have subscribed and provided their email addresses can be included in email with Square Email Marketing.

Using Groups and Filters with Square Marketing

Smart groups can also be used with Square Marketing. You can manage and filter your customers to organise and group them for targeted email marketing campaigns directly via the Square Marketing dashboard. You can also track customer trends, apply discounts or identify them based on an automated campaign. Square Marketing allows you to send automated campaigns to specific smart groups – for example, when a new customer is added to the ‘Email Subscriber’ group, you can send them a discount automatically. 

While viewing a group in your Customer Directory, select Send Campaign. You can also select the group during the Audience step when creating a Square Marketing campaign.

Note: to be included in your marketing communications, customers in your directory will need to have a public email address (ie the email address was entered into the customer’s profile) that has not bounced or been manually unsubscribed. Customers with a private email address (ie not visible) and who have made one or more payments in the last 12 months with your business will also be included in these filters.

When a customer’s email address is unsubscribed or bounces, the email address will not be removed from your directory, but it will no longer be included in your Marketing filters and smart groups.

You can also use information from your Directory to create automatic discounts for customers at your business from your Square POS app or on your online Square Dashboard. Learn how to create discounts for Customer Groups.

Assigning Customer Directory Permissions

With Square’s Advanced Access subscription, you can assign roles and permissions to your team members so that they can take action in your Customer Directory. Actions your team members can take range from creating customer profiles, to viewing and updating customer groups and more.

By default, customer contact information such as email address, physical address and phone number will be viewable for team members with assigned permissions. You can give your team the ability to edit this information by assigning custom permission sets.

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