Customer record
The customer record: overview
One continuous record of each customer, built from every conversation on every channel, and what that record holds.
On this page
A customer who calls on Monday, messages on Wednesday and emails the following week is one person with one history. The customer record holds that history in one place: every conversation, on every channel, with every department, and what was said, promised and done in each. The agent reads it at the start of every conversation, so nobody is asked to explain themselves twice. Your team reads it before a difficult conversation, and your organisation can see what its conversations are producing.
What the record changes for your business
Customers do not start again. A buyer who asked about their handover date by phone is not treated as a stranger when they message about a snag in their kitchen. The agent, and any colleague who picks up, already knows the unit, the conversation and what was agreed.
Your departments see the same history. Your handover team can see what your sales team told a buyer. The person taking a claim can see what the policyholder was told when they bought the policy.
You can answer "what did we tell this customer?" Every commitment, every answer and every action is on record, with the date, the channel and the source behind it. When a customer disputes what they were told, the answer is in the record rather than in someone's memory.
What the record holds
| Part of the record | What it contains | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Customer | Who the customer is, the contact details they have used, and their preferred language | Rania K., two mobile numbers and one email address, Arabic |
| Conversations | Every conversation on every channel, with the transcript and a summary | A call, three WhatsApp threads and an email thread |
| Issues | Each thing the customer got in touch about, from first contact to resolution, however many messages or channels it took | "Kitchen cabinet door misaligned", open, logged in the maintenance system |
| Outcomes | Whether each issue was resolved, is still open, or was handed to your team | Resolved by the agent; handed to handover team |
| Commitments | What was promised to the customer, by whom, and whether it was delivered | "Handover team to confirm date by 21 August" |
| Actions | What the agent did in your systems | Viewing booked; defect logged; reservation changed |
| Decision log | What the agent looked up, what it decided and why, for every conversation | Looked up payment schedule; confirmed amount due |
Each part is described in detail on its own page: Matching contacts to customers, Issues and threading, Commitments and promise tracking and Conversations your team handles.
How the record is built
Every channel writes to, and reads from, the same record of each customer. There is one memory with several ways in, rather than a separate history for each channel.
When a conversation starts, the agent identifies the customer from the contact details they are using, such as a phone number or an email address, and links the conversation to their record. Before sharing account details, it confirms the customer's identity using the checks set for your deployment: a knowledge check (such as a booking reference with a date of birth), a one-time passcode by SMS or WhatsApp, or a signed-in session. During the conversation, it picks out the details that matter as they are mentioned. When the conversation ends, it adds the summary, the outcome, any commitments and any actions to the record.
Over months and years, the record builds a picture of the customer: their preferences, their history with you and what is still open. At the start of each conversation, the agent draws on the parts of that history that matter to the conversation in front of it, rather than re-reading everything.
The technical detail
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| How is a new contact linked to an existing customer? | By verified identifiers: phone number, email address, customer ID, and booking or policy reference. Uncertain matches are suggested to a person on your team to confirm. See Matching contacts to customers. |
| What happens when two records turn out to be the same person? | Authorised administrators on your team can merge the two records. Every merge is logged. |
| Where is the record stored? | In your Telonic deployment, in the hosting option and region you chose. See Hosting and data residency. |
| How does it relate to your CRM (the system that holds your customer and sales records)? | Your CRM stays your system of record (the system your organisation treats as the authoritative source) for customer and account data. The customer record holds the conversation history, and writes the outcome, summary and next steps back to your CRM. The Telonic record is the system of record for conversation history. |
| Can it be searched? | Yes. Every conversation can be searched by keyword and by meaning, so your team can find every customer who raised a particular problem. |
Conversations your team handles
The record is most useful when it is complete. Conversations your own team holds, on calls, WhatsApp or email, can be captured into the same record, so the history includes what a colleague discussed as well as what the agent did. This is configured during implementation for the channels and systems your team uses. See Conversations your team handles.
Who can see the record
Access to the record is controlled by role. Each person in your organisation sees only what their role needs, and every access is logged. A collections team member might see payment conversations but not claims details, for example. See Access control and single sign-on.
How long the record is kept
Nothing is stored without your permission, and you set how long anything is kept. You can set different retention periods for different kinds of content, in line with your own data policy and the regulations that apply to you.
If your policy does not allow conversation content to be kept at all, the deployment can run without storing it, or store it only in storage you control. The agent then works from what is available during each conversation and from your own systems, so continuity between conversations comes from what your systems hold. A content-free audit record of what the agent did (actions, sources, triggers and outcomes) is still kept, for the period you set. See Storage, retention and deletion.
The record holds personal information about your customers. How long it is kept, who can see it and where it is stored are your decisions, set with you during implementation and recorded in your data processing terms. See Contracts and data processing terms.
In practice
A travel group uses the agent for booking changes on voice and WhatsApp.
- On Sunday, Lina, a traveller, calls to ask whether she can change the return date on a package holiday. The agent finds her booking, explains that her fare allows one free change, and moves her return to the following Saturday.
- The record now shows the booking, the change, the fare rule that permitted it, and that Lina prefers English.
- On Tuesday, she messages on WhatsApp from a different number to ask whether her hotel will also change. The agent asks her to confirm her booking reference and the identity checks the travel group has set, links the new number to her record, and sees Sunday's call.
- It confirms that the hotel nights were moved with the flight, and that no extra charge applies.
- On Thursday, her flight time changes. The agent sends her an approved update template on WhatsApp, with the new time and her options.
- When Lina later calls to complain about her room, the guest relations manager opens her record and sees every conversation, every change and every message before saying a word.
What your team controls
- Which conversations and channels feed the record, including conversations your own team handles.
- How long each kind of content is kept, and whether content is stored at all.
- Who in your organisation can see which parts of the record.
- What is written back to your CRM and operational systems.
Related
- Matching contacts to customersCustomer record
- Issues and threadingCustomer record
- Commitments and promise trackingCustomer record
- Memory and contextAgents
- Storage, retention and deletionSecurity and data protection
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