How to keep track of customers and orders once the spreadsheet stops working

A customer emails to ask where their order is. You check the store admin for the order, your inbox for what you last told them, and the spreadsheet for the note about their address change. Ten minutes later you reply. Then the next one arrives.

If that is familiar, the short answer is this: you need one place where each customer has a single page showing what they bought, what you said to each other and what is still outstanding. How you get there depends on how many orders you handle, and for some shops the answer is still a notebook.

Start with what you need to know

Before picking a tool, write down the questions you get stuck on. For most shops it is these:

• What has this person bought before, and when?
• Has their current order gone out?
• What did we last say to them?
• Who on the team is dealing with it?
• Who has not ordered in a while?

Any system that answers those five in under a minute is good enough. Anything that cannot is costing you time, however much or little you pay for it.

Option 1: a notebook or order book

For a shop taking a handful of orders a week, paper works. Number each order, date it, and keep a page per regular customer with their preferences.

It fails when a second person needs to look something up while you are out, or when you need to find everyone who bought a particular item last spring. Paper cannot be searched and there is only one copy.

Option 2: a spreadsheet

A spreadsheet is free, flexible and fine up to a point. One row per order, one tab for customers, a column for status.

The trouble usually starts in three places:

1. Two people edit it. Someone sorts one column without the others and the rows no longer match.
2. It only knows what you type. Orders from your online store have to be copied across by hand, so it is always slightly behind.
3. Conversations live somewhere else. The spreadsheet says "address changed" but the email explaining the new address is in someone's inbox.

If you are the only person using it and orders are few enough that you can copy them in the same day, a tidy spreadsheet may be all you need. Keep a backup and keep going.

Option 3: the tools you already pay for

If you sell on Shopify, or use a till system, you already have a customer list with order history. Before buying anything, open a customer's page there and see how many of the five questions it answers.

It will usually cover what they bought and whether it shipped. It usually will not show your email conversations, notes from the rest of the team or jobs somebody still has to do. Shops often end up with the store admin for orders, an email tool for newsletters, an inbox for replies and a to-do app for everything else. Each one knows a slice of the customer and none of them knows all of it.

Option 4: one system for customers and orders

This is what people mean by a CRM, although the name puts shop owners off because most are built for sales teams chasing deals. For a shop, the useful version is simple: every customer has one page, orders arrive on it by themselves, and the emails you exchange sit alongside.

When you compare them, check these things:

• Orders come in automatically from wherever you sell. If you have to type them in, you have bought a more expensive spreadsheet.
• You can import your existing list. You should not have to start from nothing.
• Pricing is per shop, or you know the per person cost. Some CRMs charge for each team member each month (Capsule's paid plans are priced per user, for example), which adds up once weekend staff need a login.
• You can get your data out again as a file, whenever you like.
• It is quick on a phone, because that is where you will look things up when a customer is standing in front of you.

How to tell it is time to move

You do not need to change anything because a blog post said so. These are the signs worth acting on:

• You have sent the wrong item, or sent an order twice, because two lists disagreed.
• A customer had to repeat something they already told a colleague.
• Only one person understands the spreadsheet, and they are on holiday.
• Answering "where is my order" takes longer than packing the order did.
• You would like to email the people who have not bought since last year and cannot work out who they are.

One of these now and then is normal. Several a week means the system is the problem.

Moving without losing anything

Whatever you move to, do it in this order:

1. Tidy the spreadsheet first. One row per customer, one email address per row, and remove obvious duplicates.
2. Import the customers.
3. Connect your store so that orders start arriving by themselves.
4. Keep the old spreadsheet, unchanged, for a month. Check a few customers against it each week.
5. Once a month has passed with no surprises, stop updating the old one.

Where Workden fits

We built Workden for the fourth option. Each customer has one page with their orders, the emails between you, the campaign links they clicked and your team's notes. Orders from Shopify arrive automatically with their fulfilment status, and you can import the customer spreadsheet you already have.

It is £10.99 a month for the whole team, so adding a Saturday member of staff does not change the bill. You bring your own online shop and connect it. You can try it free for 14 days and see whether your own customers and orders make more sense in one place.

Questions shop owners ask

Is a CRM overkill for a small shop?

If one person handles everything and orders are low, often yes. It earns its place when a second person joins, or when you start wanting to contact past customers in groups.

Can I just use Shopify's customer list?

For order history, yes. It does not hold your email conversations or your team's tasks, so it depends on whether you need those next to the orders.

How long does moving take?

For a shop with a few hundred customers in a tidy spreadsheet, an afternoon. Most of that time is tidying the spreadsheet.