Automatic Persona Merging
AIQ syncs your customer and transaction data so you can use it for targeted communication and loyalty programs. We rely on your data to be correct in order to properly track your personaās actions and identity.Ā Good data in = Good data out = š.
We will automatically merge personas if we see matching phone number, email, or other unique pieces of PII (personal identifiable information).
This is the order in which AIQ prioritizes persona PII when identification issues come up:
- Phone number
- Email address
- First + Last name AND date of birth (if enabled)
- Customer Gov ID number
- Customer MED ID number
Example: A new customer makes a transaction at your store using their personal information like name and email address. However, they used their friendās phone number for some reason.Ā
Their friend will be merged into the new persona, because the phone number is being used as the primary identifying trait.Ā
To unmerge these personas, we would want to update the contact information for the new customer to be correct. Once corrected, the personas will unmerge within 24 hours.Ā
- A customer signed up multiple times
- Customers are not coming to your store to input their data. They are there to purchase products or services. They may enter different PII each time they shop to avoid their email being associated with your product or to avoid marketing comms
- Example: a customer is entering different email addresses or names but the same phone number with each visit. AIQ will merge all of the incorrect information that was entered with that phone number
- Customers are sharing PII (email/phone) when making purchases
- If multiple personas are āsharingā a phone number (friend/family). They will end up merged under a single persona with that number as the primary identifying PII
- For example, even if the name of 2 persona records is different, a merge will happen if the email and/or phone is the same.
- A customerās contact info is only updated via 1 source (via Ecommerce, POS, a new AIQ signup, website tracking, or others)
- In most cases, AIQ will merge that new user data into a āmaster profileā and sync it to their persona in AIQ
Merges are typically performed overnight and can take up to 24 hours to complete
- If an update was made to a customer directly in the POS, the persona may need to complete a transaction before AIQ is able to sync the new information
- If an update was made to a customerās profile in AIQ, the changes would not be in effect until they are processed overnight
You may have many Personas listed with same exact First and Last Name, however, AIQ does not merge customers based only on their first/last name.
It is possible to enable Name/DOB merging, in which case we'd merge if Name AND Date of Birth matched, see Loyalty Settingsļ»æ.
You may have a persona with the same name listed several times. One reason is that the transactions got split between multiple personas due to partial PII or changing the PII given. They may also have additional POS profiles they are syncing under.
It takes up to 24 hours for merging and unmerging logic to complete.Ā If fewer than 24 hours have passed since the most recent purchase, the merging logic may not have taken place.
