Batch update customer profiles

[Velo]

Hello!
It seems impossible to batch update customer profiles with the importation of a CSV file.

It's possible to do so with Items.

The problem is that, as far as I have experienced so far, the only way to switch a customer to the "Subscribed to Marketing" (to use the Marketing email tool) is to do it manually, which is a daunting task (overs 1800 accounts).

I have tested the customer import function and imported a list of 2 test customers that already existed and all that did is create duplicates.

How can update the "Subscribed to Marketing" status for all the customer emails I have in a list?

Thanks!

[k_atie]

Hello @Velo! Thank you for your post, let's see if we can find a solution for you. 

Mmh, that definitely does seem odd that you are not able to batch-update customer profiles on the CSV. file. Do you get an error at all when importing the file back into the system? Or is it successfully importing only to return duplicates of the same customer profile? If you are getting an error, could you please share a screenshot with me? 

It may be worth checking out the troubleshooting steps listed in our Import Customers Online article on our support center. 

With regards to the Marketing Subscription status on the file, it might be worth checking out the software's (e.g. if you are using excel, for example) features to see if it's possible to bulk change a column. 

Lastly, please make sure that you've obtained the seller's explicit consent to subscribe to your marketing emailing list. 

Looking forward to your reply! 

[Velo]

Hello!
I got no error when importing my test CSV that had 2 lines of existing customers.

The CSV had 4 columns: Name, last name, email and status (status being set to Subscribed). The import tool correctly associated the columns to the correct fields and that reflected in the created accounts.

So the import tool didn't get that I was trying to updated accounts.

What would be the field looked for by the import tool to associate a line with an existing account? If I import all the customers from the Customers page in the dashboard, I see a field named "Square Customer Number", using strings similar to this "KY7ZAES65166GTHSPW2WAY4EAW". I suppose that this is what I am looking for.

In any case I'll test.

[Velo]

Ok so here is an update.

Square Customer Number is the pivot to have the import tool know where to put the info from the CSV. It correctly updated a test account. However the help docs don't mention this anywhere. Corrections should be made.

However, the "Marketing Status" info is not correctly handled, at least in French.

As per the import tool, the accepted values for Email Marketing Status are "abonné/désabonné/inconnu", which is subscribed/unsubscribed/unknown.

I thought it could be caused by the accent in the E (é). But it's not, because 1- trying to set Status as "inconnu" (unknown) uses no accent and didn't work, and 2- when using accent (specifically é) in Name and Last Name, those values where correctly imported and updated the customer.

So there is a bug: The accepted values for the Email Marketing Status in French listed in the import tool info are not accepted. So a French user cannot batch update his customers' status to use the Email Marketing Tool.

Another bug: for an unknown reason, as I was working on figuring this out, when going to a customer's details, I cannot edit the Email Marketing Status manually anymore. I was able to 30 minutes ago as I switched the status of the test accounts to Unsubscribed before doing a import test.

Finally, Correctly formated CSVs saved with Excel using commas as a separator will consistently fail at import; it only sees the first line (so column names) and interprets the separator as a semi-colon.

See images bellow:
https://prnt.sc/6msQJ2DJHpBH

https://prnt.sc/S6Af_Yesx_zf

[k_atie]

Thank you so much for the very detailed explanation and the screenshots, @Velo. This is definitely helpful. 

I've gone ahead and escalated your query to our teams internally, as I can't replicate the issue on my side. Once I hear back from them, I'll update you on this thread. 

Thank you for your patience! Let me know if you need anything else in the meantime. 

[k_atie]

Oh, one more thing @Velo. Could you provide the file that you are trying to import? If you're not comfortable providing it on this thread, you can DM me the file directly? Thank you!