Customer Management

Maintain profiles for each customer

ClearFeed helps you manage external support operations through a structured customer management system.

Customer Objects are only available for ClearFeed accounts on the External Helpdesk Product Edition. Read more about the Product Edition here.

All new External Helpdesk accounts use Customer-Centric Inbox by default - a customer-first experience where all conversations, tickets, and requests from each customer appear together, regardless of where they originated.

Existing accounts may still be using Standard (Channel-Based) Management, ClearFeed’s original structure.

This guide explains:

1. How customers, channels, and collections work

2. How customers are created and associated

3. How routing works

4. How free email domains are handled

5. How to organize and maintain your customer data

Which Version Am I Using?

You are using Customer-Centric Inbox if:

• The left sidebar shows customers grouped under collections

• There is a system collection called All Customers

• Clicking a customer shows all their conversations and requests

How left sidebar appears when Customer Centric Inbox is enabled

You are using Standard Management if:

• The left sidebar shows channels grouped under collections

• Customers are optional metadata and not the primary navigation

  

  Left sidebar as shown in Standard Customer Management

To upgrade from Standard to Customer-Centric Inbox, contact [email protected].

Core concepts

Term	Meaning
Customer	A company or organization you support
Collection	A folder that groups customers
Channel	A Slack or Teams channel linked to a customer
Domain	An email domain that identifies a customer
Forwarding	Sending requests to the customer’s collection
Free domain	Consumer email domains like gmail.com, yahoo.com

Customer Centric Inbox

Overview

Customer-Centric Inbox organizes ClearFeed around customers first.

All conversations, emails, web chats, portal requests, and Slack messages from a customer appear together, enabling consistent routing, ownership, automation, and reporting.

Structure

• Collections contain customers

• Customers contain channels and requests

• Each customer belongs to exactly one collection

Creating Customers

Customers can be created in three ways:

Manual creation

You can create a customer in two ways:

Method 1 - From a Collection

1. Open the menu (⋮) next to a collection

2. Select Add New Customer

3. Fill customer details

4. Save

The customer is added to that collection.

Method 2 - Using the “New” Button

1. Click New at the bottom of the sidebar

   
2. Select Customer

3. Choose a collection

4. Enter Customer details

   1. Customer Name

   2. Owner

   3. Request Channel

   4. Email Domains (The domain would be used to enable forwarding from Email/WebChat etc to Customer Collection)

      
5. Click Create

Add domains during creation to enable routing.

Automatic creation from Slack Connect channels

When automatic monitoring is enabled, and a new Slack Connect channel is detected, ClearFeed:

Detection	Action
Domain matches existing customer	Links the channel
Single external domain	Creates a new customer
Multiple external domains	Creates a new customer with all domains
Only free domains or none	Creates a customer without domains

Auto-created customers are placed in All Customers, and send a notification to the Triage Channel linked to the Customer Collection if it exists. If the customer is created without any domains, a notification is sent to the customer owner.

Automatic creation from requests (Email, Web Chat, API)

When a request arrives from a sender domain that does not match any customer:

Sender domain	Action
External company domain	Create new customer
Free email domain	No customer created
Internal domain	No customer created

Free and internal domains never create customers automatically.

Forwarding

Only available when Customer-Centric Inbox is enabled

Forwarding determines which collection a request lands in.

When routing is enabled, ClearFeed routes requests based on the customer they belong to, instead of the source (Email, Web Chat, Portal, etc.).

This ensures all work for a customer is handled together.

Forwarding settings

Forwarding is configured per source collection (Email, Web Chat, Portal, API).

To change routing:

1. Go to Collections

2. Open the source collection (for example: Email or Web Chat)

3. Go to Collection Settings

4. Find the “Ticket Forwarding” section

5. Toggle “ticket forwarding by detecting customers in incoming tickets”

Setting	Behavior
Forwarding ON	Linked requests go to the customer’s collection
Forwarding OFF	Requests stay in the source collection

Forwarding does not affect whether requests are linked, only where they appear.

How routing works

When a new request is created, ClearFeed follows this sequence:

1. Identify the customer

2. If no customer is found, apply automatic creation rules

3. If the request is linked to a customer and routing is ON → route

4. Otherwise → keep in source

Which settings apply after routing?

When a request routes from its source collection to a customer’s collection:

Source collection settings (creation)

Used for:

• Ticketing rules

• Forms and required fields

• Email configuration and templates

• Web Chat out-of-office messages

These always come from the source.

Customer collection settings (handling)

Used for:

• Assignment rules

• Triage channel

• Automations and workflows

• AI Agent behavior

• Labels and responders

• SLA policies (except Web Chat OOO)

These apply after routing.

Free email domains

Requests from free domains (gmail.com, yahoo.com, outlook.com, hotmail.com):

• Do not create customers

• Are not linked

• Are never routed

• Remain in the source collection

Examples

Request	Forwarding ON	Forwarding OFF
Email from [email protected]	Acme collection	Email collection
Email from [email protected]	Email collection	Email collection
Web chat from [email protected]	Globex collection	Web Chat collection

Why routing matters

Routing lets you organize work by customer instead of by channel or source.

It ensures:

• One queue per customer

• Consistent ownership and SLAs

• Fewer missed or duplicated requests

Why adding domains matters

Domains allow ClearFeed to:

• Identify customers

• Route requests correctly

• Group history accurately

• Enable portal access

Without domains, requests cannot be linked or routed reliably.

Managing Customers

Editing

You can update name, domains, channels, and fields from the customer page.

Moving between collections

Moving a customer moves:

• All channels

• All past and future requests

Standard Management (Legacy)

Standard Customer Management organizes your workspace around channels. Each customer is represented by a “Customer Object,” which stores:

• Name of the customer

• Slack channels associated with them

• Email domains

• Portal Settings

• Custom fields

Channels may or may not be associated with a customer.

This is ideal for organizations whose workflows naturally revolve around Slack channels.

Accessing Customers

Go to Customers in the left navigation to view all customers in your account.

Creating and Managing Customers

Create a Customer

1. Navigate to Customers → Add New Customer

2. Enter a Customer Name (required)

3. Select Slack Channels to associate (optional)

4. Add Email Domains (optional)

5. Save

Customers are also created automatically when:

• A Slack connect channel is monitored

• A new domain raises a support request using APIs, Email, WebChat, etc.

Editing a Customer

You can update:

• Customer name

• Email domains

• Associated channels

• Custom field values

• Support Portal access

Channel Management in Standard Mode

• You can monitor channels without assigning them to customers.

• You may assign a channel to a customer during creation or editing.

• A channel can belong to only one customer.

Custom Fields

Go to Customers → Custom Fields to define additional properties such as Account Tier, Region, or Sales Owner.

You can upgrade to Customer-Centric Inbox by contacting support.

Customer Verification Rules

Customers are verified when:

• Created with a single unambiguous domain

• Created from a portal user

Customers are not verified when:

• Multiple domains detected

• Created manually without domains

• Domain conflicts exist

Unverified customers cannot access the Support Portal.

Custom Fields

• Custom Fields in Customers allow users to create additional fields alongside standard fields such as Customer Name, Email Domain, and Slack Channels.

• These fields can be used to capture custom properties against Customers which helps log customer details.

• After defining and setting up fields, you can select and add field values for any Customer on ClearFeed using the web app.

• You can add and keep updating Custom Fields and their values depending on your workflow.

Create Custom Field

1. Navigate to Customers > Custom Fields

2. Click on the Create New Field button to start creating a new Custom Field

3. Enter a Name for your field and select the field Type.

   • Currently, we support Single Select, Multi Select, Text, Date & Number type fields.

   • For Text type fields, you can specify if you want users to give Single-line Input or Multi-line input.

     • You can also specify the Character Limit for the text field.

   • If Single Select or Multi Select is chosen, add the available Options for this field.

1. You cannot name the new field as Customer ID, Customer Name, Slack Channels and Email Domains since these names are already in use by ClearFeed.

2. Text type custom fields are limited to 255 characters by default. For longer fields, contact us via Slack or email at [email protected].