Customers
What Is a Customer Record?
In Complete Shop Manager, a customer record is the person — not the vehicle. It holds their contact information and links to every vehicle they own and every repair order ever written for them. When a customer comes in, you find or create their record first, then look up or add their vehicle.
What Gets Stored
Name
First name, middle name (optional), and last name.
Phone Numbers
Up to two phone numbers — for example, a mobile and a work number.
The customer’s email address. This is also how a customer links their Customer Portal login to their service history — if their portal email matches the one stored here, they automatically see their records.
Mailing Address
Street number and name, unit (optional), city, state, and ZIP code — stored as structured fields so the data is ready if you ever need it for mailing or tax purposes. All address fields are optional.
Notes
A free-text notes field for anything your team needs to remember about this customer — preferences, special instructions, or anything else.
Finding a Customer
The Customers page has a live search bar at the top. Type any part of a name, phone number, or email address and the list updates instantly. Only your shop’s customers are searched — no other shop’s records are visible to you.
Adding a New Customer
Click New Customer on the Customers page. If you enter an email address that already belongs to a customer in your shop, CSM will stop you and show the existing record — so you never end up with duplicates. If the same email exists on the platform from another shop, you will see a prompt to search for an existing record instead of creating a new one.
Deleting a Customer
Deleting a customer record removes their contact information but does not delete their vehicles or repair orders. Any vehicles that were linked to them become unassigned — their full service history stays intact. You can re-link them to another customer record at any time.
Locking a Customer Record
You can lock a customer record to prevent any changes or deletion. This is useful when a record needs to stay exactly as it is — for example, for legal or accounting purposes. A locked record can only be unlocked by someone with edit access. Locking a customer does not affect their vehicles or repair orders.
Importing Customers in Bulk
If you are switching to CSM with an existing customer list, you can import customers from a CSV file instead of adding them one at a time. Go to Account Settings → Data Migration. You will be able to upload your file, review every row before anything is created, and confirm the import. This feature requires the Pro plan and Customers edit access.