Tendlio sorts your customers into groups by how recently they last bought, how often they buy and how much they’ve spent, so you can tell your best customers apart from the ones drifting away. Each customer sits in exactly one of seven groups, and also gets a simpler status that looks only at how long ago they last ordered.
The seven groups #
- New: customers who bought once, in the last 90 days. There’s still a chance of a second order.
- Promising: customers who bought more than once and came back recently, but not often enough to be regulars yet.
- Champions: your best customers. They buy often, they bought recently, and they’ve spent the most. On the Segments page, hovering over Champions shows the lifetime spend a customer has to pass on your store to join this group.
- Loyal: regular buyers who haven’t gone quiet. Some of them grow into Champions.
- At-Risk: customers who used to buy regularly and have gone quiet. A Champion who goes quiet lands here, not in Loyal, and so does a quiet regular with many orders.
- Hibernating: customers who bought more than once, but nothing for a long time.
- One-time: customers who bought once, more than 90 days ago, and haven’t come back.
Tendlio checks the groups in a fixed order, so a customer who fits two descriptions lands in one group only. For example, a quiet customer with many orders counts as At-Risk, not Loyal.
Active, Dormant and Lost #
The same customers also get one of three statuses, based only on how long ago they last ordered. Active customers bought recently, Dormant ones have gone quiet, and Lost ones have been gone a long while.
Each status covers a stretch of days since the last order, and the seven groups use stretches like these too, for what counts as “recently”, “gone quiet” and “a long time”. How long these stretches are depends on the Store vertical you picked in Settings → Store. On an Event-Driven / Seasonal or a Luxury & High-Ticket store, every one of them is twice as long, because a shop like that can expect longer gaps between orders. The 90 days for New stay the same on every store.
Who counts as a customer #
Tendlio counts a customer by the billing email on their orders, so someone who checked out as a guest is a customer too. Only orders with a status that counts as a sale go into the groups. You choose those statuses in Settings, under Which orders count as a sale.
When the groups change #
Tendlio sorts customers into groups during each analysis, so the groups show your customers as your last analysis found them. A customer who ordered since then moves to their new group at the next analysis. The Segment column on the WooCommerce Orders list and the customer’s profile show an estimate of that customer’s new group right away, from their current orders, and the next analysis confirms it.
Where you see the groups #
- Tendlio → Customers → Segments has two tables, one for the seven groups and one for Active, Dormant and Lost. Each row shows how many customers the group has, what they’ve paid you in total (Revenue) and the average per customer (Avg LTV). Hover over a group’s name to read what the group is and what Tendlio suggests doing with it.
- Customer list, next to Segments, shows each customer’s group and has a view for every group.
- A customer’s profile names their group.
- The Segment column on the WooCommerce Orders list shows each order’s customer group. It’s on unless you turn it off under Segment column on the orders list on the Customer recognition page, and each person can hide it for themselves in Screen Options.
- Campaigns lets you pick which groups get an email.
The Revenue column counts what customers paid, with tax and shipping included, and a partial refund doesn’t come off it. Revenue in Reports leaves tax out and takes refunds off, so the same orders read higher here.
What to do with them #
Each group on the Segments page has an Email this segment button that opens Campaigns with the group chosen, and the groups you reward have Reward with perks as well. At the bottom of the page, Your next step names the group to email first. How to act on a customer segment walks through both.
Additional resources #
- How to act on a customer segment: email a group or reward it.
- How to find and contact customers in the Customer list
- Which orders count as a sale
- How to thank your best customers with Customer recognition
Frequently asked questions #
Can a customer be in two groups? #
Not among the seven. Tendlio checks the groups in a fixed order and puts each customer in the first one that fits. Separately, each customer also has one of the three statuses, Active, Dormant or Lost.
Why is my Champions group so small? #
Champions have to buy often, have bought recently and have spent more than the lifetime amount the Champions hover shows. A young store, or one with few repeat buyers, has few customers who pass all three.
Why does a customer's group look out of date? #
Groups change at each analysis. The Segment column on the Orders list and the customer's profile show an estimate for customers who ordered since then.
Do guest checkouts count? #
Yes. Tendlio counts customers by the billing email on their orders.