Customer data are automatically recorded in ZaK's database. In addition to private guests' data, the system also manages Corporates and Agencies' data. Each guest, corporate or agency is associated with corresponding reservations, payments and various documents (such as invoices, receipts, credit notes, etc.).
☞ Docs: ZaK - Corporates
☞ Docs: ZaK - Agencies
If a customer makes a reservation at different times and with different data (e.g. a different email address or a different telephone number), the system registers two different customers even if they are the same person. The same applies also to Corporates and Agencies. For statistical data to work well, records must be clear and unambiguous.
You can reach the Merge tool by clicking on the following link:↳ Useful Link: ZaK > Customers > Merge Tool
NOTE: the information about any duplicate customers also appears on each customer's personal data page!
While entering a new reservation manually, if the guest's last name already exists in the database, you will be automatically proposed to associate the reservation to that customer without having to re-enter the data. On the right side of the Customer section, the corresponding names are displayed as shown below. You can select one of the customers with the same last name or choose to enter the customer as "new" (in case of homonymy).
Merging
Over time may have been inserted more customers that actually are the same person (for example each reservation downloaded from WooDoo necessarily creates a new customer, even if he/she has already made a reservation in the past and provided his/her data). ZaK allows you to merge any different records of Customers ,Corporates or Agencies.
Detection
An algorithm detect customers that could be the same person. In the same way, Zak detects the records of Agencies or Companies that could be the same entity. For each name Zak indicates the number of duplicate records that could be merged.
By clicking on each Customer Name you can access the section (on the right) > Manage Merging, and you can decide which records should be merged, excluding those that actually refers to different people (or agencies/companies).
! NOTE: Email and phone are also taken into account for the detection. Indeed, email and phone have an even stronger consideration than name and surname, because they are strictly personal data.
So it may happen that ZaK among the duplicates shows you customers who may have a different name, but the same surname, the same email and the same telephone. Or that have different name and surname, but the same email and telephone.
Merging procedure
The records to be merged may have some data in common. The same person could make a reservation with different email addresses: in order to merge data, you must indicate which data you want to keep.
At this point the system removes all duplicates except one. On this one, the fields will be updated as you indicated in the procedure below. Consequently, fiscal documents (invoices, credit notes, etc.) will be associated to this single contact record, as well as reservations of customers, agencies or corporates.
I can't see some duplicates
If you are sure that you have other duplicate customers, but you don't see them in the list, then try requesting a new duplication check. To do this, click on the specific button on the top right, wait a few seconds and then refresh the page:
If the check doesn't show new duplicates, this means that you have reached the maximum limit of 48 duplicates. You should therefore merge the current duplicates or exclude them, so that you can display the new ones!