Plan requirement
| Subscription | Any plan |
| Access | Admin |
One customer appearing as several users is usually about how WhatsApp identifies people, which changed.
Why is the same customer showing up as two people?
- The same customer appears as two or three users.
- A returning customer has no history.
- Their WhatsApp identity does not match the number you have on file.
Resolution steps
1. The identifier is not the phone number
WhatsApp is moving to business-scoped user IDs, which identify a person to your business without exposing their number, and Zendesk now supports them. So the identity on a conversation may not match a phone number stored elsewhere on the profile, and matching by number does not work as you would expect.
The number is usually still there. A WhatsApp number is stored as an identity on the user in the background even when the profile shows no phone number at all, which is why a profile can look empty and still be the right person.
2. They contacted you on more than one channel
The first message from a WhatsApp user always creates a new user in Zendesk, even when the email address or phone number already belongs to somebody you have. So a customer you have known for years arrives as a stranger the first time they use WhatsApp, and that is the mechanism behind most of these reports rather than anything being misconfigured.
A customer who emails and also messages on WhatsApp is two identities unless something links them. Zendesk does not merge automatically, because it cannot know they are the same person. This is not particular to WhatsApp. A request that arrives from any email address or social account not already on the profile can create a second one, whichever channel it comes through.
3. Their number changed
A new number is a new identity, correctly.
What to do
- Merge the users where you are confident they are the same person. That brings the history together.
- Authenticate where you can. A signed-in customer is identified reliably, which removes the problem rather than treating it.
- Rely on the context panel, which shows other tickets and helps agents spot the connection.
- Add the identities to the profile. A user can hold several email addresses and social handles, and a profile that carries them is recognised whichever way the person writes in next time. That prevents the duplicate rather than merging it afterwards.
Do not guess
Merging two users who are not the same person exposes one customer's history to another. Where the match is not obvious, ask.
Comments
0 comments
Article is closed for comments.