Anonymous users and checkout
Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 12:36 pm
We're investigating anonymous users and exactly how they function in AC. I'm seeing two different situations and am a little confused. We've enabled anonymous checkout per the Help docs, BTW.
Scenario #1:
A new customer comes to our site, adds to cart and checks out. They enter the billing information including phone# and email. At the Create Account option they opt out of creating an account. Order is placed and processed.
- From the customer's perspective, they did not create an account. However, we can look under users and find a random username (zz_anonymous_359@domain.xyz ) for this customer and their customer information. AC created a somewhat hidden account it seems. If the customer comes back and tries to repeat the same process again, they get a message saying the email address is in use and please log in which is confusing.
Scenario #2:
A sales rep creates a new order via New Orders under orders. The new customer does not have an account and the sales rep does not create one. The order is placed and processed.
- The user did not create an account, nor did the sales rep. If we look under Users, we do not see any sort of account for this customer. We can still look at their customer information within the order though. The sales rep can place subsequent orders for the same customer in this manner. Creating an order in this manner did not create a pseudo-account.
Questions:
- In scenario #2, where does the customer information reside? Can or should a pseudo account (like scenario #1) be created?
- Is there any way to tie anonymous orders together? (ie. the same customer places multiple orders anonymously or via a sales rep. Is there any way to generate an order history?)
- More of a general question: How many of you allow anonymous checkout and how many require an account to be created? We are looking at migrating our customer orders out of our current system. My preference would be to create a customer account so all previous/current orders could be tied to the new account. That would allow the customer to see their order history. Unfortunately, the customer would not know the password to their new account. This would require the customer to reset their password before they could check out under their account. Our company management is adamently opposed to requiring the customers to reset their passwords. I don't see this as a big issue if we properly communicate the new website and why an account was set up and why they need to reset their passwords. What do you folks think? Alternatives???
Thanks everyone.
Scenario #1:
A new customer comes to our site, adds to cart and checks out. They enter the billing information including phone# and email. At the Create Account option they opt out of creating an account. Order is placed and processed.
- From the customer's perspective, they did not create an account. However, we can look under users and find a random username (zz_anonymous_359@domain.xyz ) for this customer and their customer information. AC created a somewhat hidden account it seems. If the customer comes back and tries to repeat the same process again, they get a message saying the email address is in use and please log in which is confusing.
Scenario #2:
A sales rep creates a new order via New Orders under orders. The new customer does not have an account and the sales rep does not create one. The order is placed and processed.
- The user did not create an account, nor did the sales rep. If we look under Users, we do not see any sort of account for this customer. We can still look at their customer information within the order though. The sales rep can place subsequent orders for the same customer in this manner. Creating an order in this manner did not create a pseudo-account.
Questions:
- In scenario #2, where does the customer information reside? Can or should a pseudo account (like scenario #1) be created?
- Is there any way to tie anonymous orders together? (ie. the same customer places multiple orders anonymously or via a sales rep. Is there any way to generate an order history?)
- More of a general question: How many of you allow anonymous checkout and how many require an account to be created? We are looking at migrating our customer orders out of our current system. My preference would be to create a customer account so all previous/current orders could be tied to the new account. That would allow the customer to see their order history. Unfortunately, the customer would not know the password to their new account. This would require the customer to reset their password before they could check out under their account. Our company management is adamently opposed to requiring the customers to reset their passwords. I don't see this as a big issue if we properly communicate the new website and why an account was set up and why they need to reset their passwords. What do you folks think? Alternatives???
Thanks everyone.
