Tags allow you to tag customers with bits of information and group them together accordingly. Tags are a great way to track customers and can be used within the system for segmenting in Customer Lists, sending integrated emails, powering Customer Groups, making certain customers eligible for Offers or Priority Booking, and much more. They are completely customisable and unique to your system.
There are two kinds of Tags:
- Normal Tags: can be manually added to and removed from a customer record – think of these as a simple label that can be applied to any customer record
- Auto Tags: apply or remove from customer records dynamically depending on the criteria you have set. They work in the background of your system and, once set up, will continue to apply to and be removed from customer records as and when they meet the criteria
In this article, we'll cover:
VIDEO: If you're new to Tags, take a look at our Contact Preferences, Tags and Customer Atributes concept video.
Setting up Tag Groups
Tags are split into Tag Groups to make them easier to manage and keep them organised. Some common example Tag Groups include Box Office, Access Requirements, Marketing; each of these could then contain appropriate Tags (e.g. in the Box Office Tag Group, an Auto Tag that applies to anyone who doesn't have an email address attached to their customer record to encourage box office staff to ask for this information).
To make a Tag Group, navigate to Admin > Customers > Tags. Here you'll find all your existing Tag groups and can create a new one by clicking Add:
Setting up a Tag Group is really straightforward; you'll just need to fill out the following fields:
- Name: give your Tag Group a clear, descriptive name; this will be visible to customers online as the header of your Tag Group if you tick the On web check box to make the Tag Group available online
- Description: though this field is optional, we'd recommend completing it to make it clear at a glance what the purpose of this Tag Group is; this will be visible to customers online if you tick the On web check box to make the Tag Group available online
- On web: tick this check box to make this Tag Group visible online as part of the Other Preferences section of the customer creation/edit process, allowing customers to add or remove their own Normal Tags
NOTE: as Auto Tags cannot be applied or removed manually, you can't create these in any Tag Group that is available online.
Setting up and applying Normal Tags
Normal Tags can be applied to and removed from customer records manually, both in the Sales Interface by your box office team and, if made available online, by customers themselves in the Other Preferences section of their account.
To create a new Normal Tag, navigate to Admin > Customers > Tags, find the appropriate Tag Group for it to be included in and click Add normal tag:
From here, it's as simple as giving the Tag a name and (optional) description and clicking Save:
Applying Normal Tags to a customer record
In the Sales Interface
In the Sales Interface, navigate to Customers:
From here, you can search for an existing customer record, or create a new one. W hen you create a new customer record, you'll be able to apply any Normal Tags you want to as step four of the creation process:
You can simply select the check box next to any Normal Tags you wish to add to the customer record, then hit Save. You'll notice that Auto Tags are also listed here, marked with (AutoTag), and with the check box greyed out as they cannot be manually applied.
To add or remove Tags for an existing customer, scroll down to the bottom of the Details section of the customer record. Here, you'll find a list of the customer's current Tags:
Click Edit Tags and you can then apply and remove Normal Tags by ticking or un-ticking the check box alongside it, then click Ok to save your changes:
As before, Auto Tags are also listed here, marked with (AutoTag), and with the check box greyed out as they cannot be manually applied.
Online
Any Tag Groups you've made available on web will appear as an Other Preferences section of the customer record online, both at the point of creation and if someone logs in to their account:
The customer can tick/un-tick the check box next to any of these options and click Save to apply these changes.
Setting up Auto Tags
Auto Tags apply or remove from customer records dynamically depending on the criteria you have set. They work in the background of your system and, once set up, will continue to apply to and be removed from customer records as and when they meet the criteria.
To create a new Auto Tag, navigate to Admin > Customers > Tags, find the appropriate Tag Group for it to be included in and click Add auto tag:
This will launch the Auto Tag creator, where you'll give the Auto Tag a name and (optional) description and can start creating your Local Segments :
This works in much the same way as Customer List creation does: select the metrics you want from the available Segment Types to set the criteria by which someone is eligible for the Auto Tag, using the AND, OR and NOT rules to tailor this further.
NOTE: Global Segments you've created for Customer Lists will not be available here.
You'll also have the option to choose when Spektrix applies this Tag: either the moment someone meets its criteria, or overnight. For example, if an Auto Tag is being used to power an Offer that you want someone to be immediately eligible for once they've made a particular purchase, you'll need to tick t he Run this autotag after a customer record is created and after a transaction is confirmed check box:
If it's not critical that an Auto Tag be applied immediately after someone meets its criteria, you can leave this un-ticked and the Auto Tag will be applied overnight.
Further reading
Hopefully this guide has given you everything you need in order to create and start using Tags in Spektrix. We'd also recommend having a read of these articles for further information, and to learn more about the various things Tags can be used for:
- Global and Local Segments: a guide to Segments; much of this information will be helpful when building Auto Tags
- Customer List Builder: a guide to creating and editing Customer Lists
- Customer Groups: a guide to creating Customer Groups to highlight customers who fulfill certain criteria in the Sales Interface and the Scanning Interface
- Intro to Offers: an introductory guide to the Offers tool in Spektrix, with links out to further articles on the subject
- Priority Booking: a guide to the Priority Booking feature and how to set up Priority Booking periods for specific customers
-
Attributes: a guide to Attributes within Spektrix; you might want to use Customer Attributes to hold information permanently against a customer record, while using Tags for information you'll want to add and remove as necessary