Overview
Customer identity is an integral part of how our integrations work, underpinning features like loyalty and B2B customer accounts. In this article, we'll discuss specifically how customer identity applies to B2B orders, and how customer identity is managed for our Epicor Eagle B2B clients.
Assigning B2B Customer Identity
Customer identity for B2B customers is assigned a little differently than for B2C customers. With B2C customers, the integrator checks to see if the customer's email, and then phone number, already exists in our system. If it does, then the order is attached to the customer's account. If it doesn't, then a new customer identity is created with the new data.
B2B customers operate a little differently. When a B2B order gets made, the integration looks for an account contact, not an existing customer. The integrator checks the email on the new B2B order to see if it matches any existing account contacts, and if it does, it assigns the relevant account number to the order. If the integrator doesn't find a match, then it moves on to Epicor Eagle, where it scans to check for a matching email or phone number. If it finds a match, it gets assigned to that customer; if it doesn't, a new customer is created.
There a few important things to note alongside this. For one, an account contact does not have to exist in Epicor Eagle in order for the match to be established. You can create account contacts in the Admin Panel, meaning the match occurs in the first steps of the process. This is especially helpful for accounts where you have multiple points of contact, since you can create as many contacts as you want in the Admin Panel as opposed to only two in Epicor Eagle.
Secondly, whether an account contact exists in the Admin Panel does not affect the ability for a customer to create a purchase order. This is based entirely on the ecommerce platform, which the Admin Panel does not interact with for the purpose of creating or assigning customers.
If you have any additional questions on this B2B customer identity, please feel free to contact us with a support request from the Admin Panel.