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Customer Segments

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This article describes the process for creating Person Attributes, and then applying those Attributes to customers to create customer segments (groups). It also describes the process for exporting that customer data for use in third-party marketing systems.

For information relating to creating/editing customers, see Managing Customers.

This article contains the following sections:

 

What are Customer Segments?

Wavebid allows for users to place customers in different groups (segments) which then allow companies to generate various customer lists based on those groups.

Customer Segments are created by applying various Person Attributes to the customers in Wavebid, and then filtering those attributes to generate groups.

For example, creating a 'VIP' Person Attribute and applying it to specific customers will generate a VIP group (segment) which can be used to create a VIP mailing list.

 

Create a Company Person Attribute

A Company Person Attribute will need to be created in order to tag customers and place them into groups (segments). Creating a Company Person Attribute will add a new field to customer profiles. That field can then be used to categorize, or group, those customers.

  1.  Navigate to My Links > Company > Customers > Company Person Attributes.
  2.  Click the Plus icon in the top right corner of the page to create a new Company Person Attribute. A pop-up window will appear. CustomerSegmentAddNew.PNG
  3. Enter a Name for the Attribute. 
  4. Use the drop-down to select an Input Type:
    • Checkbox: Creates a checkbox that can be checked or unchecked to indicate that the person should, or should not, have that Attribute.
    • Combo Box: Select a single option from a drop-down list.
    • Select: Select a single option from a drop-down list.
    • Select Multiple: Select multiple options from a drop-down list. 
    • Text: Creates a text field for entering data.
    • Text Area: Creates a larger text field for entering data.
  5. Input Data: Enter the options to select from.
    • This field will only appear for certain Input Types.
    • Values should be separated by a comma. For example, selecting an Input Type of Select Multiple and entering Input Data as "Boats, Airplanes, Helicopters, Vehicles" will result in a drop-down list with those three options to choose from.
  6. Select either Buyer or Seller from the Customer Type drop-down. CustomerSegmentNew.PNG
  7. Click the Save button.
  8. The new attribute will appear on the Company Person Attribute list. CustomerSegmentNew2.PNG
    • Click the Pencil icon to the right of the attribute to edit.
    • Click the Trashcan icon to the right of the attribute to delete.
    • Click the Four Arrows icon to drag and drop attributes into a new order.

 

Assign Segments Individually

Once Person Attributes have been created, they can be assigned to customers to create Customer Segments. Person Attributes can be assigned to customer individually by following the steps below:

  1.  Navigate to My Links > Company > Customers > Create/Edit.
  2.  Enter the customer's name into the Find Customer field to locate an existing customer, or click the Create New button to create a new customer.
  3.  Click on the Additional Attributes tab at the bottom of the page. CustomerSegmentAddtoCustomer.PNG
  4. The Person Attribute created above will be visible as a new field.
  5. Select one or several segments to apply to the customer. The Input Type chosen when the attribute was created will determine how the segments are applied.
    • This is an example of a "Select Multiple" Input Type. Multiple options can be selected from the drop-down. CustomerSegmentSelectMultiple.PNG
  6. Click the Save button in the top right corner of the page. 

 

Assign Segments in Bulk 

Once Person Attributes have been created, they can be assigned to customers to create Customer Segments. Person Attributes can be assigned to customers in bulk either by auction or by importing.

Assign by Auction 

These steps are helpful in the event that all of the bidders for a particular auction need to be assigned to the same Customer Segment.

  1. Navigate to My Links > Company > Customers > List.
  2. On the Auction tab, enter the name of the auction in the Auctions field.
  3. Click the Search button to return a list of bidders who were registered to that auction.
    • If the auction search results yield more than 2,000 bidder results, the Customer Segment will only be applied to the 2,000 that are available in the Search Results table.
    • If Customer Segments need to be applied to more than 2,000 bidders, the list will need to be downloaded and then imported using the import process.
  4. The collapsed Bulk Assign Person Attributes field should now be visible. Click on it to expand the section. CustomerSegmentAssignBulkAuction.PNG
  5. Choose which Customer Segment(s) to apply to the list of bidders and click the Assign Attributes button.
    • If the Customer Segment Input Type is "Select Multiple", the chosen options will be added to the bidder's existing list. All of the other Input Types (Checkbox, Combo Box, Text, Text Area, and Select) will override the bidder's existing values.               Assign_Person_Attributes_In_Bulk.gif

Assign by Import

The Import Buyer process can be used if Customer Segmentation data is currently in another system and needs to be imported into Wavebid. 

  1. Prepare a file containing the data to import.
    • Checkbox: In the spreadsheet, ensure that the column that indicates whether the checkbox should be checked contains one of following options: TRUE, true, Yes, YES, 1. Any of those are acceptable values.
    • Multi-Select: In the spreadsheet, ensure that the values within the column being used to indicate the multi-select fields are separated by commas with spaces. Example: If Wavebid has been configured to have a multi-select field that can be Helicopters, Vehicles, Boats, Airplanes. During the import, if all 3 should be added, the value should look like: Helicopters, Vehicles, Boats.
  2. Navigate to the applicable auction from the Dashboard, then select Accounting > Import Buyers.
  3. If the file does not contain a header row, uncheck the Has Header Row? box.
  4. Click the Choose File button and select the file.
  5. Click the Upload button.
    • Please note, if the same bidder is being re-imported, the new Company Person Attributes data will override any existing data.
  6. Drag and drop the Company Person Attribute fields that were previously created and map them to the columns in the Excel file.                 mceclip3.png
  7. Once mapping is complete, click the Import button. If errors occurred, they will be displayed. If no errors appear, the import was successful. Spot check bidders to confirm results are as expected.

If there are values in the imported spreadsheet that don't match up exactly with the pre-defined values entered when the Company Person Attributes were created, the values will still be saved into the database, but they will not be visible on the Customer Profile. They will, however, be visible on the Customer List report.

For example, if "Helicopters" is the pre-defined value, but it is listed as "Helicopter" on the imported spreadsheet, the value will not be visible on the Customer Profile.

 

Export Customer Segment Data

Customer Segment data can be exported so that it can then be imported into other third-party marketing systems (ex. for a direct mail campaign).

  1. Navigate to My Links > Company > Customers > List.
  2. Use the various tabs to select filters to search for bidders.
    • Auction Tab: This will return a list of customers who attended auctions based on filter criteria.
    • Customer Tab: This will return a list of customers based on filter criteria.
    • Lot Tab: This will return a list of customers who purchased lots based on filter criteria.
    • Using multiple filters: The filters use "AND" logic between different filters. For example, on the Customer tab, if a State is selected and a minimum Total Spent is entered, the search will only yield bidders in that state who have spent that minimum amount.
    • Filters with Multi-Select: Any filters that allow multiple selections (ex. State field) use "OR" logic. For example, selecting both Nebraska and Iowa from the State field will yield bidders located in Nebraska OR Iowa.

  3. Click the Search button.

  4. Scroll right to view the Customer Segment column.
    • The column title will be the Name of the Customer Segment (ex. Buyer Category Segment).
    • Each Customer Segment will have its own column on the spreadsheet.  CustomerSegmentExport.PNG
  5. The GUID (Globally Unique ID) column is also visible.
    • This is a Unique ID for each customer.
    • This is helpful if multiple searches need to be performed with the results then needing to be manually merged into a master excel file. The GUID field can be used to de-duplicate the results in the Excel file. CustomerSegmentExportGUID.PNG
  6. Click the Columns button on the right side of the page to alter the information displayed on the list. Column headers in blue will appear on the list, while column headers in white will not.
  7. Click the Download button on the right side of the page to download all of the search results.
    • Clicking the Export button on the right side of the page will only export the first 2,000 search results.

 

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