Top Customers — Recognising Your Best
Automatically surface your best customers on the dashboard and in the weekly digest so you can thank them personally.
The Problem This Solves
Most bakers think they know their regulars. But at 30+ active customers, memory fails. Ask yourself: "Who has spent the most with me this year?" — if you can't answer, this feature is for you.
How a Customer Qualifies
A customer appears on the "Top Customers" list when they cross either of two thresholds:
- Order count reaches your vipOrderThreshold (default 5)
- Lifetime spend reaches your vipRevenueThreshold (default 500 in your bakery currency)
Important: the rule is OR, not AND. This means:
- A long-term regular who's placed 7 small orders qualifies (even if lifetime spend is only $200)
- A new big-spender who placed 2 wedding-cake orders for $800 also qualifies (even at only 2 orders)
This captures the two different shapes of valuable customers small bakeries actually have.
Tuning the Thresholds
Edit at Settings → Post-Order Growth Emails in the "Top Customers" card.
- Order threshold too low? You'll get too many "top" customers and the signal dilutes. Raise it.
- Revenue threshold too high? Only the wedding-cake buyers show up. Lower it to capture loyal small-spenders too.
- Currency is your bakery's currency from Settings → Business Profile. The default 500 is 500 in whatever currency you bake in.
Where You'll See Them
Dashboard Card
Top 5 by lifetime spend with name, order count, lifetime spend, and a relative "last ordered" date. Each row links to that customer's detail page.
Hidden when no one qualifies yet — new bakeries don't see an empty card.
Weekly Digest Section
Your Monday digest includes a "Your top customer(s) ordered this week" section showing top customers who placed an order in the current week. Appears only when any top customer ordered this week — no empty tables.
Who's Excluded
- Inactive customers (Customer.status ≠ 'active'): if you've explicitly deactivated a past customer, they won't appear — even if they'd otherwise qualify. You deactivated them for a reason.
- Archived customers: same as inactive.
- Customers with no completed orders: only completed orders count toward qualification.
What "Last Ordered" Means
The date shown is when the order was placed (order created), not when you last edited or marked it complete. So "last ordered 3 weeks ago" means they placed their most recent order 3 weeks ago.
Suggested Actions
- Personal thank-you with their next pickup — "thanks for ordering 10 times this year, Sarah". This is the #1 retention action in small-business research.
- Priority treatment during busy seasons (Christmas, wedding season) — top customers go to the front of the production queue.
- Early access to new specials or seasonal offerings — a simple "we made a new cake this month, thought you'd like first pick" email.
- Birthday / anniversary note — if you've captured important dates on the customer record.
Tier Availability
All tiers. No AI cost — this is pure read-query logic against existing customer and order data.