Customer Groups

A customer group is a way to relate customers. You can use groups as a research tool in reports. There are two primary types of groups:

• Financial group—Affiliates multiple branches of the same organization. For example, you might use a financial group to group the customer records for affiliated bank branches.
• Family group—Associates family members. For example, you might group all customers who live in the same household in a family group.

The three defining characteristics of a group are its name, its type, and its customer affiliations.

The group name generally represents the commonality of the customers affiliated with the group. For example, if the group is to associate all branches of the First City Bank, you might name the group First City Banks.

The group type defines whether the group is a family group or a financial group. For example, the First City Banks group would be of the financial type.

The group's customer affiliations include the customers who belong to the group and their roles in the group. For example, each state branch of the First City Bank would be affiliated with the First City Banks group. The type of affiliation that each branch has might be branch office or corporate office.

You can designate one customer as the head of the group. For example, you might make the corporate headquarters the head of the First City Banks group.