PROJECT CASE STUDY
One customer record. Three levels of responsibility. A connected handover.
Connected customer records, follow-up reminders, and staff handovers, with distinct views for head office and individual branches.
KEY NUMBERS
Problem
Customer information sits in personal tools. Follow-ups depend on memory, and cross-branch lookups and staff departures require extra coordination.
Approach
Use one head-office customer record, control what each branch can see, and connect follow-ups and ownership transfers to everyday actions.
What changed
Head office and branches can work from one customer record within their permissions.
Retail distributor
Customer records · Access control · Follow-up and handover
Earlier work by the Ordiva founding team, delivered under Story Light Studio. The three feature stories cover the same operations system.
Executive Summary
The distributor needs a complete purchase and service history at head office while protecting each branch’s relationships. We connected customer identity, scoped access, follow-up timelines, and staff handovers in one system. Payments, contact updates, and account deactivation trigger the corresponding record changes, helping the next person continue the service.
The same cookware distributor serves customers through head office, branch managers, and salespeople. Customers can buy across branches: head office needs a complete service history, while each branch needs to protect its own customer relationships.
The Problem
When records live mainly in personal messaging accounts and memory, the team cannot easily see who needs a follow-up. Staff departures require manual transfers. Simply sharing every record would expose one branch’s customers to another.
Before
Customer information sits in personal tools. Follow-ups depend on memory, and cross-branch lookups and staff departures require extra coordination.
The implemented workflow
Use one head-office customer record, control what each branch can see, and connect follow-ups and ownership transfers to everyday actions.
The Vision
Keep service continuous across staff changes and repeat purchases. Head office can retrieve the full record, branches see their authorized scope, and salespeople can find overdue contacts from the homepage. When someone leaves, customers have a defined next owner.
The Solution
Connect follow-ups and handovers through one customer record
A phone number identifies the customer, with separate official and branch display names. A timeline records contact and the next follow-up date. Filters show customers untouched for 7, 30, or 90 days; the homepage highlights those beyond 30 days. Disabling a salesperson transfers their customers to the branch manager and changes future order attribution.
Included in the build
- Central customer records with branch visibility controls
- Separate display names and tracked contact-detail changes
- Follow-up timelines, date filters, and homepage reminders
- Customer transfer rules tied to account deactivation
How the System Works
How the team moves from the homepage to a customer handover
- 01
Unify identity without discarding local context
A phone number identifies the customer. The system keeps the official head-office name alongside each branch’s familiar name, so local notes do not overwrite the central record.
- 02
One customer, role-specific visibility
Head office can see purchase history across branches; branches see records within their own scope. Designated roles handle phone-number changes, with a change history.
- 03
Make the next follow-up explicit
A timeline records contact and the next follow-up date. Paid orders update the customer stage. The homepage highlights customers untouched for more than 30 days, with additional time-based filters.
- 04
Make handover part of disabling an account
Disabling a salesperson’s account transfers their customers to the branch manager. New orders no longer accrue to the former salesperson, while historical performance remains available for reconciliation.
What Makes This System Different
Shared identity preserves branch context
The central identity stays consistent while branches keep their familiar names. Local working habits do not overwrite official records.
Visibility follows responsibility
Head office can see cross-branch history; branches see their scope. Designated roles make phone-number changes, with a record of the modification.
Account status triggers the handover
Deactivation, transfer to the manager, future attribution, and preserved historical performance form one workflow instead of separate updates to remember.
Measurable Results
The following are functional and verification results from the project record.
Customer identity record
Phone-based identification connects the central record and separate branch display names, without creating unrelated customer identities for each branch.
Follow-up filters implemented
The workflow supports 7-, 30-, and 90-day filters, plus a homepage reminder beyond 30 days. These are functional rules, not retention or conversion improvements.
Account deactivation and customer transfer
Disabling a salesperson transfers customers to the manager. Internal acceptance also corrected a defect that could clear an assigned owner when saving a record.
Figure definitions and verification notes
Figures come from the project introduction and sections A2, A8, A9, and A16. They describe implemented identity, access, and reminder rules. Live follow-up completion, retention, and repeat-purchase rates are not yet available.
Business Impact
Managers: start from a visible queue
Follow-up timelines and reminders show which relationships need attention, providing a concrete starting point for assigning contact work.
Head office: service with cross-branch context
A customer buying from another branch can still have a continuous record at head office, reducing the need to locate the original salesperson before investigating.
Business continuity: a defined route through staff changes
Customers move to an active owner while historical performance remains available for reconciliation. Retention and repeat-purchase changes require observation after launch.
Ongoing operating metrics
- Share of due follow-ups completed
- Customers without an active owner after deactivation
- Extra requests needed to reconstruct service context
Why This Matters
A customer relationship includes past conversations, purchases, and a next action. When those live in personal messaging tools, another colleague has little context to work with. Designing identity, permissions, and ownership changes together makes service easier to continue while protecting branch relationships.
The Takeaway
Put follow-ups and handovers in the system the team opens every day. Shared records supply context, reminders identify the next action, and account deactivation transfers responsibility.
LET’S TALK
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