The customer statuses column form is displayed when you select the customer status codes option from the CRM Miscellaneous Options Menu. It is possible for each Department on the customer record to have a different status code. For example an individual may have purchased a vehicle from your dealership making the sales customer status C for customer but they may not have been into the service department making their after sales customer status P for prospect. The customer status is a useful field to use when you are doing mail shots as it enables you to differentiate between customer types, you may only be looking for existing customer for example so would look for the customer status on the sales Department being either 'C'ustomer or 'R'epeat customer. The way the status codes option also allows you to dictate how the customer status is updated when an invoice is produced for the Department.
A new Autoline system will have some standard customer status codes set up along with the new customer status code post invoicing. The standard Autoline codes are:
| Status code | Status description | Status after invoice |
| C | Customer | R |
| P | Prospect | C |
| R | Repeat customer | R |
| X | No longer needed | X |
Note: As per standard status code set-up, the 'X' status does not convert back to 'C'ustomer, although users can adjust the table to do this if required.
Fields:
The customer status record has three fields they are:
Status code: This single character code is used in the customer record against each Department to define the status of the customer to that department. As standard these codes define whether the customer is a 'P'rospect, first time 'C'ustomer, 'R'epeat customer or on longer has any significance for that department 'X'.
Status description: The appropriate description for the particular status code, up to thirty characters can be used.
Status after invoice: The alternative status code which should be applied to the customer after the Department concerned has raised an invoice against that customer. With the standard status codes, a 'P'rospect is converted into a 'C'ustomer, a 'C'ustomer, is converted into a 'R'epeat customer.
