Understanding visitors, leads, and customers

People brings together contacts and the activity Cedros can associate with them. Use the Visitor, Lead, Customer, and Archived stages to organize follow-up and describe your relationship with each person.

A stage is a classification you can change. Check the person's details and linked activity before deciding what it means for your next action.

Understand the four stages

• Visitor: someone browsing your site, usually before you have captured contact details. A visitor record can help you see activity without identifying the person by name.
• Lead: someone who has signed up, shared contact details, or otherwise started a conversation, but whom you have not yet classified as a customer.
• Customer: someone who has purchased, booked, subscribed, or become an active client. Use this stage according to how your business defines a customer.
• Archived: someone you no longer want in the active People list. Their profile and history remain available, and you can move them back to another stage.

These labels describe the intended relationship; they are not independent proof of a purchase, a verified email address, an active subscription, or permission to send marketing email. For example, moving a lead to Customer does not create a payment or booking. Check the relevant transaction or booking record for its actual status.

Choose a consistent rule for your team. A service business might use Lead for an initial inquiry and Customer once a booking is confirmed. A shop might use Customer after a completed purchase. Apply that rule to the evidence in the person's record.

How people and activity appear

Records can come from site activity, forms, support conversations, email, sign-ins, bookings, contracts, and supported purchase integrations. You can also add someone yourself with Add person. What you see depends on which features your site uses, the information captured, and your access.

Cedros uses identifying details, such as a matching email address or phone number, to find or link a profile. A display name alone is not a reliable match. Activity without enough identifying information may remain anonymous or separate from a known person's profile.

Form and support-chat activity can move a Visitor to Lead. Other sources do not all follow the same stage rules. Do not assume that every sign-in, booking, purchase, or new contact detail automatically sets the stage you expect. Review the saved stage and update it when appropriate.

A profile may show a generated visitor name or an anonymous label when a real name is unavailable. Treat that as a way to distinguish records, not as the person's actual name. An email address, phone number, or wallet may be shown instead when those details are available.

The same person may have separate records across browsers or devices. Conversely, a shared device may be used by several people. The People list is therefore not an exact count of distinct human beings, and it may differ from visitor totals in analytics.

Find the right person

1. Open People in the admin navigation. You need permission to view People; ask your administrator if the section is missing.
2. Choose Active to browse non-archived people, or choose Visitor, Lead, Customer, or Archived to narrow the list. Companies is a separate view of organizations, not another stage for a person.
3. Search by name, email, phone, or visitor ID. Use a known email or phone when a name could match more than one person.
4. Check the last-activity dropdown. The default is Last 12 months; choose Any time when looking for an older record. Open Filters to check the selected view, source, tag, or owner, then use Apply filters after changes.
5. Open the matching person. Confirm their identifying details and review their history before changing anything.

The Active tab includes non-archived Visitors, Leads, and Customers that match the current filters. It does not mean they are all on the website now. Active now on an individual record reflects recent page activity; it does not confirm that the person is still looking at the page or available to respond.

If search finds nothing, check both the stage tab and the date range before adding a duplicate. Clearing filters restores the default date range, so select Any time again if needed. Also check the selected view and Archived. See Organizing contacts with tags and filters for combined filters and saved views.

Change a person's stage

You need permission to edit People. Changing a stage saves immediately, so select the intended person and stage carefully.

1. Open the person's profile and confirm their identity.
2. Review the activity or business outcome that supports the change, such as the relevant inquiry, booking, or purchase.
3. In Follow-up, open Stage and select Visitor, Lead, Customer, or Archived.
4. Wait for Stage updated. If an error appears, resolve it before treating the change as saved.
5. Reopen the profile or the relevant stage tab and confirm the saved stage. The person may disappear from your current list because they no longer match its stage filter.

If you choose the wrong stage, change it back. A stage change does not create a login account, grant site access, subscribe someone to a mailing list, charge them, or cancel a booking or subscription. Manage those actions in their own sections.

To remove someone from everyday follow-up while keeping their history, use Archived. Find them later in the Archived tab, widen the date range if needed, and choose another stage to bring them back. Archiving is different from Erase permanently, which removes data and cannot be undone; erasure is not needed just to take someone out of the active list.

Review possible identity matches carefully

The Identity signals card can show Shared device/visitor — possible same person. This means activity suggests a connection between profiles; it is not confirmation that the profiles belong to one person. Shared-device signals do not automatically merge profiles.

Compare contact details and the underlying activity before deciding whether two records represent the same person. A household device, workplace computer, or forwarded email link can involve different people. Do not merge records merely because they have a similar name or share a device.

If you choose to merge profiles, read the confirmation carefully: activity, notes, and identifiers move into the current profile, and the merge cannot be undone. Leave uncertain matches separate until you have enough information. Changing a stage does not resolve a duplicate or merge any history.

Resolve unexpected records or stages

• A customer is still shown as a Lead or Visitor. Check the actual purchase, booking, or client relationship, then update Follow-up → Stage. Linked activity and lifecycle stage are separate parts of the profile.
• A Lead has no usable email address. The stage alone does not guarantee contact details. Check the profile for an address or phone number before planning outreach.
• A person is missing from Active. Check Archived, the search, date range, selected view, and other filters. After a stage change, look in the newly selected stage.
• A profile has little or no history. Confirm the correct person and the source feature you expect to see. Anonymous or unmatched activity may not be linked, and your permissions can limit visible records. An empty profile section does not establish that an event never happened.
• Stage is unavailable or cannot be changed. Ask your administrator to check your People editing permission. If saving fails, keep the exact error and verify the current stage before retrying.
• Someone is a Customer but should not receive marketing email. Check their subscription and sending eligibility separately. Customer and Lead labels do not override an unsubscribe or other sending restriction.

For help with missing or incorrect records, contact support with the affected profile reference, expected source or stage, approximate event time, and exact error. Share only the contact details needed to identify the issue; do not include passwords or payment details.