Linked accounts is a staff reminder, not a data merge. When you link two customers, nothing combines: no shared login, no merged order history, no pooled loyalty points, no aggregated totals. What it adds is a visible pointer on each customer’s profile and packing card that says “this customer is connected to another one; have a look.”
What it’s for
Picture this: a customer raises an issue. You open their profile. Orders look fine. History looks normal. What isn’t obvious without a link is that the same issue came up on a household member’s account last week. Or that this customer is the one who was banned in March and has registered again under a new email. Or that this “new” customer is actually the admin assistant for a business whose owner has been buying from you for three years.
A link puts the connection in one place, on the profile, so the next staff member sees what you saw. Patterns stay visible.
When shops link
Household connections. Two customers at the same address with the same issue pattern. Linking lets staff see a household-level view of delivery or product problems.
Business relationships. An owner and an admin assistant each place orders. Linking makes it clear they’re one business relationship, not two unrelated customers.
Banned re-registration. A Do Not Serve customer registers under a new email. Staff notice and link the new account to the old one with a note (“appears to be the customer who was banned in March”). Every order from the new account surfaces the warning on both the order screen and the packing card before fulfilment.
Adult child ordering for an elderly parent. Two legitimate accounts, but the orders on one are actually being placed by the other. Linking lets staff know who’s on the other end when something comes up.
What linking actually does
- Clickable link on each profile. Both profiles show the other as “Linked to [name]” with a click-through. The reverse direction shows too: customers who have been linked to this customer appear under “Linked from” on the profile.
- Link icon on the packing card. A link glyph appears in the customer block, coloured by the linked account’s status. Active links sit quietly in the default text colour; VIP, Caution, and Do Not Serve links are highlighted in their status colour so packers notice without opening anything.
- Expanded view on the packing card. Shop managers can expand the customer card to see each linked account’s name, status, and the reason the link was recorded. Packers see the link count and status colour but not the linked person’s identity (privacy-scoped to capability).
- Warning banner on the order edit screen. If either customer in a link has Caution or Do Not Serve status, the Intel Panel at the top of the order surfaces a warning before you process.
That’s the whole feature set. No auto-emails, no combined reports, no automated decisions. A note to staff, made durable and visible.
What linking does NOT do
Linked profiles stay entirely separate. Linking never merges two profiles into one. Each customer keeps their own WooCommerce account, their own email, their own login, their own My Account, their own order history, their own loyalty points. The link is a visible cross-reference in the admin; nothing combines, unifies, or shares between the two accounts.
Specifically:
- No shared login. Each customer logs into their own WC account; linking doesn’t grant one access to the other.
- No shared My Account. Each sees only their own orders. Customers don’t even know a link exists.
- No pooled loyalty points or perks. Perkie treats each WC customer as its own rewards subject. Linking doesn’t combine points or tiers.
- No combined LTV in customer reports. Each profile shows its own lifetime value. Household-level totals aren’t a built-in report.
- No merged order history. Each customer’s orders stay on their own profile.
- No merge, ever. Merging WC accounts is destructive and creates data-integrity problems. Linking gives the context benefit without touching the underlying accounts.
Audit trail
Every link and unlink action logs to the audit system: the staff member’s user ID, timestamp, and the reason recorded at link time. If a link is ever questioned, the log has the context. (Audit logging is opt-in; the Audit log feature has the details on enabling it.)
Helps staff recognise; doesn’t replace verification
Linked accounts give staff hints. They don’t bypass your shop’s normal identity-verification standards for refunds, releasing customer information, discussing order details, or processing returns. Those still require confirming you’re talking to the right person through your shop’s usual checks. Linking enriches the context; it doesn’t prove identity.
Not the same as aliases
Linked accounts connect two separate profiles that are related (household, business pair, re-registered customer). Each stays independent.
Aliases record alternate identifiers on a single customer profile (alternate emails, phones, addresses, names). One profile, many ways of matching to it.
The easy test:
- One person, many ways of appearing → aliases.
- Two people, related situations → linked accounts.
If you’re weighing this up against a CRM with contact-merging
HubSpot, Salesforce, and FluentCRM all offer contact-merging. Two contacts become one; data is consolidated; history is combined. Destructive but powerful when you know for sure two records represent the same person.
Linked accounts work the other way: two records stay two records. The link is metadata about a relationship, not a consolidation of data. You keep the ability to see each customer’s individual behaviour (lifetime value, order history, loyalty status) exactly as it actually is, while getting the staff-visible cross-reference when context matters.
If you know two records should genuinely be one and you want to permanently consolidate, a CRM’s merge feature is the right tool. If you want to surface the relationship without touching the underlying accounts, linked accounts are designed for that.