Import customers from a spreadsheet

Import a file

On the CRM page, open the ⋯ menu at the top right and select Import from spreadsheet…. In a phase with no customers yet, the table offers Import from spreadsheet too.

Pick the Sender the customers belong to, when the playbook has more than one. WhatsApp, email and Instagram senders take an import. Messenger and web chat customers are added automatically when they message you, so those senders are listed but cannot be picked. Beside the sender, the phase its new customers start in.
Under the sender are the columns it takes, the one it needs first and marked with *: Phone for WhatsApp, Email for email, Instagram for Instagram. Select Download template for an empty file with exactly those columns, named in your language, ready to fill in and import.
Drop a CSV or Excel (XLSX) file on the dialog, or select it to choose one, or paste cells copied from Excel or Google Sheets. A workbook with several sheets asks which Sheet to import, starting on the first one with rows under its column names. The first non-empty row is read as the column names. A file can have up to 5,000 rows and 10 MB.
Select Continue. The sender's columns show again and tick off as you choose them. Each column of your file is listed with its first values. Choose what each one holds: Phone, Email, First name, Last name, Full name (split into first and last name at the last space), Contact phone, Instagram, Notes, one of your custom columns, or Skip. Columns named in English, Spanish or Portuguese, and columns named like a custom column, are matched for you. A column named just Name (Nombre, Nome) is matched as Full name, or as First name when the file also has a last-name column. Each choice can be used once. A WhatsApp sender needs a Phone column, an email sender an Email column, an Instagram sender an Instagram column. Custom columns are offered only when your access lets you edit table values.
While a Phone or Contact phone column is chosen, check the Default country. Phone numbers written without a country code are read as numbers of that country. It starts on your WhatsApp sender's own country.
Select Continue to review.

Instagram usernames

An Instagram column holds usernames. @maria.shop, Maria.Shop and a profile link such as https://www.instagram.com/maria.shop/ all read as maria.shop. A username has up to 30 letters, numbers, periods and underscores.

On an Instagram sender the username is who the row is. Someone who has already written to that account is matched to their conversation. Someone who hasn't yet is added as a new customer who reads Unreachable in the CRM: nothing can be sent to them, and when they first message or comment from that username they become that customer, with their conversation, in the phase they were in (see customer-engagement). A row with a missing or invalid username needs attention.
On a WhatsApp or email sender the username links the row to the person who already wrote to one of your Instagram accounts from it, and is saved as their Instagram contact detail. When no Instagram account knows the username, it is still saved as a contact detail, and the report says so. An invalid username is left out, and the report names it.

Review the rows

The review counts the rows that are New, Already in your CRM, and Need attention. Every row that needs attention is listed with its reason: a missing or invalid phone number, email address or Instagram username for the sender, a phone number, email address or Instagram username an earlier row already has, addresses that belong to two different customers, or a customer outside your access. Fix an address right in the list; the row is checked again. A row whose other address (the email on a WhatsApp sender, the phone on an email sender) is not valid still imports without it, and the report names it. The same goes for an invalid Instagram username on a WhatsApp or email sender.

If a repeating broadcast on the sender could reach the customers you import (sent to everyone, to the phase new customers start in, or to a customer table filter), the review names it.

Select Import N customers to start; no messages are sent. A bar shows the progress. Cancel stops after the rows already on their way; customers imported until then stay.

What happens to imported customers

Nothing is sent to them. No first message, no follow-up, no template. Each new customer gets a conversation on the sender with no messages, in the phase new customers of that sender start in, exactly like Add customer with Send opener unticked. Contact starts when they write to you or your team acts: an announcement, a template, a phase move, or a message from the Inbox.
They don't show in the Inbox list until a first message, from them or from you, and then they sit where that message puts them. Until then, find one with the Inbox search by name or number, or open it from its CRM row with Open in inbox.
A customer already in your CRM keeps everything they have: only empty contact details and empty custom column values are filled, and nothing already there is overwritten. They get a conversation on the sender when they have none, and the sender they last talked to you on stays the one your automations reach them on. A phone number or email never moves from one customer to another.
A row's phone number and email both belong to the same customer, whichever they later write from.
Every customer the import adds reads Import in the CRM's optional Source column; hover it for the file name and date (see phases-table).

The report

When the import ends, it shows how many customers were Added, Updated, Unchanged, and Not imported. When any row was not imported, or had a value left out (for example an invalid email next to a good phone number, a value a custom column cannot take, notes too long to keep, or a detail someone filled in during the import), select Download report. It is your file's rows that need a look, with two more columns: Result and Reason. Fix them in the file and import it again; rows already imported only fill what is still empty.

Select View in CRM to see the customers you imported: it opens the phase they start in, filtered to Source is Import. Change or remove the filter like any other (see phases-table).

Who can import, and who sees imported customers

Import from spreadsheet shows only for team members whose role lets them edit customers. A team member whose access does not reach the phase new customers start in does not see the customers they import, the same as with Add customer; ask an admin to widen your access (see team-roles-and-access).