How to Exclude Channel Entities from Returning Customer Detection
Returning Customer detection is normally configured per channel — on or off for all of Email, or all of Phone, and so on. Sometimes that’s too blunt. A shared support mailbox might need detection everywhere except one automated address; a Twilio number used only for outbound notifications shouldn’t be checked for returning customers at all. Exclusions let you keep detection on for a channel while carving out specific email addresses, phone numbers, SMS numbers, or chat widgets that should behave as if the feature were disabled just for them.
Where to find it
- Go to Settings → Conversations → Returning Customers.
- Open the tab for the channel you want to adjust: Email, Phone, SMS, or Web Chat.
- Under Where this applies, you’ll see two options:
All addresses / numbers / widgets — detection applies to every entity on this channel. This is the default.
Exclude specific — detection applies to everything on this channel except the entities you list.
Each channel tab has its own exclusion list. Excluding an address on Email has no effect on Phone, SMS, or Web Chat.
Adding an exclusion
- Switch the tab from All to Exclude specific.
- Use Add an email address… / Add a phone number… / Add an SMS number… / Add a widget… to open the picker.
- Search for the entity and select it. It’s added to the exclusion list below and removed from the picker’s remaining options.
- Repeat for any other entities you want to exempt on this channel.
- Click Save.
Exclusions don’t take effect until you save. Adding or removing entries in the UI only stages the change.
Removing an exclusion
Remove the entity from the exclusion list, then Save. If you remove every entry, the channel returns to detecting on all entities — you don’t need to switch the toggle back to All yourself, though you can.
An empty exclusion list is treated the same as All addresses / numbers / widgets: detection applies everywhere on that channel.
What excluding an entity actually does
An excluded email address, phone number, SMS number, or chat widget is treated exactly as if Returning Customer detection were disabled for it specifically:
- No clarification prompt is sent to contacts using that entity.
- No match is attempted against the customer’s previous conversations.
- Auto-merge is suppressed for that entity, even if auto-merge is otherwise configured for the channel. Two contacts through an excluded number or address will not be merged into one thread.
Everything else about the channel’s configuration — thresholds, triggers, timeout action — keeps working normally for every entity you haven’t excluded.
Notes and edge cases
- Picker shows what your account can see. The list of addresses, numbers, and widgets in the picker comes from your existing channel configuration. If an entity isn’t listed there, it isn’t available to exclude.
- If an excluded entity is later deleted, its ID stays in the list showing as unavailable rather than silently dropping out — this avoids accidentally re-enabling detection for it on your next save. If the list simply fails to load, existing exclusions are left untouched; save again once the list loads.
- Exclusions are per entity, not per contact. Excluding a phone number exempts anyone who contacts you through that number — it isn’t a per-customer opt-out.
- Switching back to “All” clears the list. If you switch a channel tab from Exclude specific back to All and save, any exclusions you’d added for that channel are removed.