The customers directory is your full contact list, with lifetime visits, spend, and email status for everyone who has booked, subscribed, or been imported. The customer report adds the headline numbers on top - active and new customers, retention, and visit frequency - so you can see how your audience is growing.
This article covers both: the directory where you browse and filter people, and the customer section of Reports where you read the trends.
Customers vs subscribers
Session distinguishes two kinds of contact, and the difference matters for how you read the directory.
- A customer is someone who has actually booked and attended a session - they have a realised visit.
- A subscriber is someone you have a marketing relationship with (they opted in to your emails at this venue).
These overlap: a customer can also be a subscriber. There's no stored "type" - both are worked out live from your data, so a not-yet-booked subscriber automatically becomes a customer the moment they book.
The summary at the bottom of the list always reads "N contacts" - the total is everyone, customers plus people who haven't booked yet. Beside it sit two clickable chips, "customers" and "subscribers", that filter the list to each segment.
What's in the list
Each row shows lifetime, all-time figures so a customer never disappears just because they were quiet this month.
- Name - with their email and email delivery status underneath.
- Visits - lifetime count of realised visits (confirmed or completed bookings for sessions that have already happened).
- Spent - lifetime net spend (what they paid, minus any refunds).
- First visit and Last visit - the dates of their earliest and most recent realised visits.
Click any column header to sort the whole list by it - sorting and search both run across every customer, not just the page you're looking at, so an A-Z view surfaces the right person even if they're on a later page.
Filtering the directory
Two dropdowns above the list let you narrow your audience. They combine, so you can stack a customer type with an email status.
The "All customers" dropdown
This single dropdown covers three different cuts (picking one clears the others):
- Customers (booked) / Not yet booked - the transaction split described above.
- Users / Members - everyone vs active members only. The Members option only appears once you have at least one membership tier.
- New this period / Returning - new customers (their first-ever visit falls in the selected period) vs returning ones.
The "New" and "Returning" cuts depend on a time period. Open the directory from a customer report segment (see below) to land on the right period, or they default to the last 30 days.
The "All mail status" dropdown
Filter by email deliverability - or by Marketing consent to show only customers who opted in to your marketing emails at this venue. Delivery statuses (like bounced) come from your email provider and help you spot addresses that are no longer reaching anyone.
Use Marketing consent plus the email export to build a clean send list. See automated emails for what Session sends on your behalf.
The customer report
The customer section of Reports sits between the occupancy heatmap and the year-end totals. It gives you the headline numbers for a chosen date range, with a comparison against the previous period of the same length.
The figures use one consistent definition of a "visit": a confirmed or completed booking for a session that has already started. A future booking isn't counted as a visit yet. Each card shows the change against the same-length period immediately before.
- Active customers - how many distinct people visited in the period.
- New customers - first-time visitors (their lifetime-first visit was in this period).
- Retention rate - the percentage of the previous period's active customers who came back this period. With no prior period to compare against, this reads "Not enough history yet" rather than 0%.
- Avg sessions per customer - visits divided by active customers.
Below the headline cards, the "Sessions per customer" distribution splits active customers into 1, 2-4, and 5+ visits. Each band is clickable: it opens the directory pre-filtered to those customers for the report's date range, so you can go straight from "who are my regulars?" to the actual list of names.
Pick the report date range with the date picker in the page header, and scope it to one location if you run more than one. The customer figures follow your choices; the year-end section below them stays organisation-wide.
Common questions
- 1
Why doesn't a customer's report period activity match their directory row? The report figures scope to your selected date range, while the directory columns are always lifetime totals. A customer with no activity in the chosen period still appears in the directory with their all-time numbers.
- 2
A guest booked but I can't see them under a membership or consent filter - why? Customers without an email address (some guests and imported placeholders) are included in the membership and consent filters but excluded from the New/Returning period filters, so those period cuts match the report's headline population exactly.
- 3
How do I add or invite people to this list? The directory fills automatically from bookings, memberships, and imports. To bring in an existing contact list, use Import data. To give someone admin or staff access instead, see invite your team.
- 4
Can I see one customer's full history? Yes. Open any customer from the directory to view their bookings, membership status, and email preferences, and to manage on their behalf. See customer accounts & bookings.
- 5
How do I export the list? The directory has an export that produces a CSV including lifetime and in-period visits and spend, phone, and marketing consent - handy for accountants or a one-off mail merge. See CSV exports.