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Manual Persona Merging

AIQ merges most duplicate personas automatically, but you may occasionally need to correct or separate records by updating shopper contact information.

Prerequisites

Before getting started, ensure you have:

Required permissions

The personas page is available to staff members with the following permissions:

  • Staff (if enabled)

  • Analyst

  • Marketing

  • Marketing Analyst

  • Operator

  • Owner

How AIQ Identifies Duplicate Personas

AIQ determines whether to merge two personas by comparing their identifying fields in the following priority order:

  1. Mobile phone number

  2. Email address

  3. POS or customer ID

  4. Medical ID / Driver's License / Date of Birth (only when the Name + DOB merge setting is enabled in Loyalty Settings)

A match on any of these fields will trigger a merge. This is why correcting a shared phone number or email in the POS is the most effective way to prevent re-merges — until the POS sends distinct identifiers for each shopper, AIQ will continue merging the records on every sync.

Manually Merging Personas

📌 PII edits apply to the entire merged profile. When you edit contact information (phone number, email, name, etc.) in the General tab of a persona, those changes apply to the full merged customer — sub-records do not need to be updated separately. AIQ propagates the update across all linked records.

To manually merge personas, simply correct the PII in the General / Traits portion of the Persona Card.

Steps

  1. Navigate to Customers > Personas

  2. Open the persona

  3. Go to the General tab

  4. Scroll to Traits

  5. Click Edit

  6. Update the phone number, email, or other PII

  7. Wait up to 24 hours for the system to process the merge

Manually Unmerging Personas

To separate personas that were incorrectly merged, you correct the PII in the Merges History portion of the Persona Card:

Steps

  1. Navigate to Customers > Personas > History / Merges

  2. Locate the incorrect PII within the Merge History entries

  3. Update the information to the correct phone/email in the Merge Tab itself for all impacted merges present.

  4. Wait for the next data sync (up to 24 hours)

  5. Verify the separation: search for the persona by phone/email — they should now appear as a standalone record. You can also run merge:PHONE or merge:EMAIL in the Personas search — no results confirms the unmerge is complete.

Note: Avoid making corrections in the General Traits section when trying to UNMERGE personas. That is where you edit to intentionally merge if needed.

⚠️ Check all merge records — if multiple entries in the Merges tab contain the shared identifier, each one must be corrected. Updating only one record will not complete the separation.

⚠️ Some records cannot be edited in the Merges tab: Records created via the Manual merge button and records matched by Medical ID are read-only. The standard PII correction method will not trigger an unmerge for these — contact AIQ Support to address these records as needed.

⚠️ Persistent re-merges after a POS sync? If you correct PII in AIQ but the personas re-merge on the next POS data sync, the root cause is in the POS source data — not AIQ. The POS is still sending a shared phone number or email for both profiles. The fix must happen at the POS level: correct the contact information in the POS so that each profile has a unique identifier, then let AIQ re-import. If the incorrect PII has already spread to sub-records and cannot be corrected through the Merges tab, contact AIQ Support — engineering involvement may be required to clear the override.

POS Considerations

Some POS systems require the shopper to complete another transaction before new PII syncs into AIQ.

Integration Notes

POS systems often require a new transaction for updated PII. Some integrations only sync when that external system pushes new data. If data was updated in AIQ only, it will unmerge overnight.

Splitting a Single Merged Record

If you want to split off one merged profile:

  1. Go to History > Merges

  2. Edit the incorrect merged record's PII

AIQ will split only that one record into its own persona. Remaining merged profiles stay intact. Note: Points may be recalculated for the separated profile.

Warnings

⚠️ Do NOT Use the Merge Button
The merge button requires entering internal Contact IDs and can create irreversible merges. Use PII correction instead. If you're unsure, contact Support.

⚠️ Do Not Create a New Persona

Creating a new shopper record will cause:

  • More duplicates

  • More incorrect merges

  • Conflicting histories

  • Inaccurate loyalty points

Always update the existing persona instead.

When to Contact Support

  • Removing invalid emails, phone numbers, or PII

  • Undoing a merge involving fake or placeholder data

  • Splitting a record when PII can't be recovered

  • Complex merge issues caused by POS imports

  • A merge record is read-only and cannot be corrected in the Merges tab (created via the Manual merge button or triggered by a Medical ID match)

  • Persistent re-merges where incorrect PII has already spread to sub-records and cannot be fixed through the Merges tab

Need Help?

If you need assistance, reach out to AIQ Support anytime via the chat widget within your AIQ Dashboard.

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