Contact identification overview

Series: Find, view, and link external contacts

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Important: To build the interaction history for a contact and organization, remember to always link the contact that is associated with an interaction.

Identity resolution

With single customer view, when an interaction begins, Genesys Cloud automatically uses to attempt to link the contact to an existing contact record.

Identity resolution makes the single customer view happen with four types of contacts:

Contact type	Description
Identified	If Genesys Cloud finds a single match, it auto-links the contact: For email interactions, Genesys Cloud uses the email address. For voice interactions, Genesys Cloud uses the phone number. For web chat interactions, Genesys Cloud uses the email address, if supplied. If the email address is not available, Genesys Cloud uses the phone number. If either the email address or the phone number search results in a single match, Genesys Cloud auto-links the contact. If an email address or a phone number is unavailable, Genesys Cloud searches for the name entered. If that search results in a single match, Genesys Cloud shows the profile, and the agent can link it. For more information about configuring web chat fields, see the Developer Center. For authenticated web messaging interactions, Genesys Cloud merges the contacts based on the messenger configuration and identity resolution configuration settings. For configuring identity resolution for authenticated web messenger via Genesys Cloud, refer Identity resolution for authenticated web messaging quick start guide. For configuring identity resolution via API, refer Developer Center. If the Authentication toggle in Messenger configuration is turned on and the External source field is also configured, Genesys Cloud merges contacts based on the supplied external ID from the external source. If the Authentication toggle in Messenger configuration is turned on and the External source field is not configured, Genesys Cloud merges contacts based on other identifiers such as email address or phone number, if present. If the Authentication toggle in Messenger configuration is turned off, the External source field is disabled and you cannot select an external source from the list. In this case, Genesys Cloud merges contacts based on the cookie ID. For messaging interactions, Genesys Cloud uses the messaging ID. If Genesys Cloud cannot auto-link with the messaging ID, Genesys Cloud attempts to search for the contact name. If the search results in a single match, Genesys Cloud shows the profile, and the agent can link it. To configure identity resolution, see Configure identity resolution for different channels. For social channels, Genesys Cloud stitches the identity of a contact based on the user identifier shared by the respective social channel. Apple Messages for Business - AMB Opaque ID Facebook - Facebook ID Instagram - Instagram ID Line - Line ID Twitter - Twitter ID WhatsApp - Phone number For open messaging interactions, Genesys Cloud uses the opaque ID provided through the open messaging integration. If the opaque ID is not available, Genesys Cloud uses the phone number or email address, if supplied. The opaque ID is stored as an external ID. If either the opaque ID, the email address, or the phone number search results in a single match, Genesys Cloud automatically links the contact. To configure identity resolution from the Admin page, see Configure identity resolution from the Admin page. To configure identity resolution through APIs, see the Developer Center. Identified contacts expire 60 days after their last interaction with your organization.
Ephemeral	If Genesys Cloud finds no matches, or if it finds more than one match, it uses cookie identifiers to create an ephemeral, or temporary, contact. An agent can create a new contact from the temporary contact or link a temporary contact to an existing external contact. Ephemeral contacts expire 60 days after their last interaction with your organization.
Canonical	Sometimes, multiple contact records may represent a single contact. For example, a contact connects with your organization by email upon one occasion, and then the same person uses web messaging to contact your organization. Genesys Cloud allows an agent to merge the contact records. In this case, the previous contacts become aliases to the canonical contact. The resulting merged canonical contact is a curated contact, which does not expire.
Curated	After an agent links a contact, Genesys Cloud saves it as a curated contact. Curated contacts are searchable. Curated contacts do not expire.

Note: Ephemeral and identified contacts become curated contacts after an agent or API client/integration promotes the contact.

For more information and examples that show how single customer view impacts External Contacts, see Single customer view examples.

Contact identification and message channel identifiers

Genesys Cloud captures message channel identifiers for messaging interactions.

If you unlink a contact, Genesys Cloud doesn’t remove the message channel identifier.
If an existing external contact modifies part of their social channel information and starts a new message interaction, Genesys Cloud prompts the agent to update the external contact record with the new information.

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