---
title: Customers overview
slug: commerce-connect-14/docs/customers-overview
docTags: 
createdAt: 2026-07-20T15:44:51.676Z
---

The Customer Management system in Optimizely Commerce Connect has contacts and accounts. A contact is a website [visitor](docId\:ibAde-4yZKFkqOALbqh2Z) who registers an account on the front-end site. You can use organizations to manage contacts in structures appropriate for your ecommerce business.

![Image: Organization-contacts-hierarchy](https://api.archbee.com/api/optimize/BrbvVORKJ5iIeSMZye5kI/THyMZeTQSEmBCcF-nxmhe-20260720-150118.png "Image: Organization-contacts-hierarchy")

## Organizations

Create an organization hierarchy by creating parent-child relationships among organizations. For example, you can create a hierarchy of organizations, such as *Administration > EU Headquarters > EU Management*, and associate contacts with the appropriate level of the hierarchy. You can set permissions to determine which users can view organizations in the hierarchy.

The same principle applies to creating customer group hierarchies. For example, if you have a customer organization with *Gold*, *Silver*, and *Bronze* levels, you can use the customer groups to display different prices for each group. See [Organizations](docId\:gJNqeW8OxscPk2XWnYKz6).

## Contacts

When a visitor registers on the storefront (such as to make a purchase), Commerce Connect automatically creates a contact and account. You can manage contacts within customer groups and organizations and apply specific pricing and personalization. See [Contacts](docId\:tapqnokPOIboNVcvsDFaC).

:::hint{type="info"}
**Note**

The default implementation of Commerce Connect supports anonymous shopping and does not require customers to create an account to purchase. Anonymous customers are not available as contacts.
:::

## Manage contacts and organizations

Customer [contacts](docId\:tapqnokPOIboNVcvsDFaC) and [organizations](docId\:gJNqeW8OxscPk2XWnYKz6) are managed from the **Customers** view in Commerce Connect.

![CustomizedCommerce\_Contacts.png](https://api.archbee.com/api/optimize/BrbvVORKJ5iIeSMZye5kI/v9TqoyAgq0SCUh7UNQZUI-20260720-150118.png)