# Customers and leads

How contact form messages become customer records and where to find them.

Source: https://yaya.page/support/articles/customers/customers-and-leads
Last updated: 2026-10-02

## One record per person
Every customer in yaya is one record, matched by email address. The record holds their details, messages, notes and invoices.

## How people get in
- **Contact form.** A message sent through your published site creates a customer, or adds a message to the existing one with the same email.
- **Add by hand.** Use **New customer** on the **Customers** page.
- **Import.** Upload a CSV, JSON or vCard file.

## Lead or customer
A person counts as a customer once one of their invoices is paid. Everyone else is a lead. Open their record and check the **Invoices** tab to see which one they are.

## Where to look
- **Customers** lists everyone. Click a name to open their record.
- Open a record and click **Messages** to read what they sent through your site.
- **Inbox** lists messages from your site and mailboxes.

## Questions
**Why is a customer missing?** Search by email. A second form message from the same email lands on the existing record, not a new row.

**Can my team see this?** Anyone on the team can open **Messages** on a customer.

## Next steps
- [Add a customer](/support/articles/customers/add-a-customer)
- [Open a customer and read their history](/support/articles/customers/read-a-customer-history)
- [Search, sort and filter customers](/support/articles/customers/search-sort-and-filter-customers)
- [Import and download contacts](/support/articles/customers/import-and-download-contacts)