Most small shops start keeping customers the same way: a notebook at the counter, a few hundred LINE chats, and one day a spreadsheet in Excel or Google Sheets.
That’s a good start. The real questions are how long the spreadsheet will last, and when it’s worth moving to a free CRM or a paid system.
This post helps you decide, with columns you can copy today whichever way you go.
What a customer database is
A customer database is your customer list, organised: one row per person, with what the shop actually uses: contact details, visit history and things worth knowing. If you’re not sure what to keep, read What is CRM? first.
A customer database is useful when three things are true: it’s in one place, it’s quick to search, and it’s up to date. The last one is the hard one.
Customer database columns (for Excel and Google Sheets)
These columns are enough for most service businesses. Copy them as your header row.
| Column | Example | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Name | Som | What you actually call them |
| Phone | 081 234 5678 | Same format on every row |
| som@example.com | If you have it | |
| LINE | Som ☀️ | Their LINE display name |
| Birthday | 14/03 | The year is optional |
| Tags | regular, tourist | Comma separated |
| First visit | 02/01/2026 | |
| Last visit | 10/10/2026 | Update on every visit |
| Visits | 12 | Update on every visit |
| Usual service | Gel hands + feet | |
| Notes | Likes nude colours, gentle filing | |
| Agreed to offers | Yes (LINE) 05/01/2026 | Which channel, and when |
Extra columns by trade:
- Spas and massage: preferred pressure, sore spots, oils to avoid, usual therapist.
- Hair salons and barbers: usual stylist, last colour or formula.
- Clinics: next follow-up, course bought and sessions left.
- Studios and gyms: package, expiry date, favourite classes.
- Vets and groomers: pet’s name, breed, temperament, next vaccine.
Three tips if you use a spreadsheet:
- Freeze the header row and turn on filters, so you can sort by last visit and find who’s gone quiet.
- Use dropdowns for tags and consent. Typed by hand, they’re spelled differently every time.
- Never merge cells. Merged cells break filters and make moving to another system painful.
What Excel and Google Sheets do well
- Free, or already on your computer.
- Everyone knows them. No training.
- Flexible. Need a column? Add one.
- Google Sheets is shared. Several people can open it at once, on a phone too.
For a shop with a few dozen customers and one owner doing everything, a spreadsheet really is enough.
Where Excel starts to break
The problem isn’t the software. It’s that everything is typed by hand, and a service business has no time to type.
The data goes stale. Last visit and visit count need updating every time someone comes in. Your busiest day is the day nobody updates them, and the sheet starts to lie.
Bookings live somewhere else. Appointments are in a notebook or chats; customers are in the sheet. Someone copies between them by hand.
Duplicates. “Som”, “Khun Som” and “Som K.” are three rows for one person, with her history split three ways.
Phone numbers get mangled. Excel drops the leading zero or turns long numbers into scientific notation unless the column is set to text.
Everyone sees everything. Share the sheet with staff and they all see every customer’s phone and spend, and can download the whole file.
A sheet does nothing by itself. It doesn’t send reminders, notice who hasn’t come for 60 days or send a birthday coupon. Somebody has to remember all of it.
The sign it’s time to move: you say “I’ll update the sheet later” more often than you actually do.
PDPA: what a small shop should know
Thailand’s Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) applies to small shops too, not only big companies. The basics for a customer database (this isn’t legal advice; see the Personal Data Protection Committee’s guidance for details):
- Keep only what you use, and tell customers what it’s for.
- Promotions need consent. Booking confirmations and reminders are part of the service.
- Customers can ask to see or delete their data. You need to find all of it and actually delete it.
- Keep it safe, and limit who sees what.
Picture a customer asking you to delete their data. You’d need to remove it from the sheet, the chats, the notebook, and the copy someone downloaded last month. The more scattered the data, the harder the law is to follow.
What about a free CRM?
Several international CRMs have free plans, HubSpot and Zoho among them. They’re real tools and they work well, but most are designed for sales teams, so a service business should know what it’s choosing:
| Excel / Google Sheets | Free sales CRM | Booking system with customers built in | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free (with limits; paid as you grow) | Monthly |
| How customers get in | Typed | Typed or from forms | By themselves when they book |
| Visit history | Updated by hand | Connected or logged by you | Counted from real bookings |
| Booking reminders | None | Usually through a separate scheduling tool | Built in |
| LINE | None | Usually an add-on | LINE first |
| Thai language | Yes | Depends on the product | Yes |
| Staff permissions | Share the whole file | Basic on free plans | Yes |
Each has its place. If you sell through long deals, like property or machinery, a sales CRM is the right tool. If your business is taking bookings and serving people, customer data should come from the bookings themselves.
What is a CRM worth?
When you weigh up a CRM’s price, don’t stop at the monthly fee. Count the hidden costs too:
- Typing time. Fifteen minutes a day updating a sheet adds up to hours a month, hours you could spend with customers.
- Customers who drift away unnoticed. A sheet won’t tell you who has gone quiet. A system that does can win them back one at a time.
- Missed bookings. Every gap from a no-show is lost income. Automatic reminders help.
- Switching later. The longer you wait, the more data there is to move. Pick a system that imports from Excel and exports again, so you’re never stuck.
One simple test: if a system brought back a few more regulars a month, would it cover its monthly fee? For most service businesses, the price of a single visit at your own shop answers that.
Moving from Excel to Tellfox
If you already have a customer sheet, you don’t start over. Tellfox imports a CSV file from Excel or Google Sheets (name, phone, email, tags, notes and birthday), with Thai or English column names.
- 1Save your sheet as CSVFrom Excel or Google Sheets, with Thai or English column names.
- 2Check the previewTellfox shows how many customers will be created, how many rows match customers you already have, how many repeat inside the file, and which rows have a problem.
- 3ImportName, phone, email, tags, notes and birthday join your customer list.
- 4After that, the data keeps itselfCustomers who book in LINE or on the web join the list by themselves; last visit and spend are counted from real bookings.
- A preview before anything is imported: how many customers will be created, how many rows match customers you already have, how many repeat inside the file, and which rows have a problem.
- After that, the data keeps itself. Customers who book in LINE or on the web join the list by themselves; last visit, visits and spend are counted from real bookings.
- See who’s gone quiet with the one-tap “not seen for 60 days” and the birthday-this-month filter.
- Staff see only the customers they serve. Owners and managers see everyone, and only the owner can export the whole list.
- PDPA built in: consent to offers per channel with who and when, one customer’s data exported on request, and delete or anonymise when a customer asks.
- Export to CSV any time, and an exported file imports straight back.
More on the Tellfox customers (CRM) page.
Try it
Send a photo of your price list to Tellfox in LINE and see your booking page in seconds. Try it now