Searching for customers

Once your workspace has more than a few hundred customers, finding the right one becomes the bottleneck. Ochre's customer search is built to be fast and to compose with everything else in the product.

Where to search

There are three entry points.

1. Global search bar (top of the app). Searches conversations and customers, returns the best matches across both.
2. Customers page. Filtered list view, optimized for narrowing by attribute.
3. From a conversation panel. Click the customer's name to open their full record, then pivot to "find similar".

For conversation search specifically, see search.

Basic search

Type a name, email, or domain. Ochre matches across:

• Display name (full and partial).
• Primary email.
• Email aliases (including ones imported from a previous helpdesk).
• Original ticket numbers, when you search a numeric value.

The match is fuzzy on names. Bob Lee will find Robert Lee, and acme.com will find every customer at that domain.

Operators

For precise queries, use field operators.

| Operator | Example | Meaning | |---|---|---| | email: | email:@acme.com | Email contains | | domain: | domain:acme.com | Email domain exactly | | name: | name:"Robert Lee" | Name exact phrase | | alias: | alias:48201 | Alias contains | | created: | created:>2025-01-01 | Created after | | last_seen: | last_seen:<2025-04-01 | Last activity before | | tier:, region:, etc. | tier:enterprise | Custom field equals |

Comparison operators (>, <, >=, <=) work on number and date fields.

Combining

Operators stack. All conditions are ANDed together.

domain:acme.com tier:enterprise last_seen:>2025-04-01

For OR, use commas inside an operator value. region:EU,APAC.

For NOT, prefix with -. -tier:free excludes free-tier customers.

Saving searches

Any customer search can be saved as a view on the Customers page. Saved views show up in the left rail and update live as data changes. Use them for the cohorts you check often: at-risk renewals, top accounts, EU customers, etc.

Saved views are per-user by default. To share a view with the whole team, mark it as shared in the view settings. Shared views appear under the team section of the rail.

Searching by integration data

Stripe and HubSpot fields are searchable like custom fields once those integrations are connected. Examples:

• mrr:>500 for paying customers above $500/month.
• plan:Pro for customers on the Pro plan.
• lifecycle:opportunity for HubSpot contacts mid-deal.
• payment_status:past_due for past-due Stripe customers.

These fields refresh from the source on a regular cadence, so saved views stay current. See stripe-context and hubspot-context.

From customer to inbox

Once you've found the right cohort, pivot to the inbox. Click "View conversations" on a customers list to open all their open conversations in the inbox, with the same filter applied. From there, bulk-actions lets you reply, tag, snooze, or close in batch.

From inbox to customer

The reverse works too. From any conversation, click the customer's name to open their record, then click "Find similar" to expand to everyone matching the same custom field or domain. Useful for finding accounts affected by a shared incident.

Search performance

Customer search is indexed; even a workspace with hundreds of thousands of customers returns results in under a second for typical queries. The exception is regex-style searches with leading wildcards (name:*lee), which are slower. If you find yourself doing those often, an alias or custom field is usually the better solution.

Privacy and access

Search respects role permissions. Agents see only customers within scopes they have access to. Admins see everything. The search index is rebuilt automatically when permissions change, so demoting a user removes restricted customers from their search results within a minute. See roles-permissions.

Common queries

A few starter searches.

• domain:acme.com — everyone at one company.
• tier:enterprise mrr:>1000 — high-value enterprise accounts.
• last_seen:<2024-12-01 tier:enterprise — enterprise accounts that have gone quiet.
• payment_status:past_due — billing-blocked customers.
• lifecycle:opportunity -tier:enterprise — mid-deal mid-market opportunities.

For tagging and grouping at the conversation level, see tags.

Search is the seam between knowing your customers and acting on them. Spend ten minutes learning the operators and you'll save hours every week.