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Displaying Your OuterSignal Customer Biography in Your Internal Customer Success Tool

OuterSignal can write a customer biography directly to a Shopify customer metafield, giving your support team instant access to rich customer context — purchase behavior, demographics, interests, and more — right inside your internal customer success tool (e.g. Gladly, Gorgias, Kustomer, etc.) without switching tabs.

Follow the steps below to set up the metafield in OuterSignal, then surface it on every customer profile.

Prerequisites

  • Your OuterSignal account must be connected to Shopify

  • Your customer success tool must be connected to your Shopify store

  • You must be an Admin or the Helpdesk Owner of your success tool

Step 1: Create the Biography Metafield in OuterSignal

You'll use OuterSignal's Playbooks to write the biography to a Shopify customer metafield automatically whenever a customer matches your chosen segment (or all customer segment).

  1. In your OuterSignal dashboard, navigate to Playbooks.

  2. Select the Segment you want to generate biographies for (if you don't have one yet, create it first in Signal Feed) or create an All Customers Playbook.

  3. Click Create Playbook.

  4. Click Add (First) Action.

  5. Click Shopify.

  6. Select Metafield as the action type.

  7. Fill in the following fields:

    • Target Object — Select Customer

    • Namespace — Enter a unique identifier to group this metafield (e.g., outersignal)

    • Key — Enter a name for this field (e.g., biography)

    • Value — Enter {{biography}} to dynamically pull in the OuterSignal-generated biography for each customer

    • Value Type — Select Single Line Text

  8. Click Add Action, then click Next.

  9. On the final screen, enable Run for existing members if you want the biography written for all customers already in the segment — not just future entrants (recommended).

  10. Click Create Playbook.

Once the Playbook is active, OuterSignal will automatically write a biography to the Shopify customer metafield for every customer who matches your segment.

Step 2: Confirm the Metafield Exists in Shopify

Before setting this up in your success tool, verify that the biography is populating correctly in Shopify:

  1. In your Shopify Admin, go to Customers and open any customer record who is part of your segment.

  2. Scroll down to the Metafields section.

  3. Confirm you see the biography field (e.g., outersignal.biography) with content populated.

If you are on Gorgias, continue here. If you are on Kustomer or Gladly, scroll down to the matching section below.

If On Gorgias:

Import the Metafield into Gorgias

  1. In Gorgias, click the Settings icon (⚙️) in the bottom-left corner.

  2. Under Workspace, select Store.

  3. Select your Shopify store from the list.

  4. Click the Shopify Metafields tab.

  5. Click + Import.

  6. From the category dropdown, select Customers.

  7. Find and check the box next to the OuterSignal biography metafield (e.g., outersignal.biography).

  8. Click Continue to import it.

Note: Gorgias supports up to 10 customer metafields per store. If you've already hit the limit, you'll need to remove an existing metafield first to make room.

Verify It Appears in Gorgias

Once imported, the biography will automatically appear in two places:

  • Customer profiles — viewable directly on a customer's profile page

  • The Shopify widget — visible in the right-hand sidebar of any ticket where the customer has Shopify data

Open any customer ticket to confirm the biography is displaying correctly.

Important: Metafield data will only appear in Gorgias for customers whose records are created or updated in Shopify after the metafield was imported. For existing customers, a re-sync or update to that customer record in Shopify will trigger the data to flow through.

Customize Widget Visibility (Optional):

You can control whether the biography appears in the ticket sidebar widget:

  • To hide it from the sidebar (while keeping it available for macros/rules), click the eye icon next to the metafield in the Shopify Metafields tab.

  • To reorder where it appears in the sidebar, open any ticket with Shopify data, click the cog icon (⚙️) in the upper-right corner of the Shopify widget, and drag the biography field to your preferred position.

Bonus: Use the Biography in Macros or Automations

Once imported, the OuterSignal biography can be used as a variable in macro reply text and as a condition in Gorgias Rules — useful for routing tickets, personalizing responses, or triggering automations based on customer profile data.

If On Kustomer:

Create a Custom Customer Attribute in Kustomer

Unlike Gorgias, Kustomer does not auto-import Shopify customer metafields. You'll need to create a place to store the biography on the customer record first.

  1. In Kustomer, go to Settings → Platform → Klasses.

  2. Select the Customer Klass.

  3. Click Add Attribute.

  4. Configure:

    • Display Name — OuterSignal Biography

    • Type — Text (long text)

    • Description — (optional) "AI-generated customer biography from OuterSignal"

  5. Click Save.

Build a Workflow to Sync the Metafield from Shopify

You'll use a Kustomer Workflow to pull the biography from Shopify and write it to the new Customer attribute whenever a customer is created or identified in Kustomer.

  1. Go to Settings → Platform → Workflows.

  2. Click Add Workflow and give it a name (e.g., Sync OuterSignal Biography from Shopify).

  3. Trigger — Select Customer Created or Updated. Optionally add a filter so the workflow only runs when the customer has a Shopify email match.

  4. Step 1 (Shopify Action) — Add a Shopify step that retrieves the customer's metafields. If your Shopify app exposes a native action, use it. Otherwise, add a REST API call:

  5. Step 2 (Update Customer) — Add an Update Customer action that writes the returned metafield value to the OuterSignal Biography attribute you created in Step 3.

  6. Activate the Workflow.

Display the Biography on the Customer Profile

Kustomer attributes don't appear on the profile by default — you need to add them to the Customer Insight Card layout.

  1. Go to Settings → Customer Insights (or open any customer profile and click the Customize icon on the Customer Insight Card).

  2. Click Edit Layout.

  3. Drag the OuterSignal Biography attribute into your preferred position on the card.

  4. Click Save.

Bonus: Use the Biography in Macros, Workflows, or Routing

Once the attribute is populated, the OuterSignal biography can be referenced in:

  • Shortcuts (Kustomer's macro/canned reply feature) via dynamic text

  • Business Rules to route conversations based on persona context

  • Workflows as a condition for downstream automation

If On Gladly:

Request the Metafield as a Custom Attribute

Unlike Gorgias and Kustomer, Gladly does not offer self-service import of Shopify metafields — you'll need to have Gladly Support add the biography metafield as a custom attribute on your behalf.

  1. Log into Gladly as a user with the Team Manager or Administrator role.

  2. Click the menu icon in the top-left corner, then click Contact Gladly Support.

  3. Ask Gladly Support to add your OuterSignal biography metafield (namespace outersignal, key biography) as a custom attribute.

  4. Select the appropriate business impact level — most requests like this should be submitted as P4.

Note: Gladly Support's primary operating hours are Monday through Friday, 6 AM to 6 PM Pacific Time, though you can submit a request anytime.

Verify It Appears in Gladly

Once Gladly Support has added the custom attribute, it will appear:

  • In the Customer Profile for any customer whose Shopify record has the metafield populated

  • As an available Condition in People Match and Rules

Note: Gladly only imports the raw text version of a metafield — it can't display rich content like images.

Bonus: Use the Biography for Routing

Once available as a custom attribute, the OuterSignal biography can be used as a Condition in People Match and Rules — for example, to route or tag customers based on details in their biography (VIP status, sentiment, preferences, and more).

Need Help?

If you run into any issues, reach out to your OuterSignal CSM or email us at [[email protected]].

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