The Customer Information Manager (CIM) service allows you to store your customers’ sensitive payment information on our secure servers for use in future transactions. CIM helps eliminate steps in the checkout process for repeat customers, potentially increasing loyalty and revenue. It can also help you comply with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard, since customer information is no longer stored on your local servers.
CIM allows you to manually enter your customers' information into the Merchant Interface, or automate the process by integrating your site using the CIM Application Programming Interface (API). Customers or transactions entered through the API are also displayed in the Customer Information Manager tool of the Merchant Interface.
Using the CIM API
You can integrate your website to CIM using an Application Programming Interface (API). Through the API, you can create, view, update and delete customer profiles that include billing, payment and shipping information. When a transaction is processed using the API, a customer profile is created and stored on our secure servers. You receive a Customer Reference ID for that particular customer profile. To process subsequent transactions from that customer, you need only submit the Customer Reference ID in place of all customer information, including billing, payment and shipping information.
Using CIM Through the Merchant Interface
You can use the merchant interface directly to maintain customer profiles, including billing, payment and shipping information. If you are participating in the program, the Customer Information Manager page lists all the customer profiles you have set up, and displays the Created Date, Profile ID, Customer ID, Email Address, and Description for each. From this screen, you can
Add or view a customer profile
Edit an existing profile
Delete a profile
View order history for a customer
Search for specific customer, payment or shipping profiles
Integrate a website to the Customer Information Manager (CIM)