# External Customer Search ### What is this? The External Customer Search extension lets you connect Flow Retail to practically any external customer database, like Voyado or any other CRM system. ### Who needs this? If you already have all your customers in an external database, and don't want to sync them into Flow Retail, then this extensions is perfect. ### How does it work? 1. Make sure to get in place an API endpoint in the CRM system that allows for Flow Retail to connect to it, and to query on customer data like phone number or name. 2. If the customer is not found in Flow Retail itself, it will query the external customer database to try to find it there. 3. If it finds one or multiple matches in the external customer database, the customers will be listed in Flow Retail, and the user can choose to fetch the customer into Flow Retail. The unique customer ID from the external customer search will be saved in the customer record in Flow Retail. ### For developers The API spec for the external customer search can be found here: --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://docs.flowretail.com/docs/extensions-addons/external-customer-search.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.