VIP Concierge
VIP identification for ecommerce teams: rank customers on contribution margin rather than order count, then create the outreach task for CX or the founder with the context already attached.
VIP lists are almost always built on order count or lifetime spend, which is how a customer who orders constantly and returns half of it ends up on the same list as one who quietly buys full price twice a year. The outreach that follows is generic, because whoever sends it has no idea what the relationship is actually worth or what the person last bought. This skill ranks customers on contribution margin and lifetime value after returns and discounts, picks the ones worth a human contact, and creates a task for CX or the founder with the purchase history, the return behavior and a reason for reaching out already attached.
What It Does
- Ranks customers on contribution margin after discounts, shipping and returns.
- Separates high spend from high value, which are frequently different people.
- Flags the accounts whose margin is falling before they lapse entirely.
- Picks the moment worth a human contact rather than a scheduled touch.
- Writes the outreach task with purchase history and a reason attached.
- Routes it to CX or to the founder depending on the value at stake.
Use Cases
- Stop treating a serial returner as a VIP because the order count is high.
- Catch a top customer whose spend is sliding before they stop entirely.
- Give a founder five names a month rather than a spreadsheet of four hundred.
- Make the outreach specific enough that it does not read as automated.
Example Session
Who should I personally reach out to this month?
Four customers are worth your time this month. Two are not the ones your VIP list would surface.
- Customer | Orders | Spend | Return rate | Contribution | Reason to contact
- Cohort A, 3 yrs | 9 | $4,100 | 4% | $1,880 | Spend down 40% since June
- Cohort B, 1 yr | 31 | $6,700 | 44% | $610 | Not a VIP, returns are the business
- Cohort C, 2 yrs | 12 | $3,900 | 7% | $1,640 | First lapse in two years
- Cohort D, new | 4 | $2,800 | 0% | $1,310 | Full price, four orders in six weeks
The second row is the one that matters: 31 orders and $6,700 of spend puts them top of any conventional VIP list, and $610 of contribution after a 44% return rate puts them nowhere near it. The first and third are worth a founder email this week, because a spend drop at that margin is the cheapest revenue you will defend all month.
Why This Beats Prompting It Yourself
Order Count vs Contribution Margin: The Hidden Risk
A generic prompt builds the VIP list the way the data is shaped, on orders or on lifetime spend. Both put the serial returner at the top and bury the customer who buys full price and never sends anything back. The outreach then goes to the wrong people, with generic copy, and the relationship worth protecting never gets the contact.
When You Still Need The Reason For Reaching Out
A founder email works because it is specific. This skill states $1,880 of contribution across three years and a 40% drop since June, which is a sentence someone can write an email from. It also names the moment, so the contact lands when the relationship is sliding rather than on a quarterly schedule nobody responds to.
Known Limitations
Contribution per customer needs returns and discounts attributable at order level, and without them the ranking falls back to net spend and says so. Customers who check out as guests under different emails will appear as separate people, which understates their real value. It creates the task with the context attached and does not send anything to the customer itself.
Install It
- Download the ZIP.
It is free and there is no account to create. - Unzip it into your agent's skills folder.
Claude Code reads ~/.claude/skills/, which is hidden by default: the command in the folder block opens it. Other agents scan their own directory, so drop the same folder there instead. - Ask your agent to use it.
Restart the agent if it was already running, then it picks the skill up with no config.
skills folder
Copy
~/.claude/skills/vip-concierge/
SKILL.md
references/value-ranking.md
tasks/
# outreach tasks, one file per run
# macOS: create the folder and open it in Finder
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && open ~/.claude/skills
# Windows: paste in the Explorer address bar
%USERPROFILE%\.claude\skills\Frequently asked questions
How is this different from a VIP segment in my ESP?
An ESP segment ranks on spend or orders because that is what it has. This ranks on contribution margin after returns and discounts, which moves roughly a third of most VIP lists. It then picks a moment and writes the reason, so the contact is specific rather than scheduled.
Which agents does the skill run in?
Any agent that supports the open SKILL.md format: Claude Code, Cursor, Codex CLI, GitHub Copilot, Gemini CLI, Manus, Grok and others load it unmodified. The format is portable, the location is not. Each agent scans its own skills directory, so you drop the same folder into whichever one yours uses. There is no config file to edit and no API key to provision.
What does it need connected to work?
Order history with discounts, returns and product cost. With all of it the ranking is contribution margin. Without returns it ranks on net spend, labels the gap, and will surface some customers whose real value is lower than it appears.
Why would a high spending customer not be a VIP?
Because a 44% return rate turns high spend into low contribution, and the cost of servicing those returns is real. Those customers are worth understanding, sometimes worth a sizing conversation, but they are not who a founder should spend outreach time on.
Does it write the email?
It writes the task with the history and the reason attached, routed to CX or the founder by the value at stake. A person writes the message. Outreach that reads as generated defeats the purpose, and the whole point of the ranking is to make a specific message possible.
What is included with the skill?
The skill itself, the value ranking reference, the task template, and the thresholds that route a contact to CX or the founder. It is free and security scanned. We re-publish the ZIP when the ranking model changes, so download it again if your list composition shifts.
A VIP is defined by margin, not by order count.
Polar ranks customers on contribution margin and lifetime value on one definition, so the outreach goes to the relationships that matter.
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