RFM scores are relative to your own store, not absolute, and this is the single biggest source of surprise. Each customer is ranked against the rest of your customer base and placed in a fifth of the distribution, so the same person can score differently in two different stores, and your scores shift as your customer base changes.
Two consequences follow:
- A high spender can score below five. If your store has many higher spenders, a customer spending well in absolute terms still sits outside the top fifth. Nothing is broken; they are being compared against your best customers, not against a fixed threshold.
- Scores move without the customer doing anything. Adding a wave of new customers, or a seasonal spike, redraws the boundaries for everyone. Compare a customer against your current distribution, not against the score they had last quarter.
Check these in order
Read the RFM breakdown
Open the customer from Your top customers on the Overview and look at RFM breakdown. Recency, frequency and monetary are each scored 1 to 5, and the RFM score is their total divided by 15, so it runs from 0.20 to 1.00.
Check when you last synced
In Settings → Customer sync, check the Last synced date. Rankings are only redrawn on a full sync.
Check for a recent order
A customer who ordered since the last full sync has their tags and churn risk refreshed straight away, but their recency, frequency and monetary scores show the middle value of 3 until the next full sync re-ranks them against everyone else.
Compare with your other customers
Export the segment with Download CSV and see where the customer’s orders and spend sit against the rest.
How to fix it
Run Sync all customers now in Settings so every customer is re-ranked against your current customer base. If the score still looks off after a fresh sync, the ranking is usually correct for your store, and the segment rules in RFM segments explained show why the customer landed where they did.
If it still is not working
Contact support with your store domain and the customer’s email address, and we will read the inputs behind their score.
Related articles