Playbooks
A Playbook is a customer-segment-to-actions mapping. When a customer enters a segment, the playbook fires one or more actions: tagging them in Shopify, sending an email through your support tool, pinging a Slack channel, or calling a webhook.
A playbook's segment can come from one of two sources:
- A Workflow — when an Orders or Returns workflow produces a decision with a specific Sub Decision label (e.g.,
VIP,Suspect Abuse,Pinch-First-Order), every customer that matched becomes part of that segment. - A Customer List — every list you create on the Customers page is also a segment that a playbook can target. As customers enter the list (because their behavior matches its conditions), the playbook fires.
So Workflows and Customer Lists define who's in a segment. Playbooks act on segment membership.
The Playbooks page
Open Playbooks in the left nav. You'll see a list view with a count of total playbooks and a search field. Columns:
| Column | What's there |
|---|---|
| Playbook | The playbook's human-readable name (e.g., Pinch Second Order, VIP, Return Block). |
| Powered by Segment | The segment that triggers the playbook, plus its current customer count (Pinch-Second-Order (40902)). |
| Actions | A chain of action pills — Customer Tag - Add, Gorgias Email, Order Tag - Add, etc. — in execution order. |
| Status | A toggle. Off = the playbook stops firing immediately but its history is preserved. |
A three-dot menu on each row exposes Edit and Delete.
Top right has + New Playbook.
Creating a playbook (3-step wizard)
Click + New Playbook to open the wizard. It has three steps shown at the top: 1 Pick a Segment, 2 Define Steps, 3 Review & Launch.
Step 1 — Pick a Segment
The right drawer shows:
- Playbook Name — the name that will appear in the list view (e.g.,
VIP Return Recovery). - A list of available segments to attach. Each segment shows its name, current customer count, and a badge indicating its source:
Workflow-Generated— the segment came from a workflow Decision producing that label as a Sub Decision (e.g.,VIP,Suspect Abuse,Pinch-First-Order)List— the segment is a customer list you defined on the Customers page using the condition builder or a CSV import
Examples of segments you'll see:
| Segment | What's in it |
|---|---|
| VIP | Customers your workflow tagged as high-value, low-risk. |
| returns-often | Customers exceeding a return-frequency threshold. |
| returns-abuse | Customers your workflow flagged as suspected abusers. |
| returns-blocklist | Customers whose returns are being auto-denied. |
| Pinch-First-Order | Customers placing their first order — useful for welcome flows. |
| Pinch-Second-Order | Customers placing their second order — useful for repeat-buyer treatment. |
| Default Approve | The catch-all segment for customers not in any risk or VIP tier. |
A search bar narrows the list when you have lots of segments.
One important constraint: once a playbook is created, its segment is locked. You can edit the name and the actions, but to point at a different segment you create a new playbook. This is by design — it keeps the audit trail clean.
Click Next: Define Steps when you've picked one.
Step 2 — Define Steps
The right drawer now shows the segment you picked and a list of available action types. Click + Add on each action you want to chain.
Action types:
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Shopify Tag | Add or remove a Customer tag or Order tag in Shopify. Two dropdowns control the direction: Customer or Order, and Add or Remove. |
| Send a transactional email — typically through your connected support tool (Dixa or Gorgias), using one of your Email Templates. | |
| Notify on Slack | Post a message to a configured Slack channel. Requires the Slack integration to be connected — shows Not connected yet until it is. |
| 3rd Party APIs | Fire a webhook to any URL. Use this for custom downstream automations (CRM updates, Zendesk tickets, internal alerts). |
Each action you add becomes a step in the chain. Steps fire in order. For Shopify Tag actions, you'll also see a list of tags to be added or removed (e.g., TAGS TO REMOVE: Pinch-First-Order).
A useful built-in: Or remove all Pinch-managed tags — strips every tag Pinch has applied, useful when a customer's status changes meaningfully.
Click Review & Save.
Step 3 — Review & Launch
A summary of the segment, the actions, and the firing order. Confirm and publish, and the playbook starts firing on the next customer who enters the segment.
Editing an existing playbook
Click the three-dot menu on any row → Edit. The same 3-step wizard opens, but with the segment locked. You can rename, reorder actions, add new actions, or remove existing ones.
Changes take effect immediately on the next customer who enters the segment. Customers already in the segment aren't re-fired through the new chain (this prevents accidentally re-emailing everyone).
Enabling and disabling
Each playbook has a green toggle in the Status column. Disabling a playbook stops it from firing on new segment entries. Disabling is non-destructive — the playbook's history and configuration are preserved.
Disabling is the safe way to experiment:
- Clone an existing playbook by creating a new one with the same segment but slightly different actions.
- Enable both for a week to see how they fire side by side.
- Disable the underperforming one when you're confident.
Common playbook patterns
A few patterns most stores end up running:
| Pattern | Segment | Actions |
|---|---|---|
| First-order welcome | Pinch-First-Order | Add Customer Tag first-order, send welcome Email |
| Second-order upsell | Pinch-Second-Order | Remove first-order tag, send upsell Email |
| Return-abuser warning | returns-often | Send Return Warning Email, add Customer Tag at-risk |
| Return blocklist | returns-blocklist | Send Gorgias Email explaining policy change, add blocked-from-returns tag, remove at-risk tag |
| VIP recognition | VIP | Add Customer Tag vip, add Order Tag vip-fast-track, notify CS Slack channel |
The white-glove onboarding ships you a set of starter playbooks that Pinch configures during setup. You can edit or disable any of them; you don't need to build them from scratch.
How Workflows, Lists, and Playbooks fit together
Three Pinch concepts work together to drive automated action. Each one has a different job:
| Concept | What it produces | When it runs |
|---|---|---|
| Workflows | A Decision (ALLOW / DENY / REVIEW) plus a Sub Decision label (VIP, Suspect Abuse, etc.). The Sub Decision label becomes a segment. | On every order or return event. |
| Customer Lists | A segment defined by conditions over the Variables library, or imported from CSV. | Re-evaluated continuously as customer behavior changes. |
| Playbooks | A side-effect chain — Shopify tag, email, Slack, webhook — fired when a customer enters a target segment. | When a customer enters the playbook's segment (from either a workflow or a list). |
In short:
Workflows and Customer Lists define who's in a segment. Playbooks define what happens to people in that segment.
You edit workflows to change what decisions Pinch makes on returns. You edit lists to cohort customers based on their behavior. You edit playbooks to change what happens after a customer enters one of those cohorts.
See also
- Workflows — produce workflow-generated segments
- Customers — author customer lists that become segments
- Decisions — the reusable rule blocks inside workflows
- Email Templates — the reusable bodies playbook Email actions send
- Integrations: Customer support — connect Dixa or Gorgias to enable Email actions