Knowledgebase
How to manage customer accounts in Magento
Although in Magento it's possible for customers to shop as guests (this function is enabled by default), it's more convenient for customers, as well as for you as an administrator, to create customer accounts and shop from these accounts. In this way customers can more easily manage their orders, view their order history, and manage their personal information. As an administrator you can also manage the settings of each account and you can set special discounts for customer groups.
On every page of your site's frontend there's a Log in link from which customers can go to the login page. On that page they can log in to their account using the email and password associated with the account, or they can use the respective button to open the registration page in case they don't have an account. By default, users can register by specifying their first and last name, an email address and a password (the email is not verified).
To edit and delete customer accounts, in the admin panel of your Magento go to Customers menu > Manage Customers. On the page that opens there's a table with the existing customers. You can add a new customer directly from the backend by clicking on the Add New Customer button that's above the top right corner of the table and configuring the settings that appear. You can delete many customer accounts simultaneously or you can change the customer group to which they belong by marking the checkbox in front of each customer account in the table, selecting the desired action from the Actions menu in the upper right corner of the table and clicking on the Submit button next to the menu. To edit the settings of a customer account click on its row in the table. You can edit the name, email, password, address; you can view and manage the orders of that customer, the reviews and tags submitted by the customer, etc. Note that most of the information associated with an account can also be edited from the frontend by the customer to which the account belongs.
Each customer who creates an account is assigned to a customer group. By default, that group is the General group; it's one of the customer groups that comes preconfigured with Magento. To edit customer groups and add new ones, in the admin panel go to Customers > Customer Groups. On the page that is displayed there's a table with the existing groups. To edit a group click on its row in the table. To add a new one click on the Add New Customer Group button that's above the table. You can specify the name of the group and the tax class that will apply to the customers belonging to the group.
To configure the system customer settings, in the admin panel go to System menu > Configuration > Customer Configuration button on the left. The panels that appear on the right have different customer related options. For example, there are options from which you can enable/disable email verification, you can enable/disable guest checkout, you can change the default customer group to which new customers are assigned, and many more.
For some more details and screenshots you can also read the tutorial on managing customers in Magento.