{"id":1801,"slug":"capability-account-state","title":"Capability 4 — account / state: the site remembers who the visitor is and what they have done (login, saved items, order history, progress) so returning visitors resume rather than restart","kind":"reference","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["kevin","smb-owner","candid-team"],"topics":["customer-facing-tools","client-portals","working-surface-capabilities"],"reference_body":"**Capability:** The site remembers who the visitor is and what they have done — login, saved items, order history, progress through a task — so a returning visitor **resumes rather than restarts.**\n\n**The defining test:** if you log out and back in, the site shows you something different from what a brand-new visitor sees.\n\n**Source:** Industry-consensus definitional framing.\n\n**Confidence:** Industry-consensus (definitional).\n\n**Caveat — evidence base thin for outcomes:** like [[capability-interactive-functionality]], there is no clean primary dataset tying account / state specifically to conversion or retention for general SMB marketing websites ([[gap-no-primary-dataset-interactive-features-smb-conversion]]). The value case rests on customer-experience / utility logic rather than search-visibility data.\n\n**Business types most served:** retailers (cart, order history, returns), service businesses with repeat engagement (portal-based clients, project status), B2B with ongoing relationships (renewals, usage dashboards).\n\n**Why this matters for Candid:** The capability with the highest implementation cost and the strongest lock-in once a client adopts it — recommend deliberately, not reflexively.","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[{"slug":"gap-no-primary-dataset-interactive-features-smb-conversion","title":"GAP — no clean, current, primary dataset ties interactive features (calculators, booking, account state) specifically to conversion / retention for general SMB marketing websites","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}],"incoming":[{"slug":"research-brief-website-as-working-surface-june-2026","title":"Research brief: the website as a working surface of the business — four capabilities, AI-citation decoupling, freshness as a real signal (June 2026)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"capability-structured-queryable-data","title":"Capability 1 — structured, queryable data: content stored as records with fields, types and relationships so it can be filtered, sorted, searched, and assembled on demand","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"capability-interactive-functionality","title":"Capability 2 — interactive functionality: the visitor supplies input and the site returns a computed or looked-up result (calculator, quote, search, booking, configurator)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"capability-live-frequently-updated-data","title":"Capability 3 — live or frequently-updated data: content whose value depends on currency (availability, pricing, status, hours, inventory) refreshed on a cadence rather than written once","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"working-surface-boundary-static-page-with-contact-form-does-not-qualify","title":"Boundary: a static page with a contact form (or \"occasional email trigger\") exhibits NONE of the four working-surface capabilities","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"rule-most-businesses-need-at-least-one-of-four-not-all-four","title":"R1 — Most businesses benefit from AT LEAST ONE of the four working-surface capabilities, NOT all four; match the capability to acquisition / service mode","kind":"rule","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"rule-match-capability-to-business-type","title":"R7 — Match the working-surface capability to the business type: booking + live availability for trades, calculator / assessment for consulting, queryable products + account for retail","kind":"rule","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}]},"created_at":"2026-06-21T13:17:17.628Z","updated_at":"2026-06-21T13:17:17.628Z"}