What are the considerations for managing customer numbers in a PHP application to avoid conflicts or inconsistencies in the database?

When managing customer numbers in a PHP application to avoid conflicts or inconsistencies in the database, it is important to ensure that each customer is assigned a unique identifier. One way to achieve this is by using auto-incremented primary keys in the database table for customers. This ensures that each customer record is uniquely identified without the need for manual intervention.

// Example code snippet for creating a customers table with an auto-incremented primary key
$query = "CREATE TABLE customers (
    id INT AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
    name VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
    email VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL
)";