Is there a way for a role to only partially access the record? For example, I want a role to have an access to Customer A and B but I want to deny access to Customer C.

Could probably create a Workflow to throw an error message when the user tries to access a restricted part of the record. Not 100% sure though.

im not really sure which record in NetSuite has this ability that you are trying to restrict but maybe you can use subsidiary restrictions (if they are different across customer)

Class and department can be used this way as well. (Do not use location)

There are ways to do this - but almost all of them include holes

i worked at a company that "denied access" to sales people based on the honor system. that really didn't work. people stealing each other's states left and right. wish they had actually hardcoded it lol

Just as Tyler has suggested, I used workflow to throw User Return Error on certain customers/transactions for certain user roles. But since it is not a full fledged feature, it definitely feel like there is a hole to it. Nevertheless, I will keep using the workflow and keep on monitoring it to see if I can make it any better.

Is it a problem if they can search for them?

Yes those are the holes. Even if I deny the content of what's inside, they can still technically search it with right key words.

Have you looked into the "restricted" search under the role setup?

As for saved search, the roles I am trying to hide the customers from have their edit permission disabled. So I just have to tweak the criteria.

It's a bit abstract to use - but I think the idea is that users can't see records unless they are on the search that is in that box

Something is better than nothing. Thank you for the suggestion. I will just look through the SuiteAnswers to see if this has any uses.