The hair on the back of my neck goes stiff when I hear you and that mixed inappropriately. I know, I need to calm down. The one thing about the English language that is consistent is that it is inconsistent, but really!
generally speaking, use who when you are talking about a person and that when you are talking about an object. It's that simple really.
To be transparent, American Heritage Dictionary says,
It is entirely acceptable to write either the man that wanted to talk to you, or the man who wanted to talk to you.
Grammar Girl says, "My guess is that most people who use who and that interchangeably do it because they don't know the difference. I don't consider myself a grammar snob, but in this case, I have to take the side of the people who prefer the strict rule. To me, using that when you are talking about a person makes them seem less than human. I always think of my friend who would only refer to his new stepmother as the woman that married my father. He was clearly trying to indicate his animosity and you wouldn't want to do that accidentally.
Finally, even if you accept the conventional wisdom, there are some gray areas and strange exceptions. For example, what do you do when you are talking about something animate that isn't human? I would never refer to my dog as anything less than who, but my fish could probably be a that."
Grammar Girl goes on to elucidate an exception, "You can use whose, which is the possessive form of who, to refer to both people and things (5,6,7,8) because English doesn't have a possessive form of that. So it's fine to say, "The desk whose top is cluttered with grammar books," even though it is obviously ridiculous to say, "The desk who is made of cherry wood."
Remember, who goes with people and that goes with things.
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