Automated order status notifications

If you own a business or online store, it's crucial to maintain continuous communication with your customers throughout their journey and beyond. Automate order status messages to keep your customers informed about the stages of product shipment. You can streamline this process by integrating your communication platform with your store and shipping system. 

This article will outline the top benefits of automated order status notifications and provide a step-by-step guide on creating the flow from Kartly. 

Benefits of automating order status messages

70%t of potential customers consider having a tracking system and notifications as determining factors in their purchasing decisions. If you haven't considered it, here are the key benefits of implementing automated order status notifications. 

Clarity and Confidence

Order status messages increase customer satisfaction and reduce the frequency of inquiries. Customers prefer to track their purchases until reaching the delivery location, sometimes out of curiosity, due to a lack of trust in the brand or an expectation of delays. Customer service representatives are often overwhelmed with questions during the processing of orders. Use automated notifications to reassure your customers, inform them about essential details, and save your team’s time.

Avoiding Errors

Sending an order notification also prevents the customer from mistakenly placing the same order again or going through the hassle of contacting the customer service team and risking waiting to inquire whether the order has been recorded.

Reducing Return Rates

Automated notifications reduce product return rates because they remind the customer of their order, thus preventing the possibility of forgetting or becoming frustrated with the order.

Enhance transparency and trust

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Build transparency and trust by consistently updating customers on their order status, ensuring they are informed every step of the way. This practice improves the overall customer experience and strengthens their trust in your brand.

Customer Satisfaction and Boosting Sales

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Customers are more likely to remain loyal to companies that prioritize the customer journey through different stages and pay individual attention to each customer. Therefore, customized automated notifications help increase customer satisfaction and, in turn, drive sales. Satisfied customers will likely make repeat purchases from the same brand.

The bottom line, you can boost customer relationships with automated order status messages! They create interaction, loyalty and impact sales. 

Let’s discover key channels for automated notifications.

Channels to automate order status messages

There are a few marketing automation platforms that you can use to set up automated order status notifications.  Let's explore the key platforms you can rely on for automating your notifications. 

Via Email

Business emails have significantly high open and click rates compared to the average open rate of 16.97% for other types of emails. To set up notifications regarding order processing, choose email as the communication method from your online store dashboard. Then select the type of deal and the stage that will trigger the notification. Finally, compose the notification text, set the sending time frame, and save the template.

However, email is outdated, and most received emails either end up in spam folders or aren’t opened. Compile data on your target audience's use of emails, and if the numbers aren’t encouraging, consider another platform. 

Via SMS

You can send automated notifications to remind customers about the different stages of their order and inform them of any emergencies through SMS messages. Follow the same process as email notifications: program a ready-made template, select the messaging service as the communication method, and let the system do the rest.

SMS messages include tracking links to monitor the delivery progress of the order. Customers will know when their orders have been shipped or have gone through various stages.

It might be better to rely on SMS messaging because it reaches customers directly on their mobile phones, ensuring a higher likelihood of opening them due to the sense of urgency and necessity they convey.

However, SMS has various limitations that would impede the success of your notifications. The most significant problem is that senders do not support replies, which would frustrate customers if they need to take quick action or want to contact your store regarding the order in question. 

Via WhatsApp

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Today, most age groups prefer using WhatsApp for business interactions. Therefore, moving to a channel where your potential customers are present is better to ensure their engagement. Additionally, WhatsApp boasts an extremely high open rate, at least 98%. WhatsApp messages are opened immediately because people use the same platform to communicate with family and friends.

Furthermore, WhatsApp allows you to easily integrate with all the systems you need to automate your notifications and provide an excellent experience for your customers. 

It also provides quick replies and CTA buttons, thanks to the WhatsApp chatbot. It facilitates interactions and ensures two-way communications. 

Of course, to use WhatsApp API, you must sign up for a marketing automation platform like Kartly. Let’s set up an order status flow in simple steps. 

How to set order status notifications on WhatsApp API

Use BusinessChat's WhatsApp API calculator to determine your potential WhatsApp campaigns' fees.

From your Kartly dashboard, you can easily set up an order status flow. The interface doesn't require in-depth technical knowledge. Consider the following steps:

• Sign in to Kartly, head to campaigns, and choose the automations tab
• Choose the order status flow, and click setup

• Click to setup the triggers

• Choose the trigger

• In the Send Message Template card, you must select a WhatsApp template for the order status notification to be sent to your customers when the status of their order changes.

• Ensure that the triggers and notifications align with the desired user experience, then set the automation to "Live" to start running it.

• Monitor the reports

Once live, you can monitor the status of your store orders from the reports tab. Kartly offer a detailed report for order status automation that includes the number of notifications in progress and those completed. 

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