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Why Timely Updates on Order Status Matter

May 6, 2009 By Joe Rawlinson

In the world of e-commerce, customers expect instant and accurate updates of their order.

When there is a void of information, customers start to fear something may be wrong.

After a recent purchase from Costco’s website, I received a series of email updates on my order:

  1. order was received
  2. order was sent to fulfillment
  3. order was shipped
  4. order was delivered

The consistent status updates of my purchase never gave me pause or reason to worry.

When a customer orders from your website, do they immediately receive an email confirmation that the order was received? What happens after that?

When your email notifications aren’t in sync with the real world, customers are either left in the dark or wonder why they should trust your system again.

We ordered a replacement part for our dishwasher from the Sears website. The order went fine and the part arrived as ordered. However, a week later I got an email saying that my order had shipped. A week after I got it!

Trust is hard to gain and easy to lose. Keeping your customers in the loop on their order process helps set delivery expectations and bridge the shipping gap that exists in e-commerce orders.

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