Imagine you’re waiting for an order you place that hasn’t arrived yet. You check the order confirmation email and it shows the estimated delivery date has passed. You contact the company and check your order status, an inquiry known as a WISMO—where is my order?
By learning how to handle incoming WISMO requests, you can provide better customer service and improve the overall customer experience. Learn why WISMO is important and how you can reduce WISMO inquiries and better manage customer expectations.
What is WISMO?
WISMO stands for “Where is my order?” and represents one of the most common types of customer inquiries for ecommerce merchants. By establishing a system for fielding WISMO requests quickly, you can improve the post-purchase experience for your customers and build a better brand reputation through transparent communication.
Customers can ask WISMO questions using various communication channels, including chatbots, emails, social media messages, text messages, and phone calls. Although the acronym WISMO stands for a specific question, customers can ask a wide range of WISMO requests, including:
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“How far away is my delivery?”
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“Is my order delayed?”
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“Why don’t I have my item yet?”
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“When can I expect delivery?”
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“What’s the status of my order?”
Why is WISMO important for ecommerce?
If WISMO questions go unanswered, customers can feel ignored, negatively affecting customer loyalty and lowering your customer retention rate. Online shoppers demand real-time tracking, with one consumer report finding 69% of consumers feel real-time order tracking is a top factor when shopping online. If you aren’t able to provide quick solutions to missing orders, your overall customer satisfaction can decline, impacting sales. According to a 2024 survey, 44% of US consumers stopped shopping at a specific company after one poor customer service experience.
By managing customer expectations about delivery timelines and providing frequent updates about order statuses, ecommerce merchants can increase customer satisfaction. Work with your customer support team to set up a strategy for multichannel customer support—including live chat, email, and phone. This will improve the overall customer experience and ensure WISMO tickets get resolved efficiently.
5 strategies for reducing WISMO queries
- Set clear delivery expectations
- Provide multiple communication channels
- Offer live order tracking
- Use automation tools for 24/7 support
- Optimize your order fulfillment process
Here are five strategies for reducing WISMO calls and requests:
1. Set clear delivery expectations
To manage customer expectations, include a step in your checkout flow that makes it easy to understand shipping costs and delivery timelines before customers complete a purchase.
After a purchase is made, immediately send an order confirmation with detailed delivery times. Shopify merchants can use Shopify Email to send automated order confirmations that include estimated delivery times and tracking numbers. Whether it’s an email, text, push notification, or call, a clear confirmation message ensures customer satisfaction post purchase.
2. Provide multiple communication channels
Develop a strategy for managing customer communication across multiple channels, including your website, live chat, social media accounts, phone numbers, and email addresses. By providing a wide variety of communication channels for online customers, you’ll make it easier to field and answer WISMO questions promptly with a delivery status update.
3. Offer live order tracking
Provide customers with a tracking link for their items as soon as they place an order. Install a package tracking app, like Parcel Panel or TrackingMore, that uses order numbers to track packages as they make their way to their intended destination. These apps also automatically notify customers with delivery updates. Shopify merchants have access to the Shop app, a mobile shopping platform that comes with a built-in shipment tracker for merchants and customers.
Whether it’s in the form of an app, an email, or a website, providing your customers with real-time updates can help put their mind at ease and lower the amount of WISMO requests you receive.
4. Use automation tools for 24/7 support
Customer service automation tools can save customer service teams time and provide customers with support when human customer service agents are unavailable. For example, you could install a pop-up AI chatbot on your website and train it to provide updates by retrieving tracking or confirmation numbers.
You can also streamline WISMO handling with a customer relationship management (CRM) system that keeps all customer data in one place. A CRM enables support agents to quickly check a customer’s order status and information about past interactions, which helps them personalize the customer service experience.
5. Optimize your order fulfillment process
By improving your order fulfillment process, you can avoid delayed deliveries. For example, Shopify merchants have access to Shopify Shipping, a shipping software tool that lets users manage the entire delivery process from a single dashboard. Shopify Shipping simplifies the shipping process, offering easy shipment tracking and discounted shipping rates with major carriers.
Additionally, inventory management software gives you real-time updates on inventory levels. You can use a stock alert app that automatically notifies you of low inventory levels, helping you avoid stockouts that cause delivery delays.
WISMO FAQ
What does WISMO mean?
WISMO is an acronym that stands for “Where is my order?”—one of the most common post-purchase customer inquiries for ecommerce merchants.
What is a WISMO ticket?
A WISMO ticket is a customer support ticket generated by a company once it receives a WISMO inquiry from a customer. Customer service agents track and resolve WISMO tickets by coordinating with warehouses and shipping carriers to ensure that orders arrive at their destinations on time.
What causes WISMO queries?
A variety of factors can cause WISMO queries from customers, including delayed shipments, mismanaged delivery timeline expectations, lack of communications, and an inefficient order fulfillment process.