“What’s My Order Status?” How to Automate Order Confirmation Messages Before Seasonal Sales Surge

When you think of business-to-customer messaging during peak sales seasons or shopping holidays, promotions for limited-time deals or last-minute gift suggestions may come to mind. While these marketing messages are highly valuable, another type of messaging is just as important for delivering a positive customer experience: automated text messages for transactional communications. Through customer notification services, you can help streamline order confirmation, order tracking, order status, and other essential customer updates at scale.

For businesses using WhatsApp, these automated text messages are known as utility messages. Utility messages are conversations between your business and your customers that keep them informed with timely updates during the purchase process and after conversion. These messages provide critical, time-sensitive information to customers, keeping them informed and engaged—without overwhelming support teams during their busiest times of the year.

In today’s fast-paced retail and ecommerce environments, customer notification services are critical for maintaining smooth business operations and improving customer satisfaction. With the WhatsApp Business Platform, you can leverage utility messages to transform and optimize your business messaging strategy for success.

Utility messages can help deliver essential information to customers through a convenient, highly visible channel—WhatsApp. Examples of these automated messages include updates on order details, store pickup appointment reminders, shipping status, or feedback surveys.

Traditionally, businesses may have relied on SMS, email, or app push notifications to send automated messages related to transactional communications. However, with the widespread adoption of WhatsApp, more brands are turning to the platform to help streamline messaging and reduce costs.

For example, Shiprocket Engage, India’s largest ecommerce enablement platform, helped save costs and increase customer response rates using automated messages, and specifically utility messages, on WhatsApp. By implementing automated workflows for order verification and order tracking, the company achieved a 45% reduction in Return to Origin (RTO) losses for brands and resellers, and a 50% increase in successful contact rates compared to traditional channels previously used to send these updates.¹

During busy seasonal sales like Black Friday, Diwali, or Singles’ Day, shoppers who use business messaging are already seeing value in automated updates after they buy. 43% of shoppers report that they track their holiday orders via messaging.²

What can that experience look like? Here’s an automated messaging example of how an ecommerce brand could use utility messages on WhatsApp to optimize post-purchase fulfillment communications with transactional messages on order status.

Peak sales periods often bring a surge in transactional communications and customer inquiries. This can quickly overwhelm traditional communication channels like SMS and email, bogging down customer support teams while response times increase and customers grow frustrated. To adapt, businesses should meet their audiences where they are with customer notifications that prioritize efficiency, engagement, and satisfaction. That’s where WhatsApp utility messages can help.

Why deliver order confirmation notifications and transactional communications on WhatsApp?

• A trusted, engaging channel: Customers prefer WhatsApp—it is a reliable, highly visible platform that they’re already using and engaging with regularly. Plus, 55% of Millennial and Gen Z seasonal sale shoppers say messaging a business makes them feel more personally connected with the brand.²
• Enhanced performance: WhatsApp helps deliver an engaging experience, which can mean higher delivery, open, read, and click-through rates. This engagement can help drive increased seasonal sales, reduced customer support workloads, and high customer satisfaction.
• Richer features at competitive prices: WhatsApp features like buttons, lists, and embedded payment options³ enable you to create richer, more engaging experiences compared to traditional SMS. Offered at competitive prices, these features help to maximize value for your business.
• Improved operational efficiency: Predefined, automated text message templates enable you to streamline operations. This frees up your customer support teams to focus on more pressing issues instead of answering the same questions over and over again.

Planning ahead and optimizing your fulfillment communications strategy before seasonal shopping ramps up can pay off in big ways. Here are three simple steps to get started.

Traditional channels like SMS, email, and voice calls often fall short in providing a positive customer experience when compared to WhatsApp. SMS messages can feel limited and lack interactivity, while emails are often overlooked. Voice calls are costly and frequently ignored, especially in an age when customers distrust unknown numbers. Push notifications from brand apps have limited reach since they’re dependent on customers having the app installed and notifications enabled.

To avoid these common challenges, it’s worth auditing your existing approach to order status updates, delivery confirmations, and other time-sensitive customer notifications. This exercise will help you identify gaps so you can optimize your strategy accordingly to deliver a positive customer experience and improve operational efficiency.

The WhatsApp Business Platform enables businesses to automate order confirmations, order status updates, delivery notifications, and more via APIs using utility messages. Integrating your ecommerce platform or CRM with WhatApp can help ensure customer notifications are consistent, personalized, timely, and delivered via a channel they regularly engage with and trust.

To make integrating all of your systems as easy as possible, you can work with a Business Messaging Partner. They can help you set up automated messages and streamline your operational workflows. Connect with a partner to get started.

Leverage automated text messages to keep customers informed at every stage of their purchase journey. Set up order confirmations, shipping updates, store pickup reminders, delivery notifications, and more—all through automated messages on WhatsApp.

Rich features like interactive messages, quick replies, and embedded payment links can help enhance customer interactions and deliver a seamless messaging experience when seasonal sales spike. Set up a comprehensive strategy for automated messaging before your next big sales period to be better prepared and help reduce customer inquiries, improve customer satisfaction, and make this busy time of year easier for your team.

Exploring text automation with utility messages on WhatsApp ahead of festive sales and key events like Black Friday can help optimize your order fulfillment communications and customer experience in all new ways. By leveraging automated messages and customer notifications, brands can reduce the volume of order-related questions they receive, while improving the experience for busy seasonal sale shoppers in the process.

Get started today with the WhatsApp Business Platform to elevate your messaging strategy and make the most of your next sales surge.

Want to learn more? Explore our seasonal sales resources and discover other ways to do more with conversations.