Introduction
When a product’s ship date is delayed, you may need to communicate this to your customers and, in some cases, request their consent to maintain the order considering the delay. The Scalefast merchant platform mailing tool provides generic email templates that you can customize and send to your customers, notifying them of the delay and requesting their consent when needed.
In the product page of the merchant, you may also configure the product to display a consent button in the orders section of your customers’ accounts so that they can easily consent to the delay when needed.
Configuring Delay Consent Button in the User Account
If you require your customers’ consent to a delay, you must first enable the consent buttons in the storefront accounts. This will apply to both guest and logged-in customers. This feature must first be configured by our development team to work with your unique storefront. If you have not done so already, please contact your Client Success Manager for more details. If the delayed product does not require customer consent, no action is required in the product page and you can go directly to the mailing tool to send the delay notifications.
Since shipping delays can occur in both pre-orders and back orders, the option to display the consent button appears in both sections of the product page. Please note that the button can be enabled in only 1 section at a time. Enabling the button in 1 section will disable it in the other.
To enable the delay consent button for pre-order products, switch the “Enable delay consent from storefront?” button to YES. The button cannot be activated unless a pre-order release date has been provided.
To enable the delay consent button in the storefront for back orders, the “Out of stock policy” field must be set to “Back Order”. Then, the “Enable delay consent from storefront?” field will appear below. Switch this button to YES to display the delay consent button on your customers’ accounts. The button cannot be activated unless a back order availability date has been provided.
Next, choose the orders for which this button will be shown. Your options are:
- All orders containing this product - This will display the consent button in the account of all customers who have pending orders for this product.
- All orders up until a custom date - This will display the consent button in the account of all customers who have pending orders for this product that were placed before the selected date. This option allows you to target only those customers who purchased before the shipping date was delayed.
The consent button will appear on your customers’ accounts once you have saved the changes to the product page.
When the delay issue is complete and you no longer need to log customer consents, you can switch the “Enable delay consent from storefront?” button back to NO and the consent buttons will disappear from your customers’ accounts. If another delay of the same product occurs, you can switch the button back to YES and start tracking consents of the new delay. When switching the “Enable delay consent from storefront?” button back to NO please be sure that your issue is complete because all record of the previous consents will be lost.
Notifying Customers of a Shipping Delay and Requesting Consent
To notify your customers of a shipping delay and request consent to the delay, when needed, you can use the Scalefast merchant platform mailing tool. Please note that, in cases where consent is required, you must configure the delay consent button in the merchant product page before using the mailing tool.
In the merchant menu, go to Advanced > Mailing. Scroll down to the “Mailing parameters” section and choose the desired store project.
“[Delay consent] NO opt-in required” can be selected in the “Email type” field and configured to notify customers of a shipping delay that does not require consent. If consent is required, you can select “[Delay consent] opt-in required”.
Then, input the product ID of the delayed product and click the refresh button to load the product variables.
Next, choose the recipients of this email. Your options are:
- All orders pending shipment – This sends an email to all customers whose orders are pending shipment of this product, regardless of the order date. This option only appears when “[Delay consent] NO opt-in required” is selected.
- Order pending shipment placed before certain date – This sends an email to all customers whose orders have been placed before the specified date and have not yet been fulfilled. This allows you to distinguish between those customers who have been notified of the correct ship date and those who have not.
When “[Delay consent] NO opt-in required” is selected, you may select any past date directly from this form. If “[Delay consent] opt-in required” is selected, the “Order Date” field is directly linked to the delay consent options chosen in the product page of that specific product. This date and time must be selected on the product page. If no date and time is selected on the product page, this field is set to the current date and time by default.
- Specific orders – This sends an email to the customers of specific orders. More than 1 order can be selected at once.
Finally, input the original ship date, new ship date and opt-in date as you would like them to be displayed in the email:
- Original ship date – This is the date the customers were originally told that the product would ship.
- New ship date – This is the new date the product is expected to ship.
- Opt-in date – This is the deadline by which the customer must consent to the delay. This option only appears when “[Delay consent] opt-in required” is selected.
The variables section will update automatically based on the product ID chosen and the selections you have made in each field. Please review them to be sure they are accurate.
We have provided generic email templates for both cases, but you may edit the text in the subject and/or body of the emails as needed.
In the “[Delay consent] opt-in required” email, the “YES. KEEP MY ORDER!” button’s text can be edited but the button cannot be removed as this is how we log the customer’s delay consent.
Finally, clicking the “Send mails” button at the bottom of the screen will send this email to all selected recipients.
Tracking Consents
Once you have enabled the delay consent button in the customer’s accounts and sent emails notifying them of the delay, you can track customer consents using the Delay Consent Report. In the merchant menu, go to Reports > Download reports and then select Delay Consent report from the dropdown menu.
Choose the filters you wish to apply to the report and then click the “Create reports” button. This will create an Excel file report that you can use to monitor the progress of the current consent issues in your storefront. If you are tracking more than 1 issue, then the report will show multiple products. You can manage this with the filters in the report generator or in the report.
