Better order status update emails

[♥14steve14]

I am looking to find a way to improve the order status emails that are sent to customers when the orders are updated. Currently the emails are a bit bland and meaningless, when they could be used to give so much more information and even be a tool to increase sales. It could also be possible to add links and things to pages of help or interest to the customer. I have already added a link to the FAQs page on the site, but could do so much more.

 

The problem as I see it, is that the emails are created and use a generic layout and text across most emails, which is not as good as it could be.

 

I have ,looked and searched through the addons area but can find anything that tackles the order update emails in a sensible way.

 

Does anyone know of a good way to send different emails depending on the order status?

[Jack_mcs]

There is the email template addon. It is not compatible with 2.3 versions but can be changed without too much work. I installed it into a BS shop last year and, as I recall, there was a problem with how the message was inserted and I had to change the code to get it to work correctly. But that could have been something in the shop I was installing it into.

[Dan Cole]

Steve... I use this one but just like the one Jack mentioned it will need some updating.

 

Dan

[frankl]

@@14steve14 I've used Ultimate HTML Emails for quite a long time, but admittedly it's a bit of a pain to set up and requires core changes so I'd be looking for a better solution.

 

The solution by @@Gergely looks very promising but I believe it will work better as an app in osC 2.4 when there are more hooks and page modules available. http://www.oscommerce.com/forums/topic/399712-html-emails/

[Omar_one]

@@14steve14  I am using HTML emails by @@Gergely what @@frankl mentioned it also .. and its working well.

 

Omar

[♥John W]

Years ago I stopped notifying customers of moving from pending to processing and I move them silently using Batch Print that I’ve modified some.  When the order ships, I send an email out with the title “order shipped” and I made a function to send the tracking number with a link for FedEx.  Because it’s me, I do a manual insert of the tracking info to a table I set up but I’m done with everything like that in a minute.  It's not ready for prime time, but it suits my needs.

 

I'm also using batch print to send the order shipped email, so I just give it a list of orders. 

[Dan Cole]

@@John W  I'm basically doing the same as you do John with the tracking notification but we do use an order update status to communicate with customers to keep the communication in one spot and so everyone can see whether we've kept the customer in the loop and where we are at with a particular order. 

 

I did have a light bulb moment the other day when I was manually adding a tracking number and wondered why I wasn't scanning the tracking number in as the package was being shipped....I put that on my list to do.  It should simplify one more step in the process.

 

Dan

[♥14steve14]

Many thanks for the answers so far. I will take a look at the suggested addons and see what they are like.

 

I am really thinking of ways to add these types of emails into the sales process, and hopefully improve it. These emails can be used as sales tools I think and may be liked by the customers. Currently the generic email says nothing particular. and apart from one line is the same for every order status.

 

One day I would like to be able to send a PDF of the invoice to the customer attached to an email, but that is more than likely to be done through the accounts package rather than oscommerce.

[♥John W]

Batch print does generate pdf invoices that can be emailed but doesn't email them automatically.  I do use batch print to send the orders to production.  I'm not at the warehouse but all the product is done there except for a couple farms that drop ship cases for me.  In those cases I use batch print to send a packing slip.  I have that set to only list items on the packing slip that drop ship. 

 

With the tracking numbers, I get an excel sheet with orders, tracking, cost, box counts, and any shortages.  I then use a regex to pull out the order and tracking and a sql statement to insert them.  Then, the batch of orders goes to batch print and all the emails and tracking are sent with one click. 

[♥bruyndoncx]

@@Dan Cole

FYI

 

I add the order id as a reference when uploading data to the shipping company.

Belgian Post: I can just tell them to use the order number to track the package, without having to get the exact tracking id.

 

DPD creates a csv with shipment details, got a csv uploader program that burt made to add to the system and send emails.

Dutch Post, sends out email notifications out of their system.

[Dan Cole]

@@Dan Cole

FYI

 

I add the order id as a reference when uploading data to the shipping company.

Belgian Post: I can just tell them to use the order number to track the package, without having to get the exact tracking id.

 

DPD creates a csv with shipment details, got a csv uploader program that burt made to add to the system and send emails.

Dutch Post, sends out email notifications out of their system.

 

Nice...I'll have to look at see what our Canada Post tracking options are....we add the order ids already but I don't think you can track based on those ids but I'll have to have a look.  Thanks for sharing... :thumbsup:

 

Dan