Anyone who runs customer service for an online store with a few hundred orders a week knows which question tops the inbox: where is my order? It arrives by email, chat and phone, it comes back two days later from the same customer, and it takes time from the tickets that actually need a person. The question cannot be abolished, but it can be made rare. This article shows where it comes from, what the customer is entitled to and how to build it away without hiring more people.
Why is "where is my order?" e-commerce's most common question?
The question arises because the customer wants to know something the company already knows but has not shown, at the moment the customer wonders. The industry calls it WISMO, from "where is my order". According to Salesforce these are questions about order status and delivery that arrive in every channel, each one simple but together so numerous that they take a large share of customer service's time; as a worked example Salesforce states that a retailer shipping 5,000 orders a month can receive around 1,200 such questions.
The volume comes from a gap. Between the order confirmation and the delivery the order passes through several systems, each with its own status: the store's order system says "processing", the warehouse says "picked", the carrier says "in transit". The customer sees one of them, usually the last, and it is rarely updated. The longer the gap, the more people ask. That is also why the question peaks in November and December, when delivery times grow and customers are more numerous; what that means for staffing is covered in the article on preparing for the Christmas season.
What is the customer entitled to when the parcel is late or lost?
The company that sold the item is responsible for it until the customer has received it, and that applies even when the carrier caused the problem. According to the Swedish Consumer Agency the customer should direct their claims to the company they bought from if the delivery is late or disappears in transit, regardless of whether the shipping company caused it. The same applies according to the agency when an item breaks during transport: the risk passes to the customer only on receipt.
For delays there is a time limit. If no delivery time was promised, the item counts as delayed after 30 days from the purchase, according to the Swedish Consumer Agency's page on late delivery of goods. If you promised a delivery time, that applies. When a delivery is late the customer can demand that the item be delivered or, if the delay matters a great deal to the customer, cancel the purchase and get their money back.
Two things follow for customer service. The answer "contact the shipping company" is wrong; the customer is entitled to turn to you, and you in turn take it up with the carrier. And a delivery time promised at checkout is a promise that Swedish consumer sales law holds you to, so it should match what logistics can actually deliver.
Why is the carrier's tracking link not enough?
Because the tracking link shows where the parcel has been, not when it will arrive or what the customer should do if it does not. A Gartner survey shows the pattern: only 13 percent of customers say they receive proactive service, and 90 percent of those who did found it valuable, yet two thirds still contacted the company afterwards, most often because they needed more information or a confirmation. A notification that does not answer the next question creates a contact instead of preventing one.
The typical tracking page says "in transit" for three days. The customer who ordered a gift for the weekend wonders whether it will make it, and when no page answers that, the customer writes to you.
Which four questions hide behind "where is my order?"
Behind the same sentence are four different questions with four different answers, and customer service needs to tell them apart to build them away:
| The customer writes | The customer wants to know | Where the answer is | Solvable without a person? |
|---|---|---|---|
| "Have you shipped it?" | Whether the order has left the warehouse, and when | The order system, the warehouse | Yes, always |
| "When will it arrive?" | A date, ideally a time | The carrier's estimated delivery | Yes, if the carrier's data is pulled in |
| "It's late, what happens now?" | What you do, and what the customer can demand | Your policy and consumer law | Yes for the policy, no for the exceptions |
| "It says delivered but I have nothing" | Where the parcel is, and who resolves it | The carrier's investigation, your decision on a replacement or refund | No, but self-service can start the case correctly |
The first two questions are pure lookups and should never reach a person. The third has a policy answer that should be written once. The fourth is a real case, where customer service should have the order, the carrier's event log and the customer's details in front of them from the start, instead of asking the customer for the order number in one reply and the address in the next.
How do you answer order status without a person looking it up?
By giving the customer the same lookup the agent does, in three layers: notifications that answer before the question is asked, self-service that looks up the order when the customer asks anyway, and an agent who sees the same data when it becomes a ticket.
- Notifications with content. One notification per event that means something to the customer: confirmed, shipped, estimated delivery, delayed, ready for collection. Each notification answers the next question: when, where and what the customer does if something is wrong. "Your order has shipped" without a date is half a notification.
- Self-service that looks up the order. A customer asking in chat or the help centre should get their actual order status, not an article about how delivery works in general. That requires a connection to the e-commerce platform and the carrier so the chat can fetch the order by order number and email and show the carrier's latest event. Without that connection the chatbot guesses, and a guessed delivery date is worse than none.
- The same data for the agent. When the ticket arrives anyway, the agent should see the order, the notifications that went out and the carrier's log in the same view, and answer from the same reviewed knowledge base as the chat on what applies when a delivery is late. In Supportifier the three layers are connected: the same article on late deliveries is used in the help centre, in the chat and as a draft in the inbox, and the order lookup runs against your platform.
The policy answers are what is most often missing. Write one article per situation: late delivery, parcel marked delivered but missing, damaged parcel, parcel not collected. Each article says what you do, how long it takes and what the customer should have at hand. Have the person responsible for logistics and the person responsible for legal read them once.
How do you measure that parcel questions are decreasing?
You measure it as tickets per hundred orders about order status, and follow it week by week. The metric tickets per hundred orders is described in the article on customer service metrics; here it is split across the four questions in the table above. Three things to watch:
- Share of "have you shipped it?" and "when will it arrive?" Should approach zero when the notifications and the order lookup work. If they remain, the notification lacks a date or arrives too late.
- Time from order to first question. If customers ask on day two, the order confirmation did not say when the item ships. If they ask on day five, it is the carrier's silence.
- Share of "delivered but missing". A small number that should be kept small. If it rises for a particular carrier or pickup point, it is a logistics problem, not a customer service problem.
What to do
- Count for a week. Tag every order status ticket with which of the four questions it is.
- Read your notifications as a customer. Place a test order and save every email and text message. Do they answer when, where and what the customer does if something is wrong? Rewrite the ones that do not.
- Check the promised delivery time. Does the text at checkout match what the warehouse and carrier can actually deliver this season? Change it before November.
- Write four policy articles: late delivery, delivered but missing, damaged parcel, not collected. Review them with logistics and whoever is responsible for legal.
- Give the chat and help centre an order lookup. Start with order number and email; show order status and the carrier's latest event.
- Track tickets per hundred orders per question. Set a target for the quarter and read the tickets that still arrive.
Common questions
Can we refer the customer to the shipping company?
No, not as an answer to a delay or a lost parcel. According to the Swedish Consumer Agency the company that sold the item is responsible until the customer has received it, and the customer directs their claims to you even when the carrier caused the problem. You are welcome to show the carrier's tracking and the pickup point's opening hours, but investigating a missing parcel is yours to pursue with the carrier, and the customer should get an answer from you.
Do we have to send a new item if the parcel disappears?
The customer is entitled to receive what they bought or get their money back, and it is up to you to resolve it. If the delivery is late the customer can demand delivery, and cancel the purchase if the delay matters a great deal. In practice most online retailers choose to send a replacement or refund as soon as the carrier's investigation shows the parcel is gone, and state in the help centre how long the investigation takes.
Can a chatbot answer where the parcel is?
Yes, if it can look up the actual order and the carrier's latest event. Then it can say whether the order has shipped and when it is expected, and hand over when the status deviates. A chatbot with no connection to the order system can only repeat a general article about delivery times, and a bot that guesses a date creates more tickets than it resolves. Require an order lookup before the bot is allowed to answer the question.
What should a delivery notification contain?
What the customer would otherwise ask about: what has happened, when the next step takes place and what the customer does if something is wrong. "Your order has shipped" is not enough; "your order shipped today and is expected at the pickup point at X on Thursday" is. Gartner shows that two thirds of customers contact the company after proactive outreach because they needed more information, so every notification should be written so that question is already answered.
Sources
- Det står att mitt paket är levererat, men det är det inte — Swedish Consumer Agency, read 2026
- Vem ansvarar när en vara går sönder under transporten? — Swedish Consumer Agency, read 2026
- Försenad leverans av vara — Swedish Consumer Agency, read 2026
- Gartner Survey Finds Two-Thirds of Customers Contact Customer Service After Receiving Proactive Outreach From a Brand — Gartner, 2024
- WISMO: What It Is & How to Reduce "Where Is My Order?" Calls — Salesforce, read 2026
Rickard Collander
Martin Carlsson