Queued Emails - Ideas and Chat

[Dan Cole]

I've been playing with this idea. It's very difficult to get right (see previous post/explanation from earlier on).

Difficult indeed but I like where you're heading.

While it would be nice if the entire process could automated, it will probably need a way for the shop owner to both set which items they treat as consumable and also allow them to select the interval for each customer since that is going to vary by customer as you've pointed out.

For some more scary thinking.....maybe those types of selections can be made as the shop owner is processing the customers order. Clicking on the item on the order could present them with an interval dropdown or something like that and also set up the queued email. Saving the information might even allow the shopowner to set up an account module so the customer can adjust the interval on a going forward basis. To automate it some, you could use some default settings as set by the shopower on the products page and allow the customers to control the intervals and even decide if they would welcome those reminders in the future. The queued email could mention that.

Dan

[ecartz]

The Amazon version allows you to select intervals of one to six months and bundle multiple deliveries together. So if you have multiple deliveries scheduled for March, all could come in the same box, saving shipping charges. I.e. not just a reminder email but an order subscription.

[burt]

allow [shopowner] to select the interval for each customer since that is going to vary by customer as you've pointed out.

It's difficult to get correct for all circumstances as (eg) if he bought 3 of "XYZ consumable";

he might be buying 3 months consumables for 1 dog
or
he might be buying 1 month consumables for 3 dogs

It's not possible to know.

The gold standard would be to have some sort of interface on checkout_success where the customer can choose when to be scheduled an email for each product in the order. That would solve everything, but I don't think that would be easy to code up.

I'm not going to do much more on it this re-order scheduler. As it stands it's a somewhat workable system that would suit some circumstances. Its a bit of a time sink to be honest.

[burt]

I tell myself I'm not going to do more time sink, then this happens;

Chooser on checkout_success.php

consumable_chooser.jpg

And two emails go into the Queue

consumable_emails.jpg

Grapefruit for 1 month (less 10 days) - that's the first one in the list (unshown)
Green Apples for 6 months (less 10 days) - as shown

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Prototype, but it's workable.

[burt]

I wanted to try to come up with a way to completely automate this Addon for your future customers;

app.php/addons/paid_addon/recover_abandoned_carts/

Obviously you may have many older customers for which this addon is still valuable. But let's go with customers from "here on out"...utilising the Queued Emails system.

So, imagine the possibility of making a Scheduler template something like this:

reminder_tpl.jpg

Which inserts email into the Queue for 5 days away;

reminder_em.jpg

How exciting. I have to say, tooting my own trumpet, this Queued Emails system is something every Phoenix shopowner should be absolutely spamming my inbox for The system is stunning in it's simplicity and flexibility allowing hands off interactions with your customers.

There is, I think, no other e-commerce software that can come anywhere close to what Phoenix and Queued Emails can do, and remember...NO CORE CODE CHANGES NEEDED!!!!

[burt]

And we now have a simple "thank you" Scheduler Module, which by default will schedule email for 4 hours after the customer order. I've always thought it strange that most sites send a thank you "immediately" - so obvious it's an automated email.

Sending something 4 hours (not exactly 4 hours so even better), any customer who is a bit technical might think this is NOT an automated email, and think that you shopowner really are "looking after your customers".

Example Template;

order_thanks_tpl.jpg

The Email that is recieved by "Road Runner" 4 ish hours later;

order_thanks_em.jpg

How exciting

[burt]

I've made a code change so that shopowner can now more easily make the scheduled email timings more interesting. Prior to code change, shopowner could do (eg) this:

Schedule for 5 days from now.

With this minor code change, shopowner can now do (eg) this:

Schedule for 5 Days 1 Hour 4 Minutes and 3 seconds from now.

I think most shopowners will likely just stick with (eg) X days, but the possibility is now in place to schedule any time period of any duration.

How exciting.

[burt]

Another feature of this system is that the Scheduled Emails are not created when they are inserted into the Queue. The email is constructed at the time of sending.

This means that if shopowner changes the Template...all emails (of that Template) that are in the Queue...would react to the changed Template appropriately. And of course any new scheduled emails from when the template is changed would obviously react appropriately.

EG , the "order thanks" email yesterday (see previous post).

I added in the Store Logo in the template;

change_tpl.jpg

Now this "Thanks for your Order" email will have the Logo;

change_em.jpg

How exciting.

[burt]

Scheduler Module for Trust Pilot is in finalised testing

This module gives absolutely the bare minimum details of your customer to Trust Pilot [TP], so is loads better than TP's suggestion of sending a BCC of your standard Phoenix "order" email (which obviously contains quite a lot of customer data that TP do not need and should not have).

If the module is proven to work as intended (ie, TP do their thing correctly after they receive the email), then I'll clean it up and add it into the range of Scheduler Modules for the Queued Emails system.

How exciting

[burt]

Some more hardcore coding today

When a Product is deleted;
When a Special is deleted;
When a Customer is deleted;
When an Order is deleted;

Any emails linked to each of these is also deleted from the Queue.

To Do

When a Product is deactivated (status = off/red)
When a Special is deactivated (status = off/red)

I think this should also delete any linked emails from the Queue.
A task for tomorrow.

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This thing is exceeding expectations! How exciting.