Queued Emails - the process

[burt]

This addon is a bit complicated to fully explain, so I thought I'd make a forum thread detailing each step as a new customer signs up.

Assume

Shop is collecting "date of birth" on create_account.php

[burt]

A new customer "Mickey Mouse" signs up with birthday 21st July.
Note that Mickey has not checked out (yet).

The Queue looks like this:

qe-1.jpg

No Checkout [5 days away from now]
Mickey has not yet checked out

Birthday Greeting [30 days before next birthday]
A simple happy birthday message

[burt]

Mickey nows progresses through the checkout and buys product(s).

The Queue now looks like this:

qe_2.jpg

No Checkout [auto deleted]
As Mickey has now checked out

Winback [90 days from now]
Try to get Mickey to come back to your shop

Request Testimonial [30 days from now]
This is something that I think won't be used too much by shopowners.
I prefer "Request Review"!

Birthday Greetings [still to be sent]
We're nowhere near Mickeys Birthday

[burt]

Let's say that you, shopowner, are in your admin area and you have picked/packed Mickeys order and are now updating the order in the usual way.

qe_3.jpg

Here you can see a new checkbox "send review request".

[burt]

And here is the Queue as it stands with the "Review Request" scheduled to go

qe_4.jpg

I think it is unusual to get an order and update it to complete inside 15 minutes!
I guess most shopowners would "complete" an order in 24 hours or a few days?

So as of this point, there are 4 emails in Mickeys Queue.

[burt]

Let's say that the Queue is activated and the "request review" is sent out.
Mickey comes back and is pleased enough with his purchase to make a Review!

qe_5.jpg

As we know, the process of making a Review "live" is to change it's status from Red to Green. When you click the Green Button, the review is live, and the Queue has a "thanks for the review" email scheduled for 24 hours away;

qe_6.jpg

[burt]

There is one more special Scheduler Module for this system and that is "update stock". This works slightly differently as it is not targeted at ONE customer, but is targeted at ALL customers who are subscribed to Notifications on the product you are editing.

In this case, I updated "stock" of Grapefruit from 3 to 10. Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck are subscribed to this product so they both get a scheduled email:

qe_7.jpg

[burt]

That is the system, more or less.

Scheduler Modules are relatively straightforward to make. Each Scheduler Module has its own email template with a system of Merge Tags, for example, the Update Stock email template like this;

qe_8.jpg

When sent to customers, these Merge Tags are replaced appropriately so Mickey would get;

Hi Mickey

We have new stock of Grapefruit - these sell fast so come and have a look!

http://www.xyzshop.com/product_info.php?products_id=8

Thanks, your friends at XYZshop

Whereas Donald would get;

Hi Donald

We have new stock of Grapefruit - these sell fast so come and have a look!

http://www.xyzshop.com/product_info.php?products_id=8

Thanks, your friends at XYZshop

[burt]

Multiply this by 100s of customers, and you have a system that keeps your customers interested in your shop, without you having to do much work at all. Set it up so that the scheduled emails are sent by CRON and the most you have to do is "click a checkbox" when you are the final stage of updating an order to "complete".

In my opinion, this is absolutely a GAMECHANGER addon (there are very very few gamechanger addons).

If you did not want to send out (eg) Testimonial Request emails, it's as easy as simply deleting the "testimonial request" Scheduler Module.

Power up your Phoenix today with this Queued Emails system.

[burt]

Since I made this explanatory thread, there are a few more Scheduler Modules coded up. Here is the full list;

Birthday Greetings
Schedules email for 21 days prior to the customers birthday
No Checkout
Schedules email for 5 days after account creation IF the customer did not make an Order
Request Review
Schedules email for 30 days after Order Completion
Request Testimonial
Schedules email for 90 days after Order
Winback
Schedules email for 90 days after Order
Review Thanks
Schedules email for 1 day after Shopowner sets a Review to Live
Update Stock
Schedules email for 1 day after Shopowner updates Stock on a Product to all Customers who subscribe to Notifications on the Product.
Add Special
Schedules email for immediately after Shopowner adds a Special Offer to all Customers who subscribe to Notifications on the Product.
End Special
Schedules email for 5 days prior to the Expiry Date of a Special Offer to all Customers who subscribe to Notifications on the Product.
Anniversary
Schedules email for 5 years after the Customer created an account
Checkout Stock
Schedules email for immediately for each product in an order, where the live stock of the product is fewer than "minimum". Emails are scheduled to all subscribers of the product(s)

Note that any "number" in the above list can be changed to better suit Shopowner needs.
90 days is too long? Change it to 20 or 50 or 73 days - whatever you decided.

I am currently working on a Scheduler Module to enable Customers to request "remind me to buy again in X months" email per product in their Order. Though this is slightly different as it'll be a customer facing interface rather than behind the scenes magic.