WISMO stands for “where is my order”, the order-status question, and it is shorthand for the most repetitive category of messages an online store receives.
Why there is an acronym for it
Because it arrives constantly, it is nearly identical every time, and answering it
requires no skill and no judgment. It is the clearest case in customer service of work
that exists because information the customer wants is somewhere they cannot see.
You will find percentages quoted for WISMO’s share of support volume, usually between
25% and 60%. They come from vendor blogs with no published method, and they disagree with
each other by a factor of two, so we do not quote one. What is reliable is how merchants
describe their own inboxes. In their words: “where’s my order”, “can I change my address”,
“the same answers all day”, and “all night long I hear my office PC and my phone going
off”.
Why your FAQ bot cannot answer it
This is the important part. WISMO looks like a frequently asked question and is not
one. A frequently asked question has one answer, the same for everyone, and it can be
retrieved from a document. WISMO has a different answer for every customer, it lives in
your order records, and it changes hourly.
A tool built on retrieval alone will
answer “where is my order” with your shipping policy. Technically a relevant document.
Useless to the person asking. This single mismatch is why so many businesses install a
chatbot, see no drop in workload, and conclude the technology does not work.
What it takes to actually close it
- Identify the customer. Usually by matching the email or phone they
are messaging from, or by asking for an order number. - Verify before disclosing. Order details are personal data. A system
that reads out an address to whoever types an order number is a problem waiting. AeroChat
verifies the customer’s email or phone first, and orders are never stored. - Read the live order. Status, items, carrier, tracking number.
- Answer in the channel they asked in. If the question came on
WhatsApp, the answer belongs on WhatsApp, not in an email. - Handle the follow-up. “It says delivered and I do not have it” is the
second message, and it needs a person or a claims workflow.
Reducing the question, not just answering it
The cheapest WISMO is the one never sent. Proactive updates at dispatch and at
out-for-delivery remove a large share of them. Note the trade-off honestly: proactive
messages on WhatsApp are utility messages and they cost money per message. Sending three
updates to avoid one question is not automatically cheaper. Work out your own numbers. See
conversation-based pricing.
Related terms
Read next
Start for free
AeroChat runs customer service and sales workflows you describe in plain English. There is a free plan, so there is nothing to decide today.
Start for free on the Shopify App Store
Not on Shopify? Create an AeroChat account here.