On the day you realise you won’t meet the dispatch or delivery date you promised, message the customer before they ask. Say what happened in one plain sentence and give the new date; if there is no new date yet, say which day you will update them. Add the customer’s options (wait, change the order, or cancel and get their money back) and tell them how to reply. Apologise once, don’t blame the carrier, and keep coupons and promotions out of the message.
The details depend on where the delay sits: the order may never have left your warehouse, the parcel may be stuck with the carrier, it may be back at a branch after a failed delivery attempt, or it may have been lost or damaged in transit. For each of these four cases you can decide when the message goes out and which options it offers, and adapt the sample texts to your store. You can also prepare a realistic dispatch time, a daily list of late orders and pre-approved message templates before the busy sale weeks arrive.
Message the customer on the day the promised date slips
The same explanation reads differently when it arrives before the customer asks. A customer who has to write “where is my order?” after the promised day has passed will often take your answer as an excuse. If the explanation comes first, they can see you are keeping an eye on their order; they don’t have to keep opening the tracking page or call you, and your team fields fewer repeats of the same question.
You will notice a delay in one of two places. The first is an order still sitting in the warehouse at the end of the dispatch day given in the order confirmation or on the product page. The second is a shipped parcel whose tracking record hasn’t changed for longer than you are used to, or whose estimated delivery day shown by the carrier has passed. Either way, send the message on the day you find out instead of waiting for the date to run out. If you learn in the morning that the carrier won’t collect your parcels, write to the customer that morning too.
Even if the parcel is stuck with the carrier, the customer’s point of contact is your store. Under Article 16 of the Mesafeli Sözleşmeler Yönetmeliği (Türkiye’s Distance Contracts Regulation), the seller must fulfil the order within the period it committed to, counted from the day the order reaches it; except for goods made to the consumer’s specifications or personal needs, that period can never exceed thirty days. When the date you gave slips, the customer expects the explanation from you as well.
When an order runs to plan, the confirmation, dispatch and delivery notifications are enough; for the sequence and content of those messages, see our detailed post-purchase customer notifications guide. If you announce dispatch with Pushouse’s WhatsApp order tracking module, the customer was already sent their order number and tracking number, plus a link to track the parcel, once the shipping details were created; an order that has been notified once does not get that message again. Delay messages are the ones you write yourself, based on each order’s situation, and the customer will compare them with what their tracking link shows.
Cover what happened, the new date and the options in one message
A delay message should answer the three things on the customer’s mind: where the parcel is, when it will arrive and what they can do if they don’t want to wait. Leave one out and the customer will ask you about it separately.
Describe what happened in one concrete sentence. From “Due to high volume, a disruption has occurred”, the customer cannot work out where the parcel is. A sentence like “Your parcel is waiting at the Ankara transfer hub” or “The item in your order arrived late from our supplier” lets them decide whether it is worth waiting. You don’t need to go into internal detail; the customer doesn’t need to know who in your team is on leave or what you wrote to the carrier.
Only give a new date if you are sure you can keep it. While the parcel is with the carrier, the date isn’t yours to set; if the carrier hasn’t given you an estimate, say when you will write again instead of giving a date: “We’ll message you again by Thursday noon.” Keep that promise even if nothing has changed, and say so; otherwise the customer won’t trust the next dates you give either.
List the options in the message itself: waiting, changing the order (address, size or a similar product), or cancelling and getting the payment back. Don’t hesitate to include cancellation: Article 9 of the regulation lets consumers use the right of withdrawal, where a product carries one, before the goods are delivered as well. Once you have exceeded the period you committed to, offer cancellation without waiting for the customer to ask. Under Article 16, if delivery isn’t made within the period, the consumer may terminate the contract, and the seller must refund every payment it collected, delivery charges included, within fourteen days of the termination notice reaching it, together with statutory interest. If you state in the message a right the customer already has, you avoid arguing about it with a customer who wants to cancel.
End the message by telling the customer how to reply. On WhatsApp the easiest way is to reply to the message itself; say what you expect them to write: those who want to wait don’t need to do anything, those who want to cancel just write “Cancel”. Don’t send the customer to the carrier’s call centre.
Apologise once and clearly. Adding “unfortunately” or “we apologise” to every sentence makes the message longer and pushes the key information down. When explaining the delay, don’t name the carrier as the culprit; saying which transfer hub the parcel is waiting at is enough. A line like “because of the courier company” tells the customer you are not taking ownership of the problem. Keep the same tone in your replies on complaint sites and social media.
Don’t compensate for the delay by adding a discount code to this message. Meta’s template categorization documentation lists a text that apologises for a delivery delay and credits the customer’s account among its examples of marketing templates. Our article on what to send after a purchase explains why coupons have no place in order notifications and what replying to customers within 24 hours means on WhatsApp. If you want to make a gesture, send it separately as a marketing message, limited to customers who opted in to commercial electronic messages.
When you can’t dispatch on the day you promised
If the parcel hasn’t left the warehouse, the customer usually doesn’t have a tracking number yet; what they are relying on is the dispatch day shown in the order confirmation or on the product page. Send the message that morning, or by midday at the latest. A “not shipping today” message sent after the courier van has left reaches the customer too late; they have been waiting for that news all day.
Typical reasons for orders being held in the warehouse include:
- More orders coming in during sale days than the warehouse team can pack in a day.
- The carrier not collecting the packed parcels that day.
- Orders whose payment needs checking, for example a bank transfer without the order number in the description.
- A product from the supplier arriving late.
When orders exceed your capacity, decide in the morning which ones will roll over to the next day and write only to those customers. Give the new dispatch day in the message; the carrier will determine the delivery day, so don’t promise it.
Hi {{customer name}}, we had planned to ship your order {{order no}} today. We received more orders than expected during the sale and are packing them in turn; yours will be handed to the carrier {{new dispatch day}}. We apologise for the delay. If you’d rather not wait, just reply “Cancel” and we’ll refund your payment in full.
If the carrier didn’t collect a packed parcel that day, watch two things. If the tracking number was created before the parcel was handed to the carrier, the customer will often see no movement at all on their tracking link; explain why in the message. If you have tied WhatsApp order updates to the packed or shipped status, move the order to those statuses only when the parcel has actually reached that stage. If a “shipped” message goes out for a parcel still sitting in your warehouse, the delay message you send the next day will contradict it.
For an order awaiting a payment check, the message should ask the customer for one thing only: the receipt for an unmatched bank transfer, or a time that suits them for a short call to verify the order details. Tell them in the same message on which day the parcel will be dispatched once the check is complete.
A late product from your supplier is the same situation as an item that shows as in stock on your site but isn’t actually on your shelves; you can use our sample out-of-stock message, which gives the customer three options. The regulation also sets a short deadline for cases where delivering the ordered goods becomes impossible: the seller must notify the consumer in writing or on a durable medium (kalıcı veri saklayıcısı) within three days of learning of it, and refund every payment it collected, delivery charges included, within fourteen days of the notice at the latest. The same paragraph says that an item being out of stock does not count as such a case. Because the regulation’s definition of a durable medium explicitly names text messages and email, send such a notice by email as well as on WhatsApp.
When the parcel is stuck with the carrier or moving slowly
A tracking record that stays on the same line for a day doesn’t necessarily mean a delay on its own. Base the decision on how many days your parcels normally take to reach that region: if the estimated delivery day has passed, or the parcel has been sitting in the same place clearly longer than usual, it is time to write.
Before you message the customer, ask the branch you work with or your account manager at the carrier where the parcel is and when it will go out for delivery. That way the customer doesn’t have to queue at the call centre; you get the information and pass it on. If you got an estimate, put it in the message; if not, give the day you will write again.
Snow, floods, road closures and parcels piling up at transfer hubs after big sale days can hold up every shipment to the same region at once. When that happens, pull a list of the delayed parcels by region and write to every affected customer on the same day.
If the parcel still isn’t moving on the day you promised to update the customer, send a short second message and remind them of the option to cancel. When a customer cancels because the period you committed to has run out, the fourteen-day refund deadline runs from the day their termination notice reaches you. If the parcel is still in transit at that point, start the refund without waiting for it to come back to you.
Hi {{customer name}}, your parcel with tracking number {{tracking no}} is waiting at the {{hub location}} transfer hub and won’t reach you on the estimated day. We’ve spoken to the carrier, and the parcel is expected to go out for delivery {{new estimated day}}. We’ll write to you again by {{update day}} at the latest. If you’d rather not wait, reply to this message and we’ll cancel your order and refund your payment.
While an undelivered parcel waits at a branch
When the courier finds no one at the address, the address is incomplete or the customer can’t be reached by phone, the parcel may go back to the branch. Find out from your carrier how many days the parcel will wait at the branch and whether it will be sent back to you when that time is up. The main aim of the message is to stop the parcel returning to you; a returned parcel means extra shipping costs and a re-shipment for you, and a longer wait for the customer. In the message, give the branch name and address, the last day the parcel will wait, and the customer’s options: collecting it from the branch, asking for redelivery to the address, or correcting the address. You’ll find a sample text you can adapt for a parcel waiting at a branch in our article on reducing shipping status questions.
If the carrier’s record says the address is insufficient, ask the customer for the full address and pass the correction to the carrier yourself. Sometimes the customer replies, “I was home and nobody came.” Don’t argue with that; you are the one who can query the delivery attempt record with the carrier. Forward the reply to the carrier with the tracking number, and tell the customer when the parcel will go out for delivery again. If such replies keep coming from the same branch, raise it separately with your contact at the carrier.
If the parcel is lost or arrives damaged
When a parcel is lost or damaged, don’t make the customer deal with the carrier. Article 17 of the Distance Contracts Regulation makes the seller responsible for any loss or damage until the goods reach the consumer (or another person the consumer names, other than the carrier). The exception in that article is when the consumer asks for the goods to be sent with a carrier other than the one the seller chose; in that case the seller isn’t responsible for loss or damage after the goods are handed to that carrier. Your compensation claim against the carrier is a separate process; the customer’s resolution shouldn’t wait for its outcome.
For a parcel whose tracking record hasn’t changed for a long time, ask the carrier to open an investigation and write to the customer as well: tell them you are tracing the parcel and on which day you will report back. When the carrier says it can’t find the parcel, give the customer two options: sending the product again or refunding the payment in full. Let the customer choose. If you re-ship under the same order number, send the new tracking number to the customer yourself; the number in the first shipping message still points to the lost parcel.
Hi {{customer name}}, the parcel for your order {{order no}} hadn’t moved since {{last scan date}}, and the carrier has told us it can’t locate it. We’re sorry for the trouble. We can ship your items again {{new dispatch day}} or refund your payment in full. Reply to this message to let us know which you’d prefer; we’ll carry on investigating the parcel with the carrier ourselves.
A damaged item is usually reported by the customer, so your first message is often a reply. Ask the customer for photos of the box and the product; the photos will also help with your claim to the carrier. Offer a replacement or a refund, and if you need the damaged item back, include the return code they should use in the same message.
{{customer name}}, thank you for the photos; we’re sorry your {{product name}} arrived damaged. Shall we ship a replacement {{new dispatch day}}, or would you prefer a refund of the product price? Your return code for sending back the damaged item: {{return code}}.
Handle replies the same day and act on the customer’s choice right away
A delay message brings replies: customers will write to cancel, to say they are happy to wait, to change their address or to vent their frustration. Before sending, decide who will read the replies; during busy weeks, set aside time for this during the day.
As replies pile up, it gets hard for one person to sort them all. In Pushouse’s WhatsApp question routing flow, you can send replies containing words like “cancel”, “refund” or “address” down the right path with keyword rules you define yourself, and hand a conversation with an upset customer over to someone on your team. Our article on sorting shipping questions by topic explains what to watch for when you add topic buttons to the welcome message and write the rules.
Act on the customer’s choice the same day. For a customer who wants to cancel, cancel the order in your panel and send a short message with the refund amount and how the money will come back. A customer who chooses to wait doesn’t need a separate thank-you message; the next message should go on the day you promised or once the parcel has shipped. After passing an address change to the carrier, confirm it to the customer in one sentence.
Keep customers whose orders are late out of campaign sends until the parcel is in their hands; sending a sale announcement to someone still waiting for their parcel undoes the trust your delay message built. We cover which customer groups to take off the list before a campaign in a separate article. If you collect ratings from customers after delivery, read the scores for delayed orders separately from the rest; the gap shows how customers who went through a delay rated their experience.
Prepare dispatch times, the daily list and templates before the busy weeks
For most stores, order volumes rise around 11.11, the late-November sales and the run-up to New Year, and the load on the warehouse team and the carrier grows with them. Make three preparations before these higher-risk weeks.
The first is the dispatch time you show on product pages and in order confirmations. In Baymard Institute’s usability testing, participants treated the delivery date shown by a site as a firm promise, even a guarantee of delivery; Baymard also recommends that date calculations update for known causes of delay, such as extra processing time during peak periods, supply issues and holidays. Before the sale starts, look at how many parcels your warehouse team can pack in a day and set the dispatch time to a realistic figure; put the new time in the campaign announcement, the order confirmation and on the product page at the same time. Article 5 of the Distance Contracts Regulation requires the pre-contractual information to state a delivery period consistent with the period promised in commercial advertising and promotions, so update the period in your pre-contractual information form on the same day.
The second is a daily list of orders past their promised date. Pull it at the same time every morning from your order panel and your carrier’s shipment report. Three groups are enough: orders still in the warehouse after their dispatch day, parcels past their estimated delivery day or whose tracking hasn’t changed for a long time, and parcels held at a branch after a failed delivery or already heading back to you. Next to each row, note the delay type and who will send the message that day; whoever works the list then opens the shipping delay notification template for that type and fills in only the dates and branch details. If the same order shows up on the list again the next morning, check the day you promised the customer.
The third is your message templates. Because you start the conversation about the delay before the customer has written to you, the message usually has to go out as an approved WhatsApp template. Meta’s template documentation says that only template messages can go out when no customer service window is open; a template must be approved before it is sent, and the approval review may take as long as 24 hours. Before the rush begins, write a notification template for each delay type, a second message for when the date slips again and a cancellation confirmation, and submit them for approval. Set up the details that change, such as dates, branch and tracking number, as variables from the start so the same template works for every order. View each approved template on your own phone with a test order.
Decide on goodwill gestures in the same period. Working out for every angry customer which delays earn a gesture, and in which message it goes, can lead to inconsistent decisions on a busy day. To send customers their tracking link automatically when a parcel ships, take a look at Pushouse’s WhatsApp order tracking module, and get in touch with us to set up your order flow together.
