The user journey: non-negotiable email updates

It’s important to think about the user journey from start to finish, but don’t be fooled, the journey does not end when you take the customer’s payment. Let’s imagine those final steps: the user pays for the books they purchase from your online bookstore and lands on an order confirmation page. Then what? The answer is email updates. In email updates, you should explain how and when users can expect their books. It’s a crucial stage in the eCommerce user journey.

This is the last interaction you will have with the user, so it can be the most memorable and defining moment in their experience buying from you. You should be trustworthy and clear by giving them all the information and reassurance they need. Think about it from their point of view. What information would you want to know to be sure that your order went through? When is it arriving? If the order contains eBooks or Audiobooks, how do you access them?

Here are 3 non-negotiable email updates to deliver:

1. Order confirmation and summary

As soon as payment is taken, the user should receive an order confirmation with an order summary. It should be communicated that any information on how to access their digital titles or track their shipment will follow. If you can outline that whole process in this email, you will leave them confident in you and your ability to get the books into their hands. This is all they want.

2. eBook/Audiobook instructions

For digital titles that you fulfil directly from your online bookstore (in other words, that you sell D2C), the workflow may be a bit unique in that the user is required to download an unfamiliar app in which to read or listen to their book(s). The user should receive clear, reassuringly easy instructions on how to access their title(s) as quickly as possible.

Additionally, you could reassure them of how robust and industry standard your reader app is if that will help them look forward to getting started and reading their books. But bear in mind, this should not be the first time they hear about how to access their digital books. You should have communicated this at every stage of the user journey whenever an eBook was either selected as an option, or included in their order. We have more recommendations about this in our user journey series. Users don’t want any friction in the process of reading their books, so you need to give them all the information and instructions they need.

3. Shipping updates

Any dispatch or shipping updates should come quickly too. This can be dependent on your distributor and the courier they work with – but it’s crucial. We suggest opening up this discussion your print distributor and asking them to help you achieve this level of communication to the user. What can your distributor do to help give you the tracking number? Who do you need to talk to? If you have access to it already, talk to your web developers or partners to understand how to include the tracking number in these shipping updates. It’s online shopping 101, and will really help build trust with your users.

Shipping updates won’t be limited to one email. They may be broken up into at least two steps: dispatch notification (where the user is told the order has been dispatched – which doesn’t mean it’s on the way to them yet), and the shipping notification itself (where the user is told the order is on its way with a courier).