Using apps to remind customers to pick up their orders.

I’m always trying to streamline and take out friction points in customer service and one of the big ones for us is calling/texting folks when their book comes in or, more egregiously, when we need to remind them to pick it up. We’re always busy, and this task falls down the priority list most of the time. My special order system (via Jira + Integromat) sent out emails when books arrived but that’s it, and most didn’t have emails.

Anyway, I found a way to take care of calling by integrating Jira with Twilio via Integromat. While I was doing this, I also integrated the script with Manychat (for Facebook messages) and TextMagic (for texting). Now, it will call, text, send FB messages, or emails depending on their preference.

But because an automated call could be deemed impersonal, I found a way to make it fun and on-brand for us here at The Haunted Book Shop. Twilio allowed me to pick different accents and voices, and so I picked a female UK voice, and I start with the script saying, “This is the ghost of Jane Austen calling from The Haunted Book Shop...” I made sure to get that info out in front of the script so my customers wouldn’t think it was a spam call and I made the rest of the script match her era’s syntax. It’s on-brand not only because it’s a “ghost” but also my customers most likely are aware she’s one of my fave authors (we have a shelf dedicated to JA merchandise).

I ran the script a week ago Saturday to remind anyone who’d had a book arrive and it worked! 3 people came in who’d had theirs sitting here for a while and now I have it set to run any time a book has 1) arrived 2) been here for exactly 2 weeks 3) been here for exactly 30 days. Since then people have been coming in quicker than in the past. Those who’ve gotten the automated calls were extremely tickled by it. It’s now one less thing for my staff to do as well.”