Keeping customers updated
How to Stop Answering 'Where Is My Order?': A Small Business Guide to Reducing Support Messages
Customers ask for order status because you've given them no other way to find out. How self-service tracking removes the question, and what our order data shows.
Updated 5 min read
Short answer: customers ask because asking you is the only method available. Give them a link that shows current status and most of the asking stops. They still want to know, but now they can find out without you. In our order data, customers opened that link a median of 5 times per order, which is a good proxy for how many messages it absorbed.
You check your phone at 8am. Three messages, all the same question. You answer each, go back to work, and by lunch there are four more. By evening you’ve spent more time typing status updates than making the things you sell.
If you run a made-to-order business, like cakes, jewellery, tailoring or commissions, you know this cycle.
First, an honest correction
This post used to open with a statistic: “studies show 50-80% of all customer support messages are order status inquiries.” It also claimed self-service tracking cuts those messages by 70-90%.
I can’t support either number, so they’re gone.
I went looking for the source. There isn’t one. (For the term itself and where it comes from, see what WISMO means.) Vendors in the post-purchase space each publish a different range and none cite research: Decagon says 25–40% of support volume rising to 50–60% at peak, ShippyPro says 40–60%, and Pango publishes benchmark bands then says clearly they are “orientation, not law”. They are the author’s own observations. The 70-90% reduction figure appears to have been invented outright.
If you see a specific percentage quoted on this topic anywhere, including on this site previously, treat it as folklore.
What I can offer is our own data, with its size stated.
What we can actually measure
We looked at the 130 orders on WISMO whose tracking page was opened at least once (52 sellers, March to September 2026). Customers opened that link a median of 5 times before the order was finished. The mean is 7.4.
The spread matters more than the average:
Read that as demand for information. Roughly 55% of orders were checked five or more times. Customers check whether or not there is a page. Without a page, some of those checks arrive as messages you answer one by one.
This is a small dataset of 434 orders from 81 sellers. It is published in full with its limits. It is not a market benchmark and I’m not presenting it as one.
Why do customers keep asking where their order is?
Your customers aren’t being difficult. They’re asking because you’ve left them no alternative.
From their side: they paid for something custom a week ago. They don’t know whether you’ve started, whether the design is on track, or whether it’ll be ready for Saturday. The only route to that information is you.
Two things amplify it. Order value: the more someone paid, the sooner they check. And emotional stakes: a cake for a wedding, a commissioned portrait, a tailored outfit for an event generates far more checking than a routine purchase, because there’s no second chance if it goes wrong.
So the anxious customers aren’t the problem customers. They’re usually the ones who care most about what you’re making.
Three levels of transparency
Level 1: you tell them when they ask. Every update is a message you write. Information exists only in your head and in scattered chat threads. This is where most sellers start and it’s the most expensive.
Level 2: you track it, but they cannot see it. A spreadsheet or app holds the truth, so you can answer accurately and fast. But the customer still has to ask. You’ve improved your side and not theirs, which is why spreadsheets don’t fix this no matter how well organised.
Level 3: they check for themselves. A link showing current status, updated when you change it. The question stops arriving because it’s already answered.
Only the third level changes the volume. Levels 1 and 2 change how fast you respond.
What should an order tracking page show?
Current status in plain language. “In progress” beats a code. “Decorating. Ready for pickup Saturday” is better still.
A timeline, not just a state. Order confirmed, materials sourced, production started, ready. The sequence shows momentum. A single status word doesn’t tell them anything is happening.
Your business name and contact. It should look like you, not like a generic utility. Part of the value is that it reads as organised.
No login. The moment a customer has to create an account, they’ll message you instead. Tap link, see status, done.
Order specifics. What they ordered, the due date, what’s paid and what’s outstanding. This quietly resolves balance questions too.
How do you set up a tracking link?
Create the order when you confirm it: customer, item, due date, price, advance. Under a minute on a phone. Do it at confirmation, not later, or it won’t happen.
Send the link immediately, with the confirmation message. Sharing it up front sets the expectation that this is where status lives. Sharing it later, after they’ve already asked twice, works far less well.
Update status as you actually work. This is the habit that makes the rest function. A page showing “confirmed” for three weeks is worse than no page, because now they distrust it and message you anyway.
Redirect the ones who still ask. Old habits persist for a week or two. Reply with the link rather than the answer. After once or twice, most people check first.
What actually changes
I’m not going to give you a percentage, because I’d be making it up.
What I can describe is the mechanism. Before, every status question costs you the same: find the order, reconstruct where it’s at, write a reply, return to what you were doing. Afterwards, the questions that a page can answer get answered by the page. What still reaches you are the questions that really need you, like a design change, a date change or a new order.
The second-order effects are the ones sellers mention most: fewer mistakes from context-switching mid-task, and less of the low-level dread of an unread message badge. Neither shows up in a statistic, and both are why people keep the habit.
Start
The mechanism is simple enough to state in one line: make the answer available before the question is asked.
WISMO is free for your first 30 orders and gives every order a tracking link. If you’d rather understand the wider process first, the order management guide covers all four stages, and the software roundup compares seven tools including the free ones.
Common questions
Why do customers keep asking where their order is?
Because asking you is the only method available. They paid for something custom, they do not know whether you have started, and the only route to that information is you. Order value and emotional stakes both increase how often they check.
Is it true that 50-80% of support messages are order status inquiries?
No, and this post used to say it. There is no source. Companies publish ranges that do not agree, like 25-40% and 40-60%. None of them cite research. Treat any specific percentage quoted on this topic, including on this site previously, as folklore.
How much does a tracking page reduce status messages?
There is no defensible percentage, so this post does not give one. What our data shows is the demand: customers opened tracking links a median of 5 times per order across 130 orders, and roughly 55% of orders were checked five or more times. Those checks happen whether or not a page exists to absorb them.
What should an order tracking page show?
Current status in plain language, a timeline rather than a single state, your business name and contact details, the order specifics including what is paid and outstanding, and no login. The moment a customer has to create an account, they will message you instead.
When should I send the tracking link?
At confirmation, with your confirmation message. Sharing it up front establishes it as where status lives. Sharing it later, after someone has already asked twice, works far less well.
Sources
About the author
Ashish Vijay is the founder of WISMO, an order management app for small sellers and independent makers. He builds the product, talks to the sellers who use it, and writes these guides from what that work turns up.
