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When you add an order by hand for someone standing at the counter, the order card has a Keep the customer informed panel. It collects what Omnilinker needs to tell the customer when the order is ready, late or collected, and nothing else.

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Where the panel is

On the Orders list, click Add order. Omnilinker opens the new draft’s card, and the panel sits at the top, above the products, while the order has no buyer yet. Once the order has a buyer the panel sits between Information and the ERP section. It is on orders added by hand, which belong to your personal source (see Add an order by hand), until they are archived. You need the Record how a counter customer is told and their marketing consent permission, Edit order and View personal data. Without the first the panel isn’t shown.

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What you fill in

  1. Already a customer? Search by phone. Type the phone number. If a contact has it, the panel offers them (“1 customer has this number. Pick them, or carry on to add a new one.”): click Use to link them to the order, or Not them. Shops share phone numbers, so Omnilinker only suggests. With no match, the customer is added to Contacts when you save.
  2. Name, Phone (choose the Country code; a number typed with its own prefix is kept as typed) and E-mail (optional).
  3. How should we tell them about this order? Choose SMS, E-mail or Don’t send. E-mail asks you to add an address or choose SMS, and SMS asks for a phone number. A channel with no sender set up can’t be chosen: the panel says so and links to the Senders page.
  4. News and offers from … by SMS and e-mail. A separate tick box for marketing consent. Ask the customer first, and leave it unticked if they don’t answer. The wording is shown with its version, and the panel says what will be recorded when you save: given to whom, where, when and under which wording.
Order and pickup updates are service messages about this order only: when it’s ready, if it’s late and when it’s collected. They need no consent. The customer can reply STOP to any SMS to stop them.
Until a lawyer approves the consent wording, the News and offers tick box isn’t offered: the panel says “Marketing consent can’t be collected at the counter yet: the wording is still a draft that hasn’t been approved. Order updates are not affected.” The consent is also recorded only for the person shown: the order must be linked to that contact, and the phone and e-mail must be the contact’s own. Otherwise the panel says why it was not recorded, and the order stays saved.
Click the save button, which names your choice: Save order and send updates by SMS, Save order and send updates by e-mail or Save order. The panel saves the buyer on the order, finds or creates the contact, then records the choice and, if ticked, the consent. If a later step fails, the order stays saved and the panel says what is missing: “The order is saved, but the consent was not recorded: …”. Click save again to repeat the missing steps; nothing is done twice. Under the button: “You can change this later on the order card (Change).” Under the form, When the order is ready for pickup shows the message exactly as the customer will get it, with its length (“1 SMS · 120 characters”), and says whether anything will send it. If no automatic message sends the pickup notice yet, it says so, with Open Automatic messages. An order that goes by courier gets “This order goes by courier, so no pickup message is sent.”

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What happens next

  • With SMS or E-mail, the customer gets the message when the order is ready for pickup, sent by the automatic message for that status. See Automatic messages. No SMS is sent between 21:00 and 08:00 unless you changed the quiet hours.
  • With Don’t send, nothing is sent and the order card shows Customer not notified in its header, so your staff know to call.
  • The choice rules every update about this order: a delay notice, a pickup notice or a note sent from the order, in a bulk run or by an automatic message. An update on the channel the customer didn’t choose is skipped (“The customer chose another channel for updates”), and with Don’t send every update is skipped (“Staff chose not to notify the customer”). When you write a message yourself from the order, it only shows a note and doesn’t stop you. A reply, a thank-you, a review request, an invoice and a quote ignore the choice. The customer’s own Do not contact, STOP and the suppression list still apply.
  • A reply doesn’t need handling. Customer service doesn’t receive replies: a reply to an e-mail goes to the sender’s reply address, and a STOP stops SMS to that number.

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Change the choice later

Once the order is confirmed, the panel shows a summary: “Updates about this order go by SMS.” with “Decided by …” and the date, and a Change button, for as long as the order isn’t archived. The new choice rules every later message. You can also change the customer’s consent on the contact. See Contacts and Consent and opting out.