Customers often would like to cancel an order they placed. Canceling their order through the bot or showing them how to cancel an order on the website will empower customers and save agents time.
Cancellation Flow
When designing a cancel order flow, the simplest design is to teach the customer how to cancel the order on the retailer’s website by themselves. You can do this by giving step-by-step instructions and if possible, adding an image of what the ‘Cancel order’ page looks like on the website. If the item has already shipped or been delivered, most companies will not allow the order to be canceled but they may allow for returns or exchanges. It is best to link the returns and refunds policy as an FAQ article in the bot or provide a link to the returns and refunds policy in the message.
If the bot has access to the order status API and if the bot has access to the order information to be able to cancel an order, then the bot needs to verify the customer details, then check the status of the order, and finally, cancel the order for the customer.
With or without API access, it is also recommended to provide an escalation path in case the customer is unable to cancel the order and needs more help.
The best place to build the ‘Cancel order’ flow is within the broader category of ‘Manage orders’ which can contain other topics such as ‘Check order status’, ‘Report issue with item/delivery’, ‘Review return/exchange policy’. Other topics to include under ‘Manage my orders’ are ‘Get my receipt’, ‘Change pickup location’, ‘Payment failure’ etc.