Order lookups
How the AI finds a customer's order, and how to make it succeed more often.
On this page
"Where is my order" is the most common support question in ecommerce and the most automatable. Getting lookups to succeed reliably is most of the value of a store connection.
The lookup sequence
The AI tries four things in order and stops at the first that works:
- An order number in the message. Recognised in the common formats —
#1042,1042,NW-1042. - An order number earlier in the thread. So a customer who gave it three messages ago is not asked twice.
- The customer's email address. Matched against orders on the connected store.
- Ask. If none of the above resolve, the AI asks for the order number rather than guessing.
What the customer gets
A found order returns its status, and where available the fulfilment state and tracking link. The reply is written in your brand voice, not as a raw data dump.
Why lookups fail
| Cause | Fix |
|---|---|
| Customer wrote from a different address than they ordered with | Nothing to fix — the AI asks for the number |
| Guest checkout under a different email | Same |
| Order number quoted with a prefix your store doesn't use | Add the format to a knowledge base article |
| Store connection expired | Reconnect — see Connection health |
The first two are the bulk of failures and are not really failures — asking for an order number is the correct behaviour.
Improving the success rate
- Put the order number in your emails prominently. Customers paste what they can find.
- Use one order number format. Stores that changed prefixes mid-life confuse both customers and lookups.
- Ask for it in your widget greeting. "Have your order number handy" measurably raises first-message resolution.
What lookups never do
The AI reports status. It does not cancel orders, change addresses, issue refunds, or reship. All of those escalate to a human, regardless of confidence — see How Autopilot decides.
Related