A where is my order chatbot doesn't need a connection to your store to be useful. It can't see a specific order, but most of these messages are really asking two things: is this wait normal, and where do I check? A bot trained on your shipping policy answers both. For everything else, it collects a fixed set of details and passes the case to a person, so your reply is the first and only one the customer needs.
This guide is the no-integration setup in three parts: what the bot answers, what it hands over, and exactly which fields to collect.
What "where is my order" usually means
Read twenty of these messages and they fall into a handful of groups. Only some need anyone to open an order.
| What they type | What they actually want | Who answers |
|---|---|---|
| "I ordered yesterday, when will it ship?" | Your dispatch cut-off | The bot, from policy |
| "How long does it take to reach Glasgow?" | Your delivery window by region | The bot, from policy |
| "Where's my tracking number?" | Where tracking is sent and shown | The bot, from policy |
| "It's been a week, where is it?" | Whether that's normal | The bot, then a person if it's past the window |
| "It says delivered but it isn't here" | Someone to investigate | A person |
| "Can I change the address?" | A change to the order | A person |
The first three rows are answered by facts you already know. The rest need a human, but they don't need a human to ask for the order number first.
Write the page the bot learns from
A chatbot can only be as specific as what it reads. Vague policy produces vague answers, so start with one page, call it something like "Orders and delivery", and fill in each of these:
- Dispatch cut-off. "Orders placed before 2pm Monday to Friday leave the same day."
- Processing time for anything made to order.
- Delivery windows by region, in working days, with the carrier you use.
- Which emails customers get, and when. Order confirmation, then shipping confirmation with tracking.
- Where customers check their order themselves. This depends on your platform (see below).
- When to contact you. "If your order hasn't arrived two working days after the window above, message us."
- Holiday and sale cut-offs, updated each season.
Point 5 is the one most stores skip, and it saves the most messages. On Shopify, Shopify's help center says customers can reach their order status page by signing in to their account, by following the tracking link in their shipping confirmation email, or by entering their order confirmation number and verifying their email or phone. On WooCommerce, WooCommerce's documentation describes an Orders section on the My account page, listing each order's number, date and status. WooCommerce also documents an order tracking shortcode that lets someone see an order's status by entering the order number and billing email, if you've added it to a page.
Publish the page, then make sure your chatbot has learned it. In SpideyChat that means a fresh website crawl (Starter and above), uploading the page as a document, or adding the key facts as Q&A pairs. If you change the page later, crawl again. The Shopify and WooCommerce integration pages cover installing the chat on each platform.
Decide the hand-off rules before launch
The fastest way to anger a customer with a lost parcel is a bot that keeps cheerfully quoting your delivery window. Write the hand-off rules down first. In SpideyChat they go in the "System prompt (persona & instructions)" field on your chatbot. Something like this works:
For questions about a specific order, explain our normal dispatch and delivery times from the Orders and delivery page and tell the customer where to check their tracking. Hand over to a person, or open a support ticket, when: the order is past the delivery window, the parcel shows as delivered but hasn't arrived, the item is damaged or wrong, the customer wants to change, cancel or refund an order, or the customer is upset. Before handing over, ask for the details listed below. Never ask for card details or passwords.
If a team member is online, SpideyChat can hand the conversation to them. If nobody is, it opens a numbered support ticket and gives the customer the number.
The seven fields to collect every time
A ticket that says "where is my parcel??" with no details costs you a round of email before work can start. These fields remove that round:
| Field | Why you need it |
|---|---|
| Order number | Finds the order in seconds |
| Email used at checkout | Confirms it's their order, and it's where you reply |
| Name | Matches the order when the number is mistyped |
| Order date | Tells you at a glance if it's really late |
| Delivery town or postcode | Spots carrier problems in one area without asking for the full address |
| What went wrong | Late, delivered but missing, damaged, wrong item, or a change |
| What they'd like | Wait, resend, refund or a change, so your reply can offer it |
A phone number is optional. Ask for it only if you'd actually call. If you use the chat's "Report an issue" form, customers can also attach up to three screenshots, which is handy for a damaged item or a confusing tracking page.
What lands in your inbox
Each ticket gets a number. The account owner receives an email with the details and any screenshots, and when the customer gave an email, replying goes straight to them. The customer gets a confirmation with the same reference. On Pro, tickets also collect in a support ticket inbox in the dashboard, where you can track status. On Starter and above, the chatbot can capture a name, email and phone as a lead as well.
A hypothetical conversation
Here's how it should feel for an imaginary candle shop:
Customer: Where is my order? I ordered on Tuesday. Bot: Orders placed before 2pm on a weekday leave the same day, and UK delivery takes 2 to 3 working days, so Friday is most likely. Your tracking link is in the shipping confirmation email we send when it leaves. Has that email arrived? Customer: Yes, it says delivered yesterday but there's nothing here. Bot: Sorry about that. I'll pass this to the team now. Could you share your order number, the email you used at checkout and your postcode?
The first reply ended most of the conversation. The second turned an awkward case into a complete ticket.
Review the misses every week
Two lists tell you what to fix. SpideyChat logs questions it couldn't answer as knowledge gaps, which shows you which policy facts are missing from your page. Your tickets, grouped by "what went wrong", show whether delays cluster on one carrier or one region. That's a fulfilment problem the chat has made visible, not a chat problem.
For the bigger picture of why these messages pile up, read how chatbots reduce where is my order tickets. If you're on Shopify and weighing whether you need an app at all, what a script tag can and cannot do draws that line.
The quickest way to see how your current policy pages hold up is to paste your website address and test it. Ask it "where is my order?" and see whether the answer is specific enough to stop a second message.