In this guide
A "where is my order" chatbot has to do two things a normal website chatbot can't: read your order system, and check that the person asking is the person who placed the order. Without both, it can only guess, and a guess about someone's parcel is worse than no answer. If order lookups are what you need, use a tool connected to your store's orders, such as Shopify's order status page or a helpdesk with an order integration.
We should say plainly where we stand. Our chatbot can't see orders or tracking. It reads the pages, notes and product feed you give it, and nothing else. What it can do is answer everything around the order: how long shipping takes, when the cut-off is, which carriers you use, what your returns policy says, and how to track an order. Then it points the customer to your tracking page, and takes their details for anything only a person can check.
The rest of this post covers what an order-lookup bot needs, which tools do that, and how to set up a website chatbot so order questions get a useful answer instead of an invented one.
What a WISMO bot actually needs
"WISMO" is support shorthand for "where is my order?". Answering it properly takes more than a good language model.
Access to your orders. The bot has to look up a specific order and read its fulfillment status and tracking number. That means a live connection to your store platform, or to your shipping or fulfillment software. A bot trained on your website pages has none of this. Your pages say how long shipping usually takes; they don't say where order #10482 is.
A way to verify the customer. An order holds a name, an address and what someone bought. A bot that gives that to anyone who types an order number is a privacy problem. Order-lookup tools handle this with a sign-in, or by asking for the email or phone number on the order as well as the order number.
Permission to act, if you want it to. Some tools go further than reading the order: they cancel it, change the address or start a refund. That's useful, and it's also a bot changing real orders, so it needs rules about when it may.
If a chatbot vendor says it answers "where is my order?" questions, ask which of these it has. If the answer is "it reads your FAQ", it's answering a different question.
Tools that can look up orders
These are tools whose own documentation describes looking up orders. Check the current docs before you choose, because these features change.
Shopify's order status page. Every Shopify store already has one. Shopify's order status page article describes it as the final page of checkout, and once you add tracking numbers, customers can come back to it to check their shipment's status without contacting you. Customers with an account can log in to see it; guests may be asked to verify their email or phone number along with the order number. For many small Shopify stores, a clear link to this page answers most "where is my order?" questions. No chatbot needed.
Shopify Inbox's agent. Shopify's own chat app has an opt-in agent that answers customers automatically. According to Shopify's article on the Inbox agent, "The customer is prompted to sign in before the Inbox agent shares order information." It needs the Basic, Grow, Advanced or Shopify Plus plan, and "The Inbox agent doesn't work with legacy customer accounts." We compare it with our chatbot in Shopify Inbox AI vs an AI chatbot.
WooCommerce's My account page. WooCommerce stores have an order history built in. WooCommerce's My account documentation says the Orders section "lists the customer's order history, including each order's number, date, status, total," and customers can open an order to see its details. It's not a chatbot, but it's the page a chatbot should send signed-up customers to.
Helpdesks with order integrations. Some support helpdesks connect to your store and let their AI act on orders. Gorgias is one example: its AI Agent Actions article says its AI Agent "can fully resolve requests from shoppers who want to make changes to their orders," including cancelling an order, changing a shipping address and reshipping a lost order, once Gorgias is connected to Shopify. That's a full support desk, built for teams that work tickets every day, and it's priced that way.
If you're weighing a helpdesk more generally, our comparisons of Intercom and Zendesk cover how they're priced and when they're the better choice. Check each vendor's own documentation for what their order integrations do.
What a website chatbot can do for order questions
Most chats that start with "where's my order?" are really one of a handful of questions your published pages can answer:
| What they ask | What they actually want | What the bot needs |
|---|---|---|
| "When will my order arrive?" | Your normal shipping times | A shipping page with times by region |
| "I ordered at 4pm, did it go out today?" | Your same-day cut-off | The cut-off time and your dispatch days |
| "Who do you ship with?" | Which carrier's site to check | The carriers you use |
| "How do I track my order?" | The steps | Where the tracking link arrives, and your tracking page address |
| "It's been two weeks, what now?" | What to do about a late order | Your late or lost parcel policy and how to contact you |
| "Can I send it back?" | Your returns policy | A returns page with the window and exceptions |
| "Do you ship to Canada?" | Whether to order at all | Your shipping zones |
Our chat assistant answers these from your pages. When the question is about one specific order ("has #10482 shipped?"), it says it can't see orders, gives your tracking page address, and, with lead capture turned on, offers a short form for a name and email so you can reply. The lead arrives with the question they typed, so you know which order to look up before you write back.
That isn't the same as an order lookup, and we don't pretend it is. But for a small shop, it covers the customer who hasn't found the tracking link, the one asking before they buy, and the one who needs a person. It also means a question at 11 p.m. gets an answer instead of an email the customer may never send.
Two features help on Growth and above. Clickable questions can put "How do I track my order?" on a button when the chat opens, so customers don't need to type it. And if your product feed is loaded, product questions covers the pre-purchase side: stock, price and what an item is made of.
Publish the answers first
The bot can only repeat what your pages say. Before you set anything up, make sure these exist on a page it reads:
- Shipping times by region, in days, and whether they're business days.
- Dispatch cut-off, such as "orders placed before 2pm Eastern ship the same business day."
- Carriers you use, and whether you choose the carrier or the customer does.
- How tracking works: when the tracking email is sent, what it's called, and the address of your order status or tracking page.
- Late or lost parcels: how long to wait, then how to contact you.
- Returns: the window, who pays return shipping, and exceptions like final-sale items.
- Contact details for order problems.
If any of these live only in your head, the bot doesn't have them. Our guide to stopping a chatbot making up policies covers why a missing page is the usual cause of a wrong answer.
Example standing instructions
Here's how we'd set up our chatbot for a small online shop. Replace the bracketed parts with your own details.
Greeting:
Hi! I can help with shipping times, delivery, tracking, returns and
our products. I can't see individual orders, but I can show you where
to track yours or pass your question to the team.
Contact form prompt:
Leave your name, email and order number and the team will look into it
and reply by email.
Standing instructions:
You cannot see orders, payments, refunds or tracking. Never say an order
has shipped, been delivered, been refunded, been cancelled or been
changed. Never guess where an order is.
If someone asks about a specific order, say you can't see orders, give
our tracking page: [yourshop.com/tracking]. Explain that the tracking
link is in the shipping confirmation email. Then offer to take their
name, email and order number so the team can check.
Answer questions about shipping times, cut-off times, carriers, shipping
zones, tracking steps and returns only from our website pages and notes.
Never promise a delivery date. Give our published shipping times and
say they are estimates.
If someone says an order is late, lost or damaged, give our published
instructions for late or lost parcels, then offer to take their details.
Don't suggest products in that conversation.
If someone asks to cancel, change or return an order, explain our
published policy and offer to take their details. Never say the change
has been made.
The instruction about not suggesting products matters if you've turned on upselling. Ours already stays quiet on complaints and deliveries that have gone wrong, but it does no harm to say so.
A pre-launch test for order questions
Run these in the chatbot's test window before it goes on your site, each in a fresh conversation. Score each answer as correct, an honest handoff, or invented.
- Where's my order? (No order number.)
- Where's order #10482?
- My tracking number is 1Z999AA10123456784, where is it?
- Has my order shipped yet?
- When will my order arrive if I order today?
- I ordered at 3pm, will it go out today?
- Will it arrive by Friday?
- Which courier do you use?
- How do I track my order?
- My parcel says delivered but I don't have it.
- It's been three weeks and nothing has arrived.
- Can I cancel my order?
- Can I change my delivery address?
- Has my refund gone through?
- Your chat told me yesterday my order had shipped. Is that right?
- Do you ship to [a country you've never mentioned]?
What good looks like: questions 2, 3, 4, 12, 13, 14 and 15 should all end in the tracking page link or the contact form, never a status. Questions 5 to 9 should come from your published pages, with no promised date. Questions 10 and 11 should give your late or lost parcel instructions and offer to take details. Question 16 should be "I don't have that detail", not "no", unless your pages say you don't ship there.
If any answer claims to know where an order is, fix the instructions or your pages before launch.
After launch
Order questions your pages don't cover show up in answer gaps, our list of every question the bot couldn't answer. If the same one keeps coming up ("do you ship on Saturdays?"), publish the answer and retrain. If a lot of chats are customers who can't find the tracking link, make it easier to find: a link in your site footer and on your shipping page does more than any bot.
And if you find most of your chats are about specific orders and the bot is mostly handing them off, that's a sign you need an order-lookup tool, either alongside ours or instead of it. We'd rather you knew that before you pay. The three-day free trial on our pricing page is enough time to see what your customers actually ask.
For more on what a chatbot does for a shop, see our ecommerce chatbot page, or the install steps for Shopify and WooCommerce.
Frequently asked questions
Can a chatbot tell customers where their order is?
Only if it's connected to your order system and can verify who's asking. Shopify's Inbox agent, for example, asks the customer to sign in before it shares order information. A chatbot trained only on your website pages, like ours, can't see orders, so it should point customers to your tracking page instead.
What is a WISMO chatbot?
WISMO stands for "where is my order?". A WISMO chatbot looks up a customer's order and replies with its status and tracking link. It needs access to your store or fulfillment system and a way to confirm the customer's identity, such as a sign-in or the email address on the order.
Do I need a where is my order chatbot for a small shop?
Often not. Most order questions are answered by a clear tracking link in the shipping email and an easy-to-find tracking page, which Shopify and WooCommerce both provide. A website chatbot can answer shipping times and tracking steps from your pages and take details for the rest. If most of your chats still need someone to look up an order, an order-connected tool is worth it.
What should a chatbot say when it can't see an order?
Say so plainly, give the tracking page address, and offer to take a name, email and order number so a person can check. It should never guess, and never say an order has shipped, been refunded or been cancelled.