Customer acknowledgement emails

[mike_howles]

It's not a massive problem but we do have one or two confused customers.

With the normal process of ordering from our webshop the customer will get a confirmation email of the order regardless of whether payment is successful or not. We are using Secure Trading as our PSP. (If a transaction fails the failure page is *VERY* obvious but I guess customers disregard it.)

I buy a ton of stuff on the Internet and have never had a problem but customers whose transaction has failed get no email telling them this, only the order confirmation from Actinic.

Does anyone else experience this or do you use a different PSP that gives the customer more info. Or is there a way to stop Actinic sending the confirmation email if the transaction has failed?

Mike

[Bruce]

Mike,

You can opt not to send the customer a confirmation automatically, this can be done in 'Settings | Business Settings | Ordering', under 'Email', uncheck 'Send receipr email to customer'. This email is however usually sent once the customer has hit the done button on the receipt page after returning from the PSP on successful receipt of payment.

Can you post a copy of an email that was sent to a customer on a failed transaction please, if you dont want to put it up here you can email it to me.

Kind regards,

[mike_howles]

Bruce

It appears that the customer gets the confirmation email as soon as they leave the shop to go to the PSP (Secure Trading) from that point on they get no email notification as to whether their transaction is succesful or not.

The only thing we have been able to do is make the failure.html page (from Secure trading) more obvious.

Here is an example of the email that customers now get (regardless of payment success or failure):
_______________________________________________________________
Dear D V Or****f,

Thank you for shopping at Burns Pet Nutrition Ltd.
We have received and are processing the following order:
******************************************************
***Please note that orders will only be despatched ***
*** if payment has been successful. ***
******************************************************
Order Number: DO86H****07221
Order Date: 23 April 2007 07:47 GMT

Ship To:
D V *****
** Medcalfe Way
******
Royston
SG8 ***
Uk Mainland
017*****31
orl**av@*****.com



Tax Point: 23 April 2007 07:47 GMT

Shopping Cart (Prices in British Pounds)
DESCRIPTION QUANTITY PRICE COST
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Fish & Brown Rice 1 £30.63 £30.63
Selection - Size: 15kg Ref: 1
13
======================================================================
Subtotal: £30.63
VAT: £5.36
Total: £35.99

******************************************************


Sincerely,
Burns Pet Nutrition Ltd

Ferry Road
Kidwelly
Carmarthenshire
SA17 5EJ
United Kingdom
Freephone: 0800 018 18 90
Phone: 01554 890482
Fax: 01554 891476
info@burns-pet-nutrition.co.uk
VAT Registration No: 558 1344 34

[pinbrook]

It appears that the customer gets the confirmation email as soon as they leave the shop to go to the PSP (Secure Trading) from that point on they get no email notification as to whether their transaction is succesful or not.

the customer should get something from Secure Trading.... if the customer doesn't complete the transaction with secure trading pages they will know, otherwise if ST reject the transaction after the customer thinks they have completed again ST should let them know.

However i thought the email from actinic only gets send when the customer returns to the site after completing payment. The order is downloadable into actinic before they go to ST, but if payment fails it goes to Pending.

[mike_howles]

Jo

Everything youo say is correct but Secure Trading send nothing to the customer.

I have asked them about this and it is just not done.

The only emails sent from Secure Trading are failure or success and they go to the merchant.

The system works in that Acitinic will put an order into 'Pending' until it gets tha appropriate flag from Secure Trading.

Apparently it is because Actinic does not use the normal 'callback' routines that other cart software uses.

It's just a bit confusing for about 1% or our webshop customers who ignore the Failure html page and don't read the order confirmation email.

It would be nice to know the *exact* sequence of events when a customer clicks on the 'checkout' button.

Mike

[mike_howles]

Just as a note, with the two things we have done to the failure.html file and the confirmation email, i.e. making failure.html very obvious and the confirmation email contain the text:

******************************************************
***Please note that orders will only be despatched ***
*** if payment has been successful. ***
******************************************************

we have had no phone calls or emails from customers having difficulty.

Mike

[pinbrook]

Ok thats inconvenient isn't it?

I use Worldpay, which means shoppers get a notification from Worldpay that they have paid. This is quite convenient as it means the shopper will always get at least one confirmation email even if they don't return to the site after payment t otrigger the Actinic confirmation.

I'm not convinced that Actinic "does not use the normal 'callback' routines that other cart software uses" as there is a simple tick box within WP CP to configure call back routines.

[mike_howles]

Jo

Here's the reply I got from Secure Trading when I enquired about it:

[Dear Mike,

Thank you for your email. When a transaction is declined, the only email that will be generated will be the failureemail.txt, which is sent directly to the merchant. The only way to let the customer know that their transcation has not been authorised is, as you said, to make the failure.html page more clear to them. ]

I've also had a look at the Secure Trading Control Panel and there is nothing configurable to enable an email to be sent to the customer.

But then we are only getting one or two problems a week so it's ok, especially as we are currently running at about 200 - 250 orders per day.
I just thought there may be additional configuration to be done or even if there were other Secure Trading Users out there who had a similar problem.


Mike