We had a recent client that came to us needing a specialized sequence of seven automated pro forma scheduled emails with reminders.
This sequence of emails was needed for orders made by customers that were left in “Order Entry” status, meaning the intent to order had been placed, but the details of the order had not been filled out by the customer for fulfillment.
For our client, these “pro forma orders” created a familiar operational scenario: When these orders entered the system, they required customer action before work could proceed. And while customers generally intended to respond promptly, reality sometimes had other plans. People got busy. Emails got buried. Vacations or operational delays happened that prevented an order from being entered. Suddenly, an order that should have moved forward in days had been sitting untouched and unanswered for weeks. The challenge then became how to consistently follow up with customers on these orders in a way that sparked action but didn’t cause annoyance.
The problem our client faced was that the process for managing these situations was entirely manual.
Customer service representatives needed to flag and track aging orders, monitor timelines, remember follow-up schedules, send reminder emails, escalate communications, and eventually determine when an order should be cancelled. As the company grew and work scaled, this work went from difficult to downright impossible to do efficiently: Every reminder required someone to remember something. And humans, despite our many strengths, are wildly bad at remembering hundreds of administrative follow-ups.
The Recipe
For those of you who are facing this challenge, here are the ingredients you need for success:
- A clearly defined communication strategy
- Timeline of exactly when customers should be contacted
- Copy for exactly what each message should say.
The Challenge
The challenge for this project was executing the process consistently across all potential scenarios and edge cases. Anchor Group worked with the client to build a fully automated reminder sequence directly inside NetSuite, where whenever a pro forma order entered Order Entry status, a communication timeline began:
- Day 1: Initial communication
- Day 7: Follow-up with initial email forwarded
- Day 14: Another reminder with initial email forwarded
- Day 21: Deadline notification of 5 weeks from order date
- Day 28: Deadline notification re-forwarded with reiteration of deadline
- Day 30: Reminder to customer that order will be removed by [date].
- Day 32: Cancellation steps sent
Seven separate touchpoints with various data and records tie-ins; all manual effort eliminated. Even better—the automation continuously monitored order status to determine whether status changed and communications should stop or continue: If customer action moved the order forward, reminders stopped immediately. No awkward follow-up emails, no unnecessary notifications, no confusion, and absolutely no manual labor required.
Working sessions with the client’s team carefully mapped status transitions, customer responses, timing rules, and cancellation scenarios, helping to define the necessary guardrails and exception handling required. Every potential edge case was documented and tested to keep communications accurate, precise, and timely: What happens if payment arrives on Day 6? What if the order changes status on Day 20? What if someone manually updates the order?
The automation provided answers within seconds of the customers creating the scenario.
The Results
Upon deployment of the automations, hours of administrative follow-up disappeared, meaning customer service representatives no longer needed spreadsheets, reminders, sticky notes, or calendar alerts to manage aging pro forma orders.
The process simply happened with internal visibility improving.
And the best part was that the client’s very smart and very capable employees could focus on solving problems that required very smart, very capable people rather than tracking customer reminders.
It's easy to think automation is about replacing work. But in reality, the best automations replace human error, allowing for more a team to focus on more rewarding work.
Your customers deserve it, and your team does, too.
Thank you for reading Case Study #3: Pro Forma Reminder Automation
Continue Reading the NetSuite Communication Automation Series:
Tagged with Spotlight