The 3-Step Post-Order Email Chain

The automatic customer emails that fire 0, 3, and 7 days after an order is marked completed — what they do, how to customise, and how to turn off.

What It Does

Following up after a delivery is the highest-leverage retention action — but you don't have time to do it manually for every order. BakeOnyx automates three touches that branch intelligently on the customer's response.

Trigger: a post-order chain starts the moment you mark an order as "Completed". Three scheduled emails then run at day 0, day 3, and day 7.

The Three Steps

Day 0 — Thank-You Email

Fires the moment you mark the order completed. A short note thanking the customer with a summary of what they ordered and the total.

Why it matters: a personal thank-you within a day of pickup is rare in retail and memorable in small-business contexts.

Day 3 — Review Request

Three days after completion, a one-click 1–5 star rating email. The customer clicks a star, lands on a public review page, and optionally adds a written comment.

Reviews are stored against the order so you can see ratings and comments in your analytics.

Day 7 — Follow-up (branches on rating)

Four days after the review request, we look at what the customer did and choose one of four paths:

  • 5-star AND you've set a Google Place ID → an email inviting them to leave a Google review. Your reputation compounds.
  • 3 stars or below → an email to you (not the customer) with their name, rating, and any comment. Reach out personally and try to save the relationship.
  • 4 stars → no email. We don't nag.
  • No rating submitted → no email. We don't nag.

Per-Step Controls

Each of the four potential emails (thank-you, review request, 5-star Google invite, low-rating alert) has its own switch. Turn any one off without losing the others. Each has a Preview button that sends you a rendered sample first.

Customising the Content

Go to Settings → Email Templates and look for templates of these types:

  • post_order_thank_you
  • post_order_review_request
  • post_order_five_star_invite

If you add a custom template, BakeOnyx uses it instead of the default. Available merge fields: {{customerName}}, {{bakeryName}}, {{orderNumber}}, {{total}}, {{currencySymbol}}, {{itemsList}}, {{reviewUrl}}, {{stars}}, {{googleReviewUrl}}, {{unsubscribeUrl}}.

Customer Opt-Out

Every email includes a signed Unsubscribe link. Clicking it flips the customer's growth email preference off — they'll still receive order confirmations and invoices. You can also set this manually on the customer's detail page.

Per-Order Skip

On any order's detail page there's a "Skip post-order emails" switch. Flipping it on cancels the chain for just that one order — useful for gift orders, staff orders, or orders where you've already followed up in person.

How to roll this out: turn on the thank-you only for a week. Once you're comfortable with the tone, add the review request. Only enable the 5-star Google invite after you've set your Google Place ID (see next section).

Google Place ID

For the 5-star follow-up to fire, you need your Google Place ID. Find it at Google's Place ID finder and paste into the Growth Emails settings page. Without it, the 5-star follow-up is skipped.

Resolution Order When a Step Fires

  1. Master "Post-order emails" toggle off → whole chain silent
  2. Order has "Skip post-order emails" on → entire chain cancelled for this order
  3. Customer has opted out (growth email or all-email opt-out) → cancelled for this customer
  4. Per-step toggle off → this specific step silently no-ops; chain continues to the next step
  5. Custom email template exists → use it; otherwise built-in default

What's Deferred

A Day 14 AI product recommendation email is planned (Growth+ tier) but needs the AI recommendation engine (Spec 041) to be ready. We've left space for it in the chain but it's not currently firing.

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