COD Confirmation: Script and Priority Queue

The few hours between an order landing in your dashboard and the courier picking it up are the cheapest place to catch a problem, because once that unpaid parcel is on a van heading to a far governorate, every mistake costs you the full round-trip fee. A confirmation SOP turns those hours into a deliberate filter that screens out impulse and prank orders, repairs broken addresses, and keeps your highest-intent buyers warm until delivery day.

Storix can also send that first confirmation by email automatically: turn on Require COD order confirmation in store settings and the customer gets a link to confirm, delay once, or cancel before the deadline passes — see Confirm, note and ship: your daily order routine for how that works. This lesson is the runbook for the orders that still need a person: the prioritization queue, the WhatsApp and call script, who owns each contact and by when, and what to log on every order. The strategic reasoning for why refusals happen at all lives in the playbook linked at the end.

Build your confirmation queue

You will rarely have time to phone every order, and during Ramadan or a big sale you definitely will not, so work a priority queue instead of a flat list. Confirm from the top down and let lower-risk orders ship on a lighter touch.

1. High-value COD orders first. Above roughly 800–1,000 EGP carries the biggest return loss, so confirm it live before anything else.
2. Far or low-coverage governorates. Orders heading to Upper Egypt, Marsa Matrouh, or the New Valley travel furthest and cost the most to return, so confirm the address and landmark carefully.
3. Flagged or repeat-refusal numbers. Use your store's customer-history tools to surface phones tied to past refusals and give those orders extra scrutiny.
4. Bulk quantities and first-time buyers. A first order from an unknown customer, or five units of one SKU, deserves a human check before it moves.
5. Prepaid and small returning-customer orders. These are your safest band; a short WhatsApp (wa.me) or email usually suffices. Automated confirmation calls (IVR) are not available yet.

The confirmation script

Lead with WhatsApp, because most Egyptian buyers answer a message faster than an unknown call. Keep it short, friendly, and in the customer's language.

Hello [Name], this is [Store] confirming your order: [items], total [amount] EGP, cash on delivery to [area, governorate]. Delivery is expected within [X] days. Reply 1 to confirm, or tell us if anything needs to change. To skip the wait, you can pay now by InstaPay or wallet and we ship today.

If there's no reply in your window, call. Confirm in order: name, items and total in EGP, full address plus a nearby landmark, and the delivery window. Then offer the prepay nudge — a small InstaPay deposit or full prepayment converts committed buyers and removes the return risk. Stay calm; the goal is a clear yes, a corrected detail, or an honest cancellation.

Who contacts, and when

• Owner. Assign confirmations to one named person per shift so nothing falls through; on small teams the merchant does it personally.
• SLA. Reach every priority order before the daily courier cutoff, ideally within two to four working hours of placement.
• Channel order and attempts. WhatsApp first, then a call, then a second call later the same day. After two unanswered calls and an unread message, stop chasing and mark it on hold.

What to log on every order

Logging is what makes this an SOP, not a habit: record a disposition on each order before it leaves the queue so the next person sees its state at a glance.

• Confirmed — buyer said yes; release for dispatch.
• Address fixed — detail corrected; note what changed, then confirm and release.
• No answer — message and calls went unanswered; hold, do not dispatch on COD.
• Cancelled — buyer declined; close the order and tag the reason.

Use order tags to review confirmation outcomes later by governorate, courier, and product, and tighten the queue where refusals concentrate. A held order is never silently shipped — it gets confirmed or cancelled.

Related lessons

• Why cash-on-delivery returns happen and how to design them out — the strategy behind this script.
• Returns and refunds SOP — what to do when a parcel comes back anyway.
• Handling shipping delays and failed deliveries — the runbook for the order that never reaches the door.