Alert when an order has been paid but unfulfilled for longer than your dispatch promise, measured in working hours rather than calendar hours. Route it to one named person who owns the queue daily. This is the quietest failure in a store because no system is broken and no person is blocked, so nothing surfaces it until a customer does.
Why this one is worth an interruption
Every other alert here fires because something happened. This one fires because nothing did, which is exactly why it is the one most stores lack.
The orders that age are rarely the difficult ones. They are the ones that were picked up by somebody who then got interrupted, or that fell between two people who each assumed the other had it.
The threshold
Measure in working hours. A Friday afternoon order is not late on Saturday morning unless you ship at weekends.
| Condition | Set it to | Why that number |
|---|---|---|
| Standard service | your stated dispatch time plus a few hours | Late against your own promise, not an arbitrary clock |
| Express service | same day, hard | The customer paid specifically for speed |
| Clock | working hours only | Otherwise every Monday morning is a false alarm |
| Second trigger | double the first | Catches anything the first alert did not resolve |
| Weekend orders | start the clock at opening | Prevents a Monday flood of non-problems |
Who should receive it
One owner, daily, or this becomes everyone's job and therefore nobody's.
- The person who owns the fulfilment queue. This is a daily attention job.
- Whoever covers them, named in advance rather than assumed.
- Customer support, on the second trigger only, so they are not surprised by an enquiry.
What to do when it fires
- Find out why it is sitting, in one sentence, before doing anything else.
- If it is a stock problem it is a backorder and belongs in that process instead.
- If it is a picking or address problem, resolve it and note the cause.
- If it has aged past the second trigger, message the customer before they message you.
When not to set this alert
Do not set this on pre-orders, made-to-order items, or anything where a long gap between payment and dispatch is the arrangement rather than a failure.
Do not set it against calendar hours if you do not ship at weekends. You will get a burst of alerts every Monday for orders that are not late, and the team will start clearing them without reading them.
Common questions
How long should an order sit before it is late?
Measure against your own stated dispatch promise plus a small buffer, in working hours. An arbitrary 24-hour rule generates false alarms if you do not ship at weekends.
Why do orders get stuck without anyone noticing?
Because nothing is broken. They are usually orders someone started and was interrupted on, or that fell between two people who each assumed the other had it. No system reports a non-event.
Who should own this alert?
One named person with a daily slot, plus a named cover. Sending it to a team means each member reasonably assumes another has it.