Operating an eCommerce store can be a complex task, requiring the use of various tools and systems. While platforms like WooCommerce have made it easier to build and run an online store, effectively managing your operations still requires the integration of multiple apps. However, you can streamline and automate many of these processes by utilizing Zapier. By connecting WooCommerce to your email, CRM, spreadsheets, and other platforms through automated workflows called Zaps, you can keep your orders organized, ensure customer data remains up-to-date, and keep your team informed. In this article, we will explore six different ways you can automate WooCommerce with Zapier to scale your eCommerce business effectively.
Back up order and customer info in a spreadsheet
Spreadsheets can be a versatile way to track and use your WooCommerce order information. If not everyone has access to your eCommerce platform, for example, it’s easy to share a spreadsheet containing the key info needed for everyone to do their jobs.
Spreadsheets also give you more options to filter and sort data. And they can also serve as a backup archive of your important customer data.
To back up order and customer info in a spreadsheet, you can utilize Zapier’s automation workflows. With these workflows, you can capture all the order details you need in a format that works for you. For example, when a new order is placed in WooCommerce, you can automatically create a new row in a Google Sheet or Excel spreadsheet with the order information. This ensures that all the details are captured in a centralized location that can be easily accessed and shared.
By backing up your order and customer info in a spreadsheet, you can have a reliable backup of your important data and make it accessible to everyone in your team. This can help streamline your operations and ensure that everyone has the necessary information to perform their tasks effectively.
Add customers to a mailing list
Email outreach can increase the likelihood of repeat customers, so automatically integrating your eCommerce platform with your email marketing tool is a no-brainer.
When a new order is placed in WooCommerce, you can use automation to create a new contact or update an existing one in your email marketing platform of choice. Letting automation handle transferring customer data means their info gets into your system faster and more reliably while saving you the hassle of copying and pasting.
To add customers to a mailing list, you can use Zapier to create seamless integrations between WooCommerce and your email marketing platform. By setting up a workflow, you can automatically add new customers to your mailing list whenever a new order is placed. This ensures that your customer data is always up-to-date and that you can easily communicate with your customers through email.
Automating the process of adding customers to your mailing list not only saves you time and effort but also helps you maintain a consistent and effective email marketing strategy. By having all your customer information in one place, you can easily segment your mailing list, create personalized email campaigns, and increase your chances of customer retention and repeat purchases.
Keep track of leads
You can much more successfully track and target leads if you have all your customer information in one place. But while WooCommerce is a great place to store customer purchase information, an eCommerce platform isn’t a great lead-tracking app.
To effectively keep track of leads, you can set up a workflow to bring all the valuable customer data you gather in WooCommerce—like contact info and purchase details—directly into your lead-tracking tool. By integrating WooCommerce with your lead-tracking app using Zapier, you can ensure that all your customer information is centralized and easily accessible.
With this automation, every time a new order is placed in WooCommerce, the relevant customer data is automatically transferred to your lead-tracking app. This allows you to have a holistic view of your leads and customers, track their interactions with your online store, and make informed decisions to nurture and convert leads.
By centralizing customer information and streamlining the lead-tracking process, you can effectively manage your leads and optimize your sales funnel.
Send custom emails and notifications
A new order triggers a whole lot of important communications and tasks. Automation is the easiest way to ensure that communication happens.
To ensure that important emails and notifications are sent to your team when a new order comes through, you can set up automations using Zapier. For example, you can create a workflow that automatically sends an email or Slack message to your team members whenever a new order is placed.
By automating this process, you can ensure that your team members are promptly notified about new orders and can take the necessary actions. This can include tasks such as order fulfillment, customer support, or any other action required to process the order.
Automation eliminates the need for manual notifications, reduces the chances of human error, and ensures that important communications and tasks are triggered when needed. It helps you streamline your operations and improve efficiency, ultimately providing a better experience for your customers.
Create follow-up tasks or to-dos
While a lot of your online store easily runs itself when you’re using WooCommerce, you do need a human to step in at certain critical points, such as when a new order needs fulfillment. Automation helps your team step in more seamlessly when needed by adding important tasks to the tool they’re using to organize their work.
To create follow-up tasks or to-dos for your team members, you can leverage automation workflows. For example, you can set up a workflow that adds a task to your project management tool or task management app whenever a new order is placed.
By automating this process, you can ensure that your team members have all the necessary information and instructions to fulfill an order. This eliminates the need for manual task assignments or reminders, streamlines your eCommerce operations, and helps everyone involved track order progress.
By centralizing task information in one app, you can improve collaboration and communication within your team. It also allows you to easily track the progress of each order and ensure that everything is completed on time. Automation helps you stay organized and enhances your overall order management process.
Use webhooks with WooCommerce
Once you’ve gotten comfortable automating your eCommerce store, you may start discovering new opportunities for automation to make your life easier. If you want to connect WooCommerce to an app that doesn’t yet have a Zapier integration or customize your workflow a bit more, webhooks might be a good next step.
Webhooks are a way for apps to communicate with each other in real-time. With WooCommerce, you can use webhooks to send data or trigger actions in other apps when specific events occur in your online store. This opens up a whole realm of possibilities for automation and customization.
For example, you can use webhooks to send order data to a custom-built app or to trigger specific actions in your CRM or project management tool. You can create more complex workflows that go beyond the capabilities of standard integrations.
By utilizing webhooks with WooCommerce, you have the flexibility to tailor your automation to your specific needs and integrate with apps that don’t have a direct Zapier integration. This allows you to create a more seamless and customized workflow that optimizes your eCommerce operations.
Create a better customer experience with automation
The more you can get your eCommerce operations running like a well-oiled machine, the more seamless your customer experience will be. With less time spent wrangling orders and copying data from WooCommerce to your other apps, you have more time to focus on what really matters—providing a top-notch online shopping experience for each and every customer.
By automating key processes in your eCommerce store using Zapier and WooCommerce, you can create a better customer experience. The automation workflows mentioned earlier help you streamline your operations, improve efficiency, and enhance communication within your team.
A seamless customer experience is essential for building customer loyalty and driving repeat purchases. By automating tasks like sending custom emails, adding customers to mailing lists, and tracking leads, you can personalize your interactions with customers, nurture relationships, and provide timely and relevant communication.
Automation also enables you to easily track and manage order progress, ensuring that customers receive their orders on time. By automating follow-up tasks or to-dos, you can provide a smooth fulfillment process and handle any customer inquiries or issues promptly.
In conclusion, automation is a powerful tool for optimizing your online shopping experience. By harnessing the capabilities of Zapier and WooCommerce, you can streamline your operations, centralize customer information, and provide a seamless and personalized experience for your customers.
Related reading:
- How to automate your eCommerce business
- How eCommerce businesses can automate the last mile
- Popular ways to automate Shopify
This article was originally published in September 2020, written by Krystina Martinez. It was most recently updated in October 2023 by Wren Noble.