Are you looking to send custom WooCommerce failed order emails to your customers? 

Sometimes, users can place an order perfectly, but it may fail due to many issues. 

Such failed orders are more than just a minor inconvenience. Not only do they mess with your sales, but they also give your customers a not-so-happy experience.

However, a failed order email can help you repair the dent in customer experience and convince users to reorder and thus help you gain revenue as well. 

In this blog post, we will share what a failed order is, what caused such an issue, and how you can send a custom WooCommerce failed order email to customers without any coding knowledge.

What is a Failed Order in WooCommerce and How to Know Why It Failed?

In WooCommerce, a "Failed Order" refers to a situation where a customer initiates the process of making a purchase on an online store, but for some reason, the transaction doesn't go through successfully. 

This means that despite the customer's intention to buy a product or service, the checkout process encounters an issue like "payment failed" that prevents the order from being completed and thus results in a failed order.

When you go to WooCommerce ⇒ Orders, you can find such orders with the status “Failed”.

Now, if you open the order, under the order note, you can find the reason for the failed order. 

In this case, WooCommerce provided that the reason why the payment failed was that the user’s card was declined. A quick fix for this WooCommerce payment failed issue here is to use another card for the payment.

What are the Common Causes of WooCommerce Failed Orders?

Some of the common reasons for failed orders in WooCommerce:

• Card declined: This occurs when the customer's payment card is not accepted by their bank or payment processor. It could be due to reasons like insufficient funds, an expired card, or exceeding the card's spending limit.
  
• Authentication issue: When the website cannot establish a connection with the payment gateway, authentication fails. This can also result from an expired API key, which is a security credential used to connect your WooCommerce store with the payment gateway. Renewing or updating the API key is necessary in such cases.
  
• Duplicate transaction: If a customer accidentally submits multiple transactions with the same card information, it can lead to order failures or multiple charges. Payment gateways often have safeguards against duplicate transactions, but it's important to ensure your system handles these scenarios gracefully as well.
  
• Website issues: Problems within the WordPress website hosting the WooCommerce store can cause transactions to fail. Outdated software, server issues, or conflicts between plugins can disrupt the transaction process. Regular updates and maintenance can help prevent such issues.

You can solve these common causes by taking the necessary steps. For example, in case of payment failed issues, try making it easier for users to update their payment details if their credit card has expired or been canceled.

To ensure there is no server issue or plugin conflict, maintain your website and update the plugin regularly. You can regularly test the checkout process to ensure it runs smoothly. 

Does WooCommerce Send Default Failed Order Email?

Yes, WooCommerce sends two emails for every failed order:

• Failed order - for the chosen recipient

This email is sent to the previously chosen recipient to notify them about a failed order. 

The default emails include order details of the failed order and links to troubleshooting failed payments in WooCommerce.  

• Failed order - for the customers 

 This email is sent to the customers whose orders got canceled. It informs customers about the failed order and shares the order details.

🔔Note: Earlier, WooCommerce only used to send one email to customers for failed orders that are to customers. 

Move to the next section to find out how to customize default failed order emails. 

How to Manage the Default WooCommerce Failed Order Emails to Customers? 

In this section, we will share how to customize and manage both the failed order emails in WooCommerce using the default settings. 

Step 1: Navigate WooCommerce default emails 

Firstly, navigate to WooCommerce ⇒ Settings ⇒ Emails. Here, you will find the failed order in the list of transactional emails.

Step 2: Enable WooCommerce failed order email to customers 

For this, hit the ‘Manage’ option next to the email notification. 

Now, you need to turn on the “Enable this email notification” option to ensure users receive the email when their order fails. 

Step 3: Customize email content 

In this section, you can also customize other sections such as subject, email heading, additional content, etc.

Make sure to save the changes. 

That’s how you can manage and customize failed order emails with WooCommerce default settings. 

However, as you can see the emails are bland and the customization options are limited. 

Move to the next section to find out why you should opt for custom failed order emails. 

Why You Should Use Custom WooCommerce Failed Order Emails?

If you see, the failed order email for customers is very basic; it doesn’t provide the user with the proper reason for the failure nor instruct the user what to do next or present the brand. In short, this is not optimized to ensure a good user experience.

Here are the flaws in the default failed order emails for

• Lack of clarity: It doesn’t tell what exactly went wrong with the payment method, so customers are left uncertain about what went wrong.
• No guidance: The email doesn't offer clear instructions on the next steps. It doesn’t instruct customers how to resolve the issue or proceed with their order.
• Missed branding opportunity: The standard email doesn’t reflect your brand’s voice or identity, which means you miss an opportunity to build trust and consistency with your customers.
• Generic and disengaging: The default email feels impersonal and unappealing, making it less likely that customers will feel encouraged to take action or reattempt their purchase.

Now, if you want to customize this email, you need to know how to code it and be a pro at it; otherwise, it can make things worse. 

So, what’s the solution?

Well, in the next section, we will share how you can send customized WooCommerce failed order emails to customers without any coding. 

🔔Note: Sometimes, you may experience the issue of WooCommerce not sending order emails, even with the crucial payment failed notifications.

WooCommerce may fail to send order emails because your hosting server is not correctly configured to use PHP mail. You can also solve this issue with an SMTP plugin. 

To learn more, read our blog on how you can fix the “WooCommerce Not Sending Emails” issue. 

How to Send a Custom WooCommerce Failed Order Email to a Customer From the WordPress Dashboard?

To send customized WooCommerce failed order emails to the customer, we will use FunnelKit Automations.

This is the ultimate email marketing solution for users that allows you to send customized and personalized transactional emails. 

Plus, send different marketing emails based on the different events of a WooCommerce store. Like  WooCommerce follow-up emails, post purchase emails easily.

Let’s install and activate FunnelKit Automations before we move on to the main process. 

Step 1: Turn off the default failed order email notification

After installing and activating the plugin, you need to turn off the default settings. Otherwise, users will receive two emails, leaving them confused and resulting in a bad user experience. 

To turn it off, from the WordPress dashboard, go to WooCommerce ⇒ Settings ⇒ Emails and click on the “Manage” option for Failed Orders. And uncheck the ‘Email this email notification’ option. 

Step 2: Navigate to the transactional emails section

Navigate to FunnelKit Automations ⇒ Transactional Emails and look for the failed order email for customers. 

Step 3: Edit the custom failed order email 

Now, hit the Edit line to start customizing the failed order email for WooCommerce. 

Here, you can set other receipts along with customers, from name, from email, and reply to email. 

Step 4: Add a custom subject line and preview the text 

Next, provide the subject and preview text. It’s always a good idea to personalize the failure of an order. 

So, instead of saying, “Hey! Your order failed,” you can address the customer by name and add the order ID in the email subject line. 

FunnelKit Automation offers different merge tags to add dynamic information to your email content. You can access the merge tags by clicking on the “{{..}}” sign. 

For example, here we are using “{{contact_first_name}}” to address the customer by name and “{{order_id}}” to print the order ID that failed.

Like the subject line, add a proper preview text. 

Step 5: Customize failed order email content 

Next, you need to customize the body of the email.  For this, hit the edit option.

Now, you can customize the email template according to your preference. 

For instance, change the logo and heading to match the email content of the failed order.  

You can use the following merge tags to display dynamic information:

• {{contact_first_name}}: Display customer first name 
• {{order_id}}: Display the customer ID
• {{order_date}}: Displays the date on which the order was placed.

This template already has an Order summary block that you can use to show or hide the Order Date, Order ID, Payment, Product Images, and Quantity.

Step 6: Customize the  CTA to complete the failed order

It is important to offer users an option to easily return to the WooCommerce store and complete the failed order.

This template has a pay now button, which uses the merge tag {{order_payment_url}} to send users to the order page where they can complete the transaction. 

You can change the CTA text and style as well. 

After making the changes, make sure to hit ‘Save’ to update. 

Step 7: Audit email to ensure quality checks

Next, you can preview how the email will look like and, more importantly, audit the email to find it user-friendly and comply with all the laws and regulations.

For this, hit the “Preview and Test” button on top. Then, hit the “Start Now” button under Audit Email.

This will show you any missing URLs, broken URLs, and email size. 

If there is any issue fix it. 

Step 8: Activate the WooCommerce failed order email 

The last step is to activate the failed order email. For this, turn on the toggle button.

And that’s it. Your automation to send custom WooCommerce failed order email is ready!

Here is how the failed order email looks like:

Start Sending WooCommerce Failed Order Email to Customer Today!

Failed orders are an unavoidable part of running an online store, but when you send a Woocommerce failed order email to the customer, you can turn it into sales.

With FunnelKit Automations, you can send personalized emails to users, which boosts your chances of getting those sales. Not just failed order emails; you can also send custom canceled orders emails, refunded order emails, and so on. 

Not just failed order emails, you can send any follow-up emails and recover abandoned carts by sending abandoned cart emails to users using this WooCommerce plugin for failed order emails.

For each campaign, you will find analytics such as active contacts, completed contacts, orders, revenue, etc., giving you a solid idea about your campaign with accurate data. 

So, don’t lose out on sales due to failed orders; send them a custom email and turn them into sales today.