Call a COD customer within a few minutes of the order, inside a daytime window, and retry twice with growing gaps if they don't pick up. That gets an answer while the order is fresh, leaves room for retries before the courier pickup, and doesn't wake anyone up. This post explains each of those choices and how to set them for your store.
See the full sequence: how COD confirmation calls work shows the default delay, calling hours, retries and outcomes, all adjustable.
The timing problem in one line
You need an answer before the parcel is handed to the courier, and you need to ask at a time the customer is willing to pick up. Everything below is about fitting retries between those two limits.
1. How soon after the order
Short delay, not zero. A delay of a couple of minutes does two useful things: it gives the customer a moment to finish checkout and look at their phone, and it lets quick cancellations (placed by mistake, ordered twice) arrive before you dial.
Minutes, not hours. The longer you wait, the less the customer remembers the order, and the less room you have for retries before pickup. A call that comes the next afternoon about an order the customer placed on impulse is easy to ignore.
Check before dialling. Between the order and the call, the customer may cancel on the website or your team may confirm it manually. Check the order's status just before the call, and skip it if it is no longer open. Nothing irritates a customer more than being asked to confirm an order they have already cancelled.
2. Which hours to call
Use a daytime window in IST. A common default is 9 am to 9 pm. Outside that window, the call waits for the window to open.
Night orders get called in the morning. Plenty of D2C orders are placed late in the evening while people scroll. Those orders should be called when the window opens, not at midnight. A customer woken at 11:30 pm is more likely to cancel out of irritation than to confirm.
Consider your buyers. If most of your buyers are office workers, they may answer more readily at lunch and in the evening. If you sell to homemakers or students, mid-morning may work better. Start with the default window and look at when answered calls cluster before narrowing it.
Regulations and consent. Calling hours aren't only a courtesy. Read DND, TRAI and calling hours for order confirmation calls before you set a window outside normal daytime hours.
3. How many retries, and how far apart
People miss calls for ordinary reasons: driving, in a meeting, phone in another room. One attempt isn't enough. Too many attempts feels like harassment.
Three attempts is a good default: the first call plus two retries.
Space them out, with growing gaps. A retry 30 minutes later catches people who were briefly busy. A retry a couple of hours after that catches people who were out. Calling again after five minutes mostly reaches the same busy person.
Retry only on the right results. Retry when the call wasn't answered, was busy, or failed. Don't retry a customer who answered and pressed nothing; they heard the question. Tag the order instead.
Retries stay inside the window. If a retry would fall after the window closes, move it to the next morning, as long as that's still before your give-up time.
Give up at a fixed point. After a set time (for example 48 hours), close the order as expired and apply your rule for unreachable orders. Leaving orders in limbo is worse than deciding.
4. Fitting it before your pickup cut-off
Work backwards from the courier pickup.
Worked example (illustrative)
Assume a daily pickup at 4 pm, a calling window of 9 am to 9 pm, a 2-minute delay, and retries 30 minutes and then 2 hours apart.
| Order placed | First call | Retry 1 | Retry 2 | Answer before 4 pm pickup? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10:00 am | 10:02 am | 10:32 am | 12:32 pm | Yes, all three attempts |
| 1:30 pm | 1:32 pm | 2:02 pm | 4:02 pm | Two attempts before pickup |
| 11:30 pm (night) | 9:00 am next day | 9:30 am | 11:30 am | Yes, next day's pickup |
The pattern: morning and early-afternoon orders get all their attempts before the same day's pickup. Late-afternoon orders roll into the next day's pickup. Night orders are confirmed the next morning, which is usually still in time.
If you ship twice a day, or your warehouse packs only confirmed orders, the same table tells you which orders will be ready for which pickup.
Sale days, festivals and Sundays
Your usual rules may need a tweak on unusual days:
- Sale days. Order volume spikes, and so does impulse buying. Keep the short delay so quick cancellations arrive first, and make sure your calling capacity and wallet balance can keep up.
- Festivals. Many customers are travelling or with family. Answer rates may dip; a later give-up time gives retries more room.
- Sundays and holidays. If your warehouse doesn't ship, there's less urgency. Calls can still go out in the window, but there's no need to rush retries.
Whatever you change, change it for the day and switch back afterwards.
5. What to do with each result
| Result | Suggested action |
|---|---|
| Confirmed | Tag it; pack and ship |
| Cancelled | Cancel the order before packing |
| Answered, no key pressed | Tag it; review or ship by rule |
| Unreachable after all attempts | Tag it; ship low-value, hold high-value (your rule) |
| Already cancelled or confirmed before the call | No call; nothing to do |
Tags make this work in the warehouse. See order tags for COD workflows.
Edesy's defaults
COD order confirmation calls use these defaults, all adjustable:
| Setting | Default |
|---|---|
| Delay after order | 2 minutes |
| Calling hours | 9:00 am to 9:00 pm IST |
| Attempts | 3 (first call plus up to two retries) |
| Retry gaps | 30 minutes, then 2 hours |
| Retry when | No answer, busy, call failed |
| Give up after | 48 hours |
Just before each call, the order is checked again, and cancelled or already-confirmed orders aren't called. Retries always stay inside your calling hours.
Mistakes that cost answers
- Calling from an unfamiliar-sounding script. Start with your store name; see the COD confirmation call script.
- Retrying too fast. Three calls in ten minutes reach the same busy person three times.
- Calling at night to beat the pickup. Move the pickup cut-off or accept next-day dispatch instead.
- No give-up rule. Orders stuck in "waiting" slow the warehouse down.
- Ignoring the data. After two weeks, look at what time of day calls get answered and adjust.
Set your rules
Pick a window, a delay, a retry pattern and a give-up time that fit your pickup schedule. To see how those settings work together with scripts and outcomes, read how COD confirmation calls work.