Automated Course Confirmation & Communication System
Client: Art Master Class (USA, Australia, Canada - all branches)
Project Goal: To streamline and automate customer communication for Art Master Class's Shopify-based course bookings, including order confirmations, venue details, reminders, and updates, while ensuring brand consistency.
The Challenge: Art Master Class, operating across multiple international branches, faced a significant challenge in managing customer communications for their various course venues. Key requirements included:
- Automated Confirmations: Sending immediate order confirmations from Shopify that include a map image of the venue location, linked to order details.
- Targeted Reminders: Sending a reminder email one week prior to the course date.
- Post-Course Follow-up: Sending a review request email after the course is completed and fulfilled.
- Dynamic Updates: Notifying customers about changes to course details (e.g., time, venue, cancellation).
- Brand Consistency: All communications needed to reflect the company's brand identity.
Our Solution: We developed a robust, automated communication system leveraging a combination of no-code platforms and APIs to create a seamless customer experience.
Key Technologies & Components:
- make.com: The central automation platform orchestrating all workflows and data flow.
- Shopify Integration: To capture order data and trigger initial communications.
- Google Sheets: Served as the dynamic database to track each order's status, course details, and customer information.
- Google Static Image API: Dynamically generated map images for each unique venue location based on address data.
- Cloudinary: Hosted the generated map images for efficient delivery within emails.
- OpenAI GPT API (via make.com): Used for intelligent processing or dynamic content generation where applicable (e.g., drafting personalized messages based on order details, or refining email copy).
- Custom HTML Email Templates: Designed to match Art Master Class's brand identity, featuring dynamic variables populated by make.com.
How it Works (System Flow):
- Order Placement: A customer places an order on Shopify for a course.
- Initial Confirmation:
- make.com detects the new order.
- Order details are recorded in Google Sheets.
- The Google Static Image API generates a map image for the specific venue location, which is then hosted on Cloudinary.
- A branded HTML email is sent, containing the order details, the map image (linked to order details), and other relevant course information.
- Database Management: Each order in Google Sheets is assigned a 'stage' (e.g., "unfulfilled," "confirmation sent," "reminder sent," "fulfilled"). This stage is updated daily by scheduled workflows.
- Scheduled Reminders:
- A workflow monitors Google Sheets for orders with upcoming course dates.
- One week before the course, a reminder email is automatically sent.
- Post-Course Review Request:
- Once an order's stage changes to "fulfilled" (indicating the course has taken place), a final email is triggered, requesting a customer review.
- Email communications for that specific order then cease.
- Dynamic Updates (Future Enhancements/Potential): The system's architecture allows for future expansion to automatically send notifications if course details (time, venue, cancellation) are updated in the central database, triggering targeted emails to affected customers.
Project Impact & Benefits:
- Enhanced Customer Experience: Customers receive timely, relevant, and branded communications, reducing confusion and improving satisfaction.
- Operational Efficiency: Significant reduction in manual effort required for sending confirmations, reminders, and updates.
- Reduced No-Shows: Timely reminders help ensure customers attend their booked courses.
- Consistent Branding: All communications adhere to the company's visual and textual identity.
- Scalability: The system is designed to handle a large volume of orders across multiple branches and future growth.