Automation · Collections and receivables
Recover the WooCommerce orders that were left unpaid
How an AI agent finds the orders pending payment in WooCommerce, writes over WhatsApp with an approved template and resends a payment link that works.
How do I recover the orders in my store that were left pending payment?
A scheduled task lists the WooCommerce orders in pending or on hold status that are more than a few hours old, locates each buyer and writes to them over WhatsApp with an approved template, offering help and resending a fresh payment link. When the payment lands, it verifies the real status against the gateway and updates the order with its note. It is worth being precise about the scope: an abandoned cart that never became an order does not show up anywhere, because the WooCommerce API exposes orders, not carts.
What starts it
At a set time
A task on a recurring trigger that runs once or twice a day over the pending orders. It is scheduled that way because the orders live in WooCommerce: there is no Meteor event to announce them, you have to go and look at the store.
A task on a recurring (cron) or date and time trigger. It runs on its own, with nobody logged in.
Who runs it
Met for sales recovery
Sales team
It has no seeded name in the product. It is an operations Met with the store, the CRM and the gateway turned on: it needs all three to close the loop, and that combination is exactly the one nobody does by hand every day.
Channels: WhatsApp · Email
What you need connected
- WooCommerce E-commerce and marketplaces
- Mercado Pago Payments
- Meteor CRM CRM and sales
6 steps · 12 tools
The procedure, step by step
Each step shows the tool that runs. They belong to the real connector: if one of them stopped existing, this page would not build.
- 1
List what was left unpaid
The order listing filters by status and by date range. The statuses that matter are pending and on hold: they are real orders, with products chosen and buyer details, that never got paid. The detail of each one brings the line items, the totals and the address, which is what allows a concrete message instead of a generic "can I help you with anything?".
- 2
Find the person behind the order
The store customer record brings email, phone and purchase history. With that, the contact is located in the CRM: if they have talked over WhatsApp before, the recovery happens in a thread that already exists rather than as a cold message. A buyer with no phone falls out of the WhatsApp route and goes by email instead; they do not disappear in silence.
- 3
Write with an approved template, not free text
If the last conversation is more than 24 hours old, Meta only allows approved templates. The CRM reminder schedules exactly that, with the order number and the total inside the text, and leaves the internal note of what was being recovered and when. One message only: pushing three times over an unpaid order turns a pending sale into a blocked number.
- 4
Resend a payment link that works
Many orders stay pending because of a problem with the payment method, not because of second thoughts. A fresh link with the exact amount removes that friction, and it arrives on the same channel where the person is reading. When the customer replies, the 24 hour window opens and the Met can talk with no format restrictions.
- 5
Close the order when the money lands
The payment status is stated by the gateway, not by a screenshot. Once the payment is verified, the order moves to processing and the note with the payment reference stays on it. Moving an order to paid without verifying is the fastest way to ship something nobody paid for.
- 6
Measure how much is really recovered
Tagging the contacts who did pay after the reminder, and cross-checking the payments for the period, is what turns this automation into a decision instead of a habit. If three out of a hundred pending orders come back, there is a problem in the gateway or in the checkout, and that does not get fixed by sending more messages.
Before you start
What you need ready
The Met solves none of these for you. If one is missing, the automation stops there.
-
WooCommerce REST API keys with write permission
In WooCommerce, under Settings, Advanced, REST API. Without write access you can read the pending orders but cannot leave notes or update their status when the payment lands.
-
Credentials for a payment gateway
The automation is written on Mercado Pago, with its production credentials. With another gateway the shape is the same, but the connector on the link step changes.
-
A WhatsApp template approved by Meta
You register it from the WhatsApp Business manager. It is mandatory: a pending order is almost always more than 24 hours old, and outside that window no other kind of message is possible.
The limits
What this automation does NOT solve
Better said here than discovered halfway through the rollout.
-
It does not recover abandoned carts. A cart that never became an order does not exist for the WooCommerce API, and none of these tools can see it.
-
It does not fix the checkout. If orders stay pending because of a problem with the payment method, this automation makes it visible but does not correct it.
-
It does not cancel old orders on its own. Deciding after how many days a pending order gets cancelled is a business policy, not a default setting.
-
It does not write first in free text. Every first contact outside the 24 hour window goes out with the exact shape Meta approved.
FAQ
Questions about this automation
Not with these tools. The WooCommerce REST API exposes orders, and an abandoned cart is precisely the one that never became an order. Seeing them would take a store plugin that records carts and exposes them, and that piece is not part of the integration today.
Two to six hours is the usual range: long enough for somebody mid-payment to finish, short enough that the purchase is still fresh. The window is set on the task, it is not fixed.
The shape, yes. Shopify has its own order and draft order tools with a payment link, so it would be the same automation with a different connector, not the same page.
The Met verifies the payment before pushing, and if the customer says they paid by transfer, the case goes to a person. Charging twice costs far more than leaving one order unrecovered.
Keep going
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Want this automation running on your own data?
We will show it to you with your accounts connected, not with a canned demo.