Earlier this week, my wife and I each tried to check the status of the same online order. In her case, the website said the order was in process, but didn’t provide any more details. But when I tried it about 30 seconds later, the tracking system showed there was an issue with one of the items and they had to manufacture and ship a new one.

How did we get different results for the same order on the same website at the same time? She was logged into the site, while I wasn’t. It turns out that the retailer provides different information in each case, and surprisingly, the logged-in view actually contains fewer details about the order.

Letting people track their orders online is a great thing, and I can certainly understand why a retailer would want to provide more details to logged-in customers. However, it’s important to make sure that all the order status tools provide consistent information, regardless of whether a customer is signed in to their account, talking to your call center, etc.

If your policies require you to limit the info you provide in a certain channel, just say so — and tell people how they can obtain more details (e.g. by logging in with the account they used to place the order). Otherwise, customers will get different order status results depending on which channel they choose, and they’ll lose confidence in your buying process as a whole.