New Cut-off time alert during checkout is confusing

[zder]

Folks,

The new cut-off time alert during the check-out process is confusing to customers, "You are past the cut-off time for today. Your order will be available: <Day:Time>" It started showing up today on our Order Online page as soon as a customer added an item to their cart.

This new alert message,

• Appears to notify the customer that they have done something wrong, adding doubt to what should be a smooth ordering process.
• Assumes customers know what "cut-off time" means.
• Assumes customers always want to place a same-day order.
• Appears even when a customer has explicitly chosen the next available time-slot for their order.

A potential solution would be to change the alert text to read,

”You are past the cut-off time for today. Your order will be available as soon as: <Day:Time>. To schedule a later pickup date, click clock symbol.”

Thank You.

[Anthem]

I agree some improvement might be helpful to consumers. However, I'd suggest removal is not a good solution. I have dealt with this a lot over the past year(s), talked with customers and astaff as well. Overall, we've found it to be more helpful than harmful.  That said I see some points of value in comments from @zder.

1. It is the case that the customer is attempting to do something that cannot happen. However, as suggested the approach might be cleaned up a bit. 

2. I advise against adding more copy. Doing this to define a common word is rarely progress. I'd suggest an infotip be placed on the term. User hovers mouse over "cut-off time" they receive a pop-up tip that defines it "you've selected an order time outside of sellers availability, please select a time within sellers availability" - or some better-worded version you wordsmiths out there will find. This keeps copy clean but offers more info if customer, if interested. It also lets them know they've done nothing wrong, a problem has occurred, and how to fix the issue. 

3 & 4 - Agreed, it would be an improvment if the "cut-off" dialogue were dynamic. Customer would only see the dialogue if their order was being scheduled outside of an available order window. If order was scheduled for future and within window the error would not display. 

It would be interesting to explore disallowing order times outside of the sellers' available window. Simply not accessible, maybe not even visible - grey'd out inaccessible options can be confusing as well. 

Good suggestion for improving the customer experience.