Issue #200 Loop WP

Hi, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

Welcome to Issue #200 of Loop WP!

Last week was about something big coming on April 9th, WordPress 7.0! The foundations for the future of WooCommerce and AI will be laid.

This week is a little bit of self-indulgence as I look back on 200 issues and 4+ years of Loop WP and I reveal my most popular newsletter of all time.

Let’s go! 👇

That's the AI paradox hiding in your CX stack. Tickets close. Customers leave. And most teams don't see it coming because they're measuring the wrong things.

Efficiency metrics look great on paper. Handle time down. Containment rate up. But customer loyalty? That's a different story — and it's one your current dashboards probably aren't telling you.

Gladly's 2026 Customer Expectations Report surveyed thousands of real consumers to find out exactly where AI-powered service breaks trust, and what separates the platforms that drive retention from the ones that quietly erode it.

If you're architecting the CX stack, this is the data you need to build it right. Not just fast. Not just cheap. Built to last.

See the data

🎉 I never thought I would make it to Issue 200, but here we are!

As well as feeling like an imposter, failure and other negative feelings, this newsletter has brought me so much goodness:

On June 21st, 2023, we reached the 100th issue milestone.

Not only did Loop WP look very different then (I was using Mailchimp), but:

** “Loop WP” is actually the third different name for this newsletter. The first change was back in Issue 27, due to potential trademark infringement.

💡 Loop WP is a weekly newsletter, so if you do the math, things don’t quite add up. If, like me, you aren’t great at math, that’s 145 weeks between issues 100 and 200; it should only be about 104 weeks (give or take).

💔 For a while, I had found the WordPress community a struggle and writing the newsletter very hard; I had completely fallen out of love with writing it and took a hiatus.

😮‍💨 When the new newsletter finally returned after an almost 6-month hiatus (give or take a few random issues), it would be with a four-part mini-series on WooCommerce and AI.

🔮 In retrospect, it was a sign of things to come and something that should have happened much quicker than Issue 175.

To mention Issue 175 a third time (seriously, go and read it, LOL), I discussed the difficulty of running a newsletter about WooCommerce or WordPress (even if you love doing it).

💡 I make practically nothing from Ads.

Sponsorships have been a big help (thank you so much to all my sponsors); however, they still don’t cover the time/costs of this newsletter and the six-month target I set myself to change this has just passed.

🧠 I have some different thoughts now on how to change things up, and more will be revealed in the coming weeks, when we will also be looking at Miles and the new release of Ollie Pro’s WooCommerce elements, so stay tuned!

🚨 Since I rebranded the Loop WP newsletter and moved it to Beehiiv, engagement and subscribers have dwarfed its time on Mailchimp, and I can now reveal my best-performing newsletter ever.👇

Some of the stats for this, especially CTR, are wild!

So if you haven’t read Issue 179 or need a refresher, give it a read now.

That’s it for this week, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

This week's excellent and insightful WordPress News & Tips:

If you have a question about this email or WordPress, please reply, and I will respond as soon as possible.

👋 Until next time,