BTO Stores: Multi-Level Order Progress/Status

If anyone has ever ordered from Domino's Pizza online you will have experienced the order status thermometer which updates at the different stages of your order.

I would like to be able to add admin level user defined "State/Status of Order" so customers may see their order progress on longer BTO product builds.

Basically adding a Work in Progress between order pending and shipped. I think this should only be for BTO stores.

In it's most basic for it can simply be text notifications, but further in the evolution it could have a GUI for notifications like Domino's.  It doesn't even need to be required to drive an order forward, just an optional element that could be used to curb phone calls from customers curious about their orders.

I'm not sure that I am ready to hire a developer for this, but I do think it should be suggested for future product enhancements. Not a lot has changed since product cart 2.X in regards to order processing and I truly believe this could be another feather in EI's hat for reasons to use PC.

Here is a better explanation of what I am thinking:
When a customer logs into their account the only status update they can see is pending, processed, and shipped.  We constantly have customers expecting to see more details on our site regarding their order status. They are always confused by what "Processed" means. We have to tell them "Sorry our store's not smart enough to say any more than that". I think with EI and possibly WMS PC can be smart enough.

Our products are truly a build to order service and there are multiple stages of production beyond processing the paperwork including: Artwork Phase, Artwork Proofed, Artwork Complete, In Printer Queue, Printing Complete, Mounting Queue, Mounting Complete...

The biggest trigger for customers to call us is if they think it's taking to long, and we spend on average 3-5 minutes sorting out their request for information. Delays happen often and it would be nice to have a sub status to explain the delay such as: Waiting for customer approval, Heavy Order Volume, Waiting for one or more plastic pieces and so on.

The ideal thing would be something similar to the options manager where you can add "Work In Progress Notifications" just as easily as adding options and their attributes. Then from the "View and Process Order" manager these notifications would appear available within the "Process/Update" tab.
Again, these status notifications would not be required to move an order forward, but rather become optional to display to the customer during their order experience.

Thanks for hearing me out.

Micah

At first I my thoughts were that this should only be available for BTO stores, but I am sure other non BTO stores could also benefit from this.