Strategy 1: Automatically answer 15% of tickets directly in Chat

When shoppers have a question, email should be a last resort. Especially if they're actively shopping. The first resort should be an automated answer, in a chat on your website. 

There are three main ways in Gorgias to automate customer service requests: 

• Flows (which answer FAQs with the click of a button)
• Order Management  (which let customers track orders, request returns/cancellations, and report issues via self-service)
• Article Recommendations (which use AI to suggest relevant articles when customers ask questions)

Here’s what a fully loaded Chat on Rip Skirt’s website looks like:

Use Flows for basic FAQs

Flows upgrade your Chat with up to 6 buttons that provide automated answers to customer questions. This way, Chat can be the first line of defense and automatically answer common customer queries, like:

• What’s your shipping/return policy?
• When is your next restock?
• Do you have any promotions?
• How does [product] work?
• Is [product] vegan?
• And so on…

“Shoppers started to use Flows pretty naturally and they get answers to their questions immediately now. It is so good.”

— Capucin Schahl, Customer Care Manager at Franklin Pet Food

When a customer clicks on one of the buttons, they get an immediate answer. Then, an automated prompt asks whether the answer is relevant. If the customer says yes, the question is successfully automated. If the customer says no, they can send a message via live chat (if you have it enabled) or contact form (if you don’t). 

3 ways to identify high-impact Flows

You probably already have a good idea of common questions you’d like to automate with Flows. But to maximize the impact, here are three tactics to identify which queries you should automate. 

Study past tags, Intents, Macros, and Ticket Fields

If you’ve been using Gorgias for a while, you’ve been collecting a goldmine of data about the questions your customers ask (whether you know it or not). 

Review your Statistics from the last 90 days to understand why customers are reaching out. Here are three places to look: 

• Tags: If you’ve been tagging tickets, mine your tags to understand the volume certain questions are asked. 
• Intents: Even if you don’t tag tickets yet, Gorgias uses AI to understand the Intent of each ticket. Check your Intents to see the volume of people reaching out about common issues like returns, cancellations, and discount requests.
• Macros: Gorgias tracks your Macro usage, which you can review in Automation Statistics. If your team sends a Macro dozens of times per day, making it into a Quick Response will likely save time for your agents and customers. 
• Ticket Fields: Ticket Fields are similar to tags, but they’re more customizable and you make them mandatory for agents to close tickets. Analyze your Ticket Fields to get granular data about your brand’s contact reasons. 

Here’s an example of snack brand Chomps’ tags in Gorgias, which could give them a hint on which types of questions to automate. 

If you’re just getting started with ticket analysis, learn how Chomps gets insights from tickets. 

Survey customer service agents

Ideally, your customer service agents use tags to track customer inquiries. But even so, their first-hand experience answering customer questions can help you find good candidates for automation. 

Ask your agents to share the most repetitive questions, and make it clear that they can always pass recommendations to the support team lead. 

However, don’t rely on impressions alone: Sometimes, your team’s idea of which tickets are most common isn’t correct. It’s always better to cross-check assumptions with data to avoid human bias. 

Start with these suggestions if you’re still not sure

We studied the usage of Flows across all Gorgias customers to find the most common. Since Gorgias is only used by ecommerce companies, the most common Flows will likely be relevant to your store:

• How can I change my subscription?
• How is your product different? (For example, “Why are natural products better for my skin than chemicals?”)
• What’s your shipping and return policy?
• Do you currently have any discount codes? How can I get a discount?
• When are you expecting a restock?
• Can I cancel or change my order?
• What’s your loyalty program?
• Do I have to pay for returns?
• How do I pick the right size?
• How is your product different from others?
• What type of ingredients/tissues do you use?
• How can I use your product?

“Thanks to Flows, shoppers get answers to their questions by themselves: what's the right size hanger, where is my order, what shoe polish would you recommend, etc. It’s my favorite feature”

— Addison Debter, Head of Customer Service at Kirby Allison

Want help writing concise answers to these questions? Check out our library of question-and-answer templates for inspiration, and don’t be afraid to tweak them to fit your policies and brand voice.

Use multi-step Flows to offer more personalized answers

Most of the Flows above can be resolved in a single step: The customer clicks the button and gets an instant answer. But for certain questions, you need to collect some information about the customer to give the best answer for them. That’s where multi-step Flows come in. 

When your customers click an multi-step Flow, they receive follow-up questions and select their answers. This helps the Flow provide the most precise, personalized answer — completely automated, of course. 

Here’s an example from VESSEL, a golf bag brand that uses interactive Flows to help customers personalize their golf bags:

"Flows give customers an easy, automatic answer to a lot of questions they would normally have. If we just had one response, we would link our FAQ page, but they don't always read that. Flows allow them to interact and get specific answers."

— Alisa Ogden, Sales Manager at VESSEL

Common use cases for multi-step Flows

Flows are completely customizable. With Gorgias’s Flow Builder, you can create branching interactions to provide the best answer for any set of customer inputs.

For inspiration, here are the most common uses of Flows across Gorgias merchants:

• Product matching: Help customers find the right collection, product, size, or color. 
• Nuanced order or product questions: Give customers the most accurate troubleshooting advice based on the state of their product, delivery, etc.
• Regional questions: Show only the most relevant information (usually for shipping and returns) based on the customer’s location.
• Delivery estimates: Give the most accurate estimate based on any variety of factors, from product type to time of order.
• Persona-based answers: If you sell to different personas (for example: B2C vs. B2B, or horse owners vs. dog owners), you can direct them to the correct answers or product collections with a Flow. 

Want to get started with Flows? Here’s a step-by-step guide to set them up. 

Additional best practices for Flows

Link to other self-service tools (like Loop Returns, Recharge, and the Help Center)

Sometimes, a customer needs to use another self-service tool (like your Loop Returns portal or your Recharge subscription management portal), or your Help Center for a more detailed answer. Go ahead and link to these tools in your Flows responses for the most streamlined customer experience.

Use all 6 spaces for Flows

Chat has space for 6 Flows. Use all 6 to cover the widest breadth of repetitive questions that would otherwise become tickets for your support team.

Auto-expand your Chat on the homepage

You can make your Flows more discoverable by programming your Chat to unfurl when customers land on your website. 

Here’s the code if you want to automatically expand your Chat:

var initGorgiasChatPromise=window.GorgiasChat?window.GorgiasChat.init():new Promise((function(i){window.addEventListener("gorgias-widget-loaded",(function(){i()}))}));initGorgiasChatPromise.then((async()=>{GorgiasChat.open()}));

Activate Order Management to reduce order status and return requests

In addition to Flows, you can turn your Chat into an order portal with Order Management. They help customers track their orders, report issues, and request refunds or cancellations without any agent interaction. 

Here’s what Order Management looks like on Loop Earplugs’ website:

New to Order Management Flows? Learn how to set them up with this step-by-step guide. 

Never answer “Where is my order?” again

“Where is my order?” represents 18% of incoming tickets for the average ecommerce merchant, according to Gorgias data. Order tracking, which is part of Order Management, allows customers to get real-time updates on the status of their orders without messaging an agent. That’s a faster answer for customers, and hours saved for your team every week. 

“Gorgias Automate has been a huge help as we work to manage a massive influx of orders. It’s been a big help during our past two sales, and adding the “Track order” option has taken us over the edge (and helped me keep my sanity 😂).” 

— Kristen Egens, Customer Support Manager at MagneticMe

When customers click “Track and manage my orders,” they are prompted to log in with the email or SMS they used to place the order. Once they log in, they can see a history of their orders with an up-to-date delivery status for each one:

Streamline return requests (and use a returns platform)

Order Management streamlines the returns process by letting customers request returns in just a few clicks, which sends a structured message to the agent. This way, the customer doesn’t have to type out a message, and the agent doesn’t have to ask follow-up questions. 

Here’s an example from Loop Earplugs:

If you use a returns management platform, you can upgrade this Returns experience by redirecting customers directly to the returns portal for an even more self-service solution. 

If you’re shopping for a returns management platform, we recommend our preferred partner Loop Returns. Our integration with Loop Returns offers a seamless path from Order Management in Chat to Loop’s powerful returns portal. When you click “Return,” Chat shares a link to your Loop Returns portal:

Here’s a quick walkthrough on how Loop Returns and our Order Management work together.