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TL;DR:
AI changes the way CX teams operate. But we firmly believe that it’s a good thing.
It will help you improve your team’s workload, say goodbye to burnout, and create a more consistent and speedy experience for your customers.
Here’s the process we recommend for pitching Gorgias’s AI Agent to your boss, complete with an FAQ section for quick answers.
Jump to a section:
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Gorgias views AI as an extension of CX teams, and that’s how many of our customers see AI Agent as well. Baby Gold calls theirs Michelle, Psycho Bunny calls theirs Lisa.
These autonomous agents allow your human agents to focus on more complex and nuanced issues, providing a higher level of service where your customers need it most.
Here are some other things that make AI Agent a great addition to your team:
📚 Further reading: Our AI Approach: Onboard, Automate, Observe, and Coach
Rest assured that AI Agent and Gorgias operate under a zero data retention (ZDR) policy. Once data is used, it isn’t stored.
We’re SOC 2 Type II Certified and follow strict regulations in regards to data security.
You can view the terms that cover the data we collect and how we use Artificial Intelligence by reading Our Master Service Agreement (MSA) and Data Processing Agreement (DPA).
🎯 Resource: How AI Agent works & gathers data
AI Agent provides consistent, accurate, and on-brand responses based on the information in your Help Center, Shopify order data, Macros, handover instructions, and the actual custom Guidance you set for it.
It might just surprise you with just how specialized it can get.
“Sometimes agents forget personal details to call out when communicating with our customers, like birthdays or weddings,” says Sindi Melgar, the Customer Service Manager at Baby Gold.
“But I noticed on a few different occasions where AI Agent (ours is named Michelle) is highlighting these things and is saying, ‘Congratulations on your wedding!’ Just the tone of voice that Michelle is able to adopt is definitely on brand for us.”
When you set up AI Agent, you’ll also let it know the types of topics you’d like it not to answer.
AI Agent automatically hands over tickets to your team whenever it lacks confidence in an answer or detects an angry customer.
But you can also use handover rules to choose how AI Agent behaves when it passes tickets to your human team, and add specific topics that it should always hand over to your team.
🎯 Resource: Customize how AI Agent behaves
Don’t like something AI Agent said? Or, did you love an answer it gave?
It’s easy to let AI Agent know by telling it you liked the response, saying it should have pulled from a different resource, or reporting an issue.
🎯 Resource: How to coach AI Agent and give feedback
AI Agent uses your Shopify order data, Macros, your brand’s webpages, as well as your Help Center to give your customers accurate and on-brand responses. It also prioritizes any Guidance that you set.
🎯 Resource: Why having a quality knowledge base is essential to using AI for CX
We wouldn’t expect you to onboard a new tool without some actual statistics and reviews. Below, browse three success stories and the fantastic metrics that AI Agent helped their teams achieve.
After just one month of implementing AI Agent, the team at VESSEL not only increased the number of emails automated via AI Agent by 20%, but reduced first response time to 58 seconds and saw their resolution time decrease to one minute and six seconds.
When Baby Gold implemented AI Agent, they achieved a 49-second first response time, a one-minute and four-second resolution time, and answered 1,361 tickets. They also quadrupled their email automation rate.
Psycho Bunny saw a 99.8% faster first response time, 99.4% faster resolution time, and 26% of tickets resolved by AI Agent.
“Our customer support KPIs are already fantastic: we're already leading in the industry,” said Tosha Moyer, Senior Customer Experience Manager at Psycho Bunny.
“To improve on that, we need AI — it’s not physically or financially possible with human agents alone.”
AI Agent isn’t going to find lost packages, pick up the phone, or fix damaged products. While this might seem obvious, it’s important to understand AI Agent’s core capabilities, as we want this to be an exciting and useful addition to your team.
“AI Agent does a great job of efficiently handling returns and exchanges, and split shipment tracking info,” shares Tosha Moyer. “The overall tone is good and some of its responses are really excellent.”
Below, find the top use cases for AI Agent, as well as the specific actions you can configure for it within Gorgias.
These are the top AI Agent use cases that we recommend:
The specific actions you currently can configure for AI Agent include:
With more to come! And to quiet any worries, it’s worth mentioning that AI Agent will not perform any actions without you configuring or activating them first.
Offering fast, accurate, and 24/7 support can significantly enhance your brand reputation and build customer trust, which can translate into higher customer loyalty and increased revenue.
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TL;DR:
For support teams, sending the right answer at the right time, every time, is the ultimate goal. But with limited resources and operating hours, how can you be there for your customers 24/7? We’ve got an answer.
Designed specifically for ecommerce brands, AI Agent is an autonomous support assistant that steps in where human agents are stretched thin: handling repetitive tickets. AI Agent is trained on your brand’s policies, voice, and instructions, helping you resolve customer inquiries like your agents — but faster.
We’ll cover 10 types of inquiries AI Agent can resolve instantly, complete with template instructions (Guidance) and real-life examples. Plus, keep in mind five best practices to get the most out of your new AI teammate.
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Each use case comes with a template for Guidance instructions that acts like a built-in training manual for AI Agent. Then, see how AI Agent uses those templates to respond to real customer tickets.
Note: Guidance are special instructions that tell Gorgias’s AI Agent exactly how to handle customer questions, including when to hand them off to your human agents. This gives you control over AI Agent, so every AI interaction is always aligned with your brand’s protocols.
90% of shoppers want to be able to track their orders, according to DispatchTrack. Easily fulfill those neverending WISMO requests with one comprehensive Guidance that detects a customer’s current order status to give them the best answer.
Include these key elements in your where is my order? Guidance instructions:
Here’s an example of a where is my order? Guidance setup, available as a template in Gorgias:
Here’s how AI Agent uses that Guidance to assist a customer with their order inquiry:
💡 Pro Tip: Can’t find AI Agent? Double-check that you have an active Gorgias Automate subscription and connect Shopify to Gorgias. To do this, go to Settings > My Apps > Shopify > Update app permissions. You must be an Admin to complete this task.
Shoppers ask product questions to get the clarity they need before buying. These pre-sales questions can make or break their decision to buy your product. Close the gap from browsing to checkout by using AI Agent to deliver quick, accurate answers that help them make confident decisions.
Here’s an example of a product-focused Guidance setup:
Here’s how AI Agent uses that Guidance to assist a customer with their product inquiry:
💡 Pro Tip: AI Agent can also learn information from your web pages. Go to Automate > AI Agent > Public URL sources to sync key web pages like sizing guides, blog posts, and more.
Answering ecommerce return requests can be time-consuming. Requests can range from a simple what is your return policy? question to customers wanting to go through the return process. Regardless, return inquiries can easily be handled by AI and handed off to a human agent if necessary.
Include these key elements in your returns Guidance instructions:
Here’s an example of a returns inquiry Guidance setup, available as a template in Gorgias:
Now, look at how AI Agent uses this Guidance to assist a customer with their return request:
💡 Pro Tip: If you’re using Loop Returns, set up AI Agent to automatically send a returns portal link to customers. This Action fully resolves returns inquiries by directing shoppers straight to their orders.
Order issue tickets often require back-and-forth. The customer states their problem, you ask for photo verification and check if the customer has tried all the different solutions — the list goes on. Let AI Agent cover the bases for you every time, and if needed, escalate the ticket to your team.
Include these key elements in your order issues Guidance instructions:
Here’s an example of a Guidance setup for handling order issues, available as a template in Gorgias:
Here’s how AI Agent follows this Guidance to resolve a customer’s order issue:
Canceling orders is pretty much a race against order fulfillment and your third-party logistics. The key is to catch these inquiries as soon they hit your inbox. The problem? Tickets can come late at night or outside of your business hours. However, when you let AI Agent handle them, customers can rest assured that their request will be dealt with.
Include these key elements in your cancellation Guidance instructions:
Here’s an example of a cancellation Guidance setup, available as a template in Gorgias:
Here’s how AI Agent follows this Guidance to handle a customer’s cancellation request:
💡 Did you know? You can let AI Agent cancel an order when the customer and order meet certain conditions. For example, the Action will only be performed if the fulfillment status is still empty. Go to Automate > AI Agent > Actions > Browse All Actions > Cancel Order in Shopify.
Come holiday season, including Black Friday, you’ll be swamped with loads of discount inquiries. Whether it’s customers asking about discount codes not working or if you have any codes available, these repetitive inquiries are best resolved by AI.
Include these key elements in your discount Guidance instructions:
Here’s an example of a discount inquiry Guidance setup, available as a template in Gorgias:
Here’s how AI Agent follows this Guidance to handle a customer asking for coupons:
Acknowledging feedback, good and bad, can make customers more willing to keep doing business with you. Maintain an honest rapport with customers by letting them know you’re always listening.
Include these key elements in your feedback Guidance instructions:
Here’s an example of a customer feedback Guidance setup:
Here’s how AI Agent uses this Guidance to respond to positive feedback:
💡 Pro Tip: Let AI Agent automatically tag feedback tickets for you by going to Automate > AI Agent > AI ticket tagging. This way, your agents can find all customer feedback organized in one place.
Account management tasks like updating details or managing subscriptions are tedious, time-consuming, and often things customers can do themselves. Let AI Agent handle these tasks to speed up resolutions.
Include these key elements in your account management Guidance instructions:
Here’s an example of a Guidance setup for account management, available as a template in Gorgias:
Take a look at how AI Agent uses this Guidance to help a customer with managing their rewards:
💡 Pro Tip: Use Recharge Actions to automate subscription cancellations or skip shipments with AI Agent. Go to Automate > Automate > Actions > Browse All Actions > Cancel subscription in Recharge or Skip next subscription shipment in Recharge.
Influencer marketing is on the rise as customers look to social proof when deciding what products to buy. With the right Guidance, your AI Agent can easily manage collaboration and marketing partnership inquiries.
Include these key elements in your collaboration requests Guidance instructions:
Here’s an example of a collaboration request Guidance setup:
See how AI Agent uses this Guidance to respond to a collaboration request from a content creator:
AI Agent isn’t designed to handle all tickets. For highly complex and sensitive topics, instruct AI Agent to reroute them to your human agents who are equipped to handle certain subjects with more caution and context than AI.
For example, a makeup brand would disable AI Agent from taking on tickets about allergic reactions or health concerns so customers receive safe advice.
Here are other messages you should prevent AI Agent from answering:
Take a look at how AI Agent escalates a ticket about a damaged product:
Note: AI Agent automatically escalates messages with angry language and sentiment to your support team — no Guidance needed.
While AI Agent answers most customer inquiries, you’ll still need to be there to provide it with the barriers to keep its answers on-brand and accurate.
Here are five best practices to keep in mind when creating Guidance instructions.
Prime AI Agent with essential brand information by creating Guidance for the top five most common customer questions:
You can automate a significant portion of customer support and save time for your team just by letting AI Agent answer these tickets.
Always use clear and descriptive names for your Guidance. AI Agent relies on this information to identify whether the Guidance is relevant to the customer’s question.
For example, instead of naming it “Shipping,” use something like “Shipping policy – domestic & international” to help AI Agent choose the right response.
It’s important to include detailed examples to help AI Agent detect the intent behind your incoming tickets. Clear examples let AI Agent match customer inquiries with the correct response more reliably.
For instance, instead of just saying, “Answer shipping questions,” give it an example: “For domestic orders, say: ‘Shipping takes 5-7 days. For international orders, it takes 10-15 days.’” This helps AI Agent detect when a question is about shipping timelines and respond appropriately.
Customer needs and products change over time, so it’s important to check back on your Guidance to make sure it’s relevant. AI Agent’s responses should reflect any changes to your policies, products, or processes to provide customers with up-to-date information.
Before going live with new or updated Guidance, use Test Mode to make sure AI Agent is responding as expected.
Here are key things to check in Test Mode:
Right out of the box, Gorgias includes Guidance templates to help AI Agent manage your FAQs, like returns inquiries, shipping questions, and more.
Equip your AI Agent with Guidance and watch your support team thrive with more time to nurture your customer relationships and handle complex tasks.
See how AI Agent can transform your support team within minutes by booking a demo today.
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TL;DR:
AI Agent is an autonomous AI support assistant designed specifically for ecommerce brands. Trained on your store’s Shopify data, policies, and brand guidelines, AI Agent responds to customer interactions with personalized, high-quality answers.
But is it the good type of AI?
As AI emerges more and more as a necessity for CX teams, there are a few common concerns among leaders. Worries that it will steal customer data, use data to enhance OpenAI’s LLM, or leverage shopper data for things outside of its scope are just a few.
To quell those concerns, we’ll go into the specifics of how AI Agent actually collects and uses data.
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Jump to an answer:
Gorgias’s AI Agent uses merchants’ unique data, including orders, ticket information, product catalogs, and store content, and then uses a blend of state-of-the-art LLMs, including OpenAI and Anthropic, to help it construct natural, human-like responses.
The information AI Agent has access to is approximately the same data as the one presented in the Shopify widget in the Gorgias helpdesk. We push this same information to AI Agent to compute the next step for the customer.
Some of the data permissions that AI Agent has when integrated with Shopify include access to all orders, all draft orders, order edits, fulfilments, products, customers, themes, discounts, scripts, and content.
AI Agent processes the information from the ticket to understand where to pull the relevant data from, such as correlating information from the account associated with the interaction as well as the intent of the message. Here’s how it works.
AI Agent first analyzes the content of the ticket to identify the key information and intent behind the customer's inquiry.
It correlates this information with the available data sources, such as Guidance your team sets up (which takes precedence over other knowledge sources), Help Center articles, Macros, and any other integrated knowledge bases.
AI Agent understands the context of the message and retrieves relevant data. If there are multiple sources of information, it determines which source is most pertinent to the query.
If the ticket has vague or insufficient information, AI Agent will ask clarifying questions to ensure it pulls the correct information.
Before sending the response, AI Agent undergoes an internal QA process where it verifies the information and creates an internal note for the merchant. This note includes information on what knowledge and Shopify data was used, and shows "reasoning" for the event if the QA failed.
Merchants or admins can provide feedback on whether the resolution was good or bad, and AI Agent uses this feedback to improve future responses.
Gorgias and AI Agent do not store shopper or customer data.
AI Agent operates under a zero data retention (ZDR) policy, meaning that once the request is processed, the data is not stored.
📚 Further reading: Our Master Service Agreement (MSA) and Data Processing Agreement (DPA) govern the use of all Gorgias services, including AI Agent. If you’d like to learn more, these terms detail the data we collect and how we use Artificial Intelligence.
Data privacy and security are top priorities for us, and our systems are designed to handle data in a secure manner without retaining personal or sensitive information.
AI Agent uses language models developed by OpenAI. OpenAI does not use customer data to train their models, and there is a zero data retention policy. Any data sent through the API is not stored beyond the duration needed to serve the request pulled.
Gorgias is SOC 2 Type II compliant and adheres to strict regulations and standards to ensure the privacy, security, and proper handling of sensitive data.
AI Agent and Gorgias comply with stringent data privacy regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), ensuring that shopper data is handled securely and responsibly without being used for model enhancement.
This approach ensures that shopper data remains private and is not utilized beyond the scope of providing immediate customer support.
“We were initially nervous about using AI, but it has quickly proven its worth. Our community members have even mistaken the AI Agent for a real person, which speaks volumes about how well it aligns with our brand voice.”
—Zoe Cranney, Community Experience Expert, LSKD
Yes! AI Agent was built not only to provide instant and accurate responses, but also with transparency in mind. For every interaction that AI Agent has, it provides you with an internal note that covers:
While no AI tool is capable of perfect accuracy 100% of the time, we put several safeguards in place to keep AI Agent from sending inaccurate information.
When AI Agent responds to a customer, it pulls from your team’s specific documents. Aside from the Guidance you set, which it prioritizes, AI Agent uses your Shopify order data, Macros, your brand’s webpages, as well as your Help Center.
Using AI Agent is unlike only relying on ChatGPT for answers, which uses broad information. AI Agent draws from your data only, making its responses highly accurate and personalized to your brand.
LLMs like OpenAI and Anthropic’s main role in AI Agent is to recognize and form natural-flowing responses. It can speak in different languages and tones to align with your brand voice. This, combined with your own internal knowledge sources, helps add that human touch that sets it apart from automated emails and bots.
As another layer of control, we let you define topics that AI Agent should completely ignore and hand over to your team.
For example, some topics — such as medical questions or legal threats — are too sensitive to handle with AI. You can add these to your Exclusion or Handover topics to ensure AI Agent does not respond to them.
You can improve AI Agent’s responses by providing feedback on how it handled tickets. You can either approve of its behavior or suggest adjustments to improve future interactions.
For example, when an influencer reached out to hip toddler carrier brand Wildride and said, “I really love you guys,” AI Agent replied, “Love you too ❤️❤️”.
Amber van den Berg, Head of Customer Experience, found this really funny, as it was exactly the type of response the team would have given. But if that response wasn’t quite right, or wasn’t on brand, they could have given AI Agent that feedback.
You have the choice of whether or not to disclose your use of AI in response generated by AI Agent.
However, for maximum legal protection, we recommend using your email signature to indicate that the message your customers receive has been created with AI.
Note: Some laws, such as the California Bolstering Online Transparency Act, prohibit misleading consumers about the use of automated artificial identities.
"I saw how well AI Agent was replying to customers and really started to think about how we could optimize it to work for us even more,” said Amber van den Berg, Head of Customer Experience at Wildride.
“Within one month, AI Agent was answering 33% of emails, which is quite impressive." This was essential for Wildride’s CX team after viral social media content bumped 1000 tickets per month to 1000 tickets per week.
Now, the team is freed up to focus on more complex issues, and AI Agent can fill in the rest.
Book a demo to see how AI Agent can work for you.
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The best in CX and ecommerce, right to your inbox
Jordan Brown, Founder of Omnie, recently hosted a workshop at CX Connect in Los Angeles on creating better customer support programs with AI.
If you weren’t able to attend live, or you just want a refresh, we’ve put together a recap of the workshop.
We'll cover how to get started with building your AI customer support strategy and, once you're up and running, how to measure success and ensure AI is operating properly.
You can also watch Jordan’s full workshop below:
First, Jordan did a bit of “myth busting” and went through everyone’s most top-of-mind concerns for implementing AI. Here’s what they were worried about:
Concern: Unsure which customer service metrics to track and how often to monitor each AI response to ensure it's accurate.
Jordan’s response: He recommends monitoring customer satisfaction, escalation rate, automation rate, and customer sentiment.
Concern: How to make everything into your brand voice and not just sound robotic, but personalized.
Jordan’s response: Create brand guidelines and set them up as guidance for your AI chatbot.
Concern: How to use AI as a member of my team without freaking out my team that it's going to take over their jobs. What kind of new tools are they talking about, and how will my team's roles evolve with AI?
Jordan’s response: Agents will naturally feel like they're being replaced by AI, but they'll just have a different focus — sales, monitoring AI, supporting it, and training it. Having that conversation with them is a good idea.
Concern: We’re just a small team, and we’re worried about stopping to invest our time and energy into setting it up, which could potentially affect the service to customers who already reached out to us.
Jordan’s response: That's understandable. Implementing AI will save time in the end, but it's a huge change.
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Here’s what Jordan recommends for weaving AI into your customer experience program:
You've all probably experienced poorly built AI chatbots, especially with massive companies where it's impossible to find their phone number, and you're stuck in chatbot loops.
That situation really benefits the brand because they don't have to talk to customers, saving costs. But you want to benefit both the brand and the customer, so you need to implement AI properly.
That means setting up AI with a personalized touch, and making sure it's successful so that both brands and customers enjoy the benefits.
Here’s what your top priorities should be:
📚 Further reading: Why having a quality knowledge base is essential to using AI for CX
Advanced AI tools work off confidence scores. Each AI response has a confidence score, indicating how confident the AI is that its response is accurate.
At Omnie, Jordan likes to set up AI in phases, where the AI only answers when it's 100% confident. Anything less goes to an agent to avoid risking the customer experience.
You don't have to turn on AI for everything immediately — you can ramp up slowly.
Automation and AI also don't need to handle a ticket fully from end to end.
For example, if a customer wants to return something because they changed their mind, great. But if there’s an issue with the product, send it to someone on the retention team to try and salvage the sale. If it’s for particular reasons, automate the return.
📚 Related: Ecommerce returns: 10 best practices for taking your online store to the next level
Empathy and personalization are critical. At Omnie, Jordan and his team weren’t comfortable with automation a year ago because it felt robotic. But with new technology like ChatGPT, you can inject your brand tone and voice.
You could be funny, concise, chatty — whatever fits your brand.
They worked with Jason Momoa's water company, where the bot talks like him, making it a unique brand tone.
When AI is implemented properly, the customer thinks they’re talking to a human, as seen with Frye, a shoe company that’s been around since 1863. Omnie is saving them 240 hours a month of support time, automating nearly 800 tickets, and customers think they’re interacting with a human named Caleb.
To get started, determine your brand tone and voice. If you don’t have a brand book, figure out how you want to talk to your customer so it’s consistent.
📚 Related: New data shows 4 ways automation impacts customer service
As you ramp up, test in the playground before going live, especially for businesses with sensitive information. Monitor the metrics for success: customer satisfaction, escalation rate, automation rate, and customer sentiment. AI isn’t something you set up and walk away from — it requires constant maintenance.
Experience firsthand how Gorgias AI can transform your support strategy and save your team time by automating repetitive tasks and keeping your brand’s voice front and center. Book a demo now.
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TL;DR:
For years, businesses have chased the idea that delighting customers is how to earn loyalty. The belief is simple: go above and beyond, exceed expectations, and customers will come back.
However, research from The Effortless Experience, a best-selling customer service book by Matthew Dixon, shows that this approach might be wrong. Focusing on customer delight often makes the experience more complicated and less efficient.
Most businesses aim to wow customers, but trying too hard leads to longer customer support interactions and higher costs. The real key to customer loyalty is making things easy.
Below, find out how AI is another string to your customer support bow, allowing you to increase speed and reduce effort while maintaining your brand's empathetic voice.
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When customers reach out with a problem they want a prompt solution –– 90% of customers say an “immediate” response is important.
Delight is a problem when it adds additional steps and doesn’t solve the problem upfront.
Customers don’t want a solution with all the bells and whistles. They simply want to solve the problem ASAP.
It’s a common misconception that satisfied customers are loyal customers. But the numbers tell a different story. Research shows that satisfaction doesn’t always lead to loyalty.
In fact, 20% of customers who say they’re satisfied with a service still plan to switch to a competitor. Satisfaction alone isn’t enough to keep customers from exploring other options.
High-effort experiences are a major driver of customer disloyalty. Studies show that 96% of customers who encounter high effort interactions become disloyal.
When customers feel like they have to jump through hoops to get help, they’re more likely to take their business elsewhere.
Read more: Why you need to monitor customer effort score (& how to do it)
Negative experiences are much more likely to leave a lasting impression. Even when customers feel satisfied with the products, high-effort experiences can negatively impact loyalty.
For example, a customer may contact customer service due to a minor issue, such as a shipping delay. However, they may have to wait a long time to get a response or repeat their issue to multiple agents. Even if the issue is eventually resolved, they will leave frustrated and less likely to return.
If you need to put in extra effort, even positive interactions will fall short.
Trying to delight customers might sound like a winning strategy, but it often comes with a hefty price tag. Offering freebies, bending rules, and making special exceptions can increase your operational costs significantly. When these additional costs don’t contribute to customer satisfaction or loyalty, it’s important to evaluate if they’re worthwhile.
Read more: The hidden power and ROI of automated customer support
Several common issues make customer support a hassle. Some of the biggest culprits are multiple contacts to resolve a single issue, having to repeat information, and being transferred from one agent to another.
You can solve these common customer complaints with AI.
But won’t AI make my brand sound robotic and devoid of human touch?
Our hot take is that AI actually frees up your team to focus on more valuable tasks.
For example, RiG’d Supply, a brand specializing in off-road vehicle accessories, is letting AI handle some of the repetitive work so they can do better customer service. As a small team, even the CEO occasionally jumps in to keep up with the repetitive daily requests.
“This isn’t a matter of eliminating jobs, but giving our employees their primary jobs back. We get more bandwidth back to be able to take phone calls and hear how we can help you have the best possible experience on your next ramble,” says Luke Wronski, CEO of RiG’d Supply. “Our hope is to have AI give us the time back to have a conversation with you about the stuff that keeps us stoked to do what we do.”
Read more: Our AI approach: Onboard, automate, observe, and coach
Don’t get us wrong, AI can’t handle every moving piece of your customer support. So don’t assume you can replace your whole support team with AI. You still need high-quality human support for more complex tasks.
But if you have a solid support team that provides top-quality customer experience, you already have the right foundation to benefit from AI.
AI tools are excellent at resolving simple customer queries, such as “Where is my order?” or “How much is delivery?” on the first contact.
Quick, accurate responses lead to a smooth experience and less effort from both sides. Customers no longer need to follow up multiple times for the same issue. Plus, you’ll save time that your support team can use for more complex issues.
Consider using an automated customer experience platform with an AI assistant. For example, Gorgias's AI Agent automatically responds to FAQs like “How much is shipping?” or “When will my order arrive?” in your brand’s voice. For more technical requests, it assigns them to the right agents.
Read more: What's the secret to reducing WISMO requests?
AI can analyze customer data to deliver personalized suggestions. For example, if a customer frequently orders the same product, AI might recommend a subscription service to save them time and effort. Or if a customer has ordered several cooking utensils from the same product line, AI might suggest matching pans to complete their set.
💡Pro Tip: Find a CX platform with AI that offers custom, human-like responses. You can program your AI Agent to respond in different tones — friendly, professional, playful, or empathetic — so it feels more like your brand and less like a robot.
Imagine solving your customers' problems before they even know they have them — that’s next-issue avoidance. With AI, you can recall past interactions and customer habits to anticipate their needs.
If a customer has had issues with a product before, AI could suggest a protection plan upfront, saving them from future headaches. Your AI solution should help you stay one step ahead so customer support remains smooth and customers are happy.
Some AI assistants can even learn specific instructions or “Guidance” for handling certain topics. For example, you could create a Guidance instructing the AI to request photos if a customer reports a damaged product. If the AI detects that photos are already included, it automatically escalates the ticket to a human agent.
AI’s capabilities shouldn’t end at answering FAQs. AI can also handle routine tasks like address changes or order modifications so your team can focus on issues that need more technical problem-solving.
Speedy resolutions keep customers happy, and as long as the issue is resolved efficiently, they care more about the result than who handled it.
For example, brands using Shopify can use Gorgias’s AI Agent to cancel orders and update shipping addresses without manual intervention from agents — so agents can dive into more complex requests that need their expertise, like upselling or resolving negative customer feedback.
Let’s face it — nobody wants to jump through hoops to get help. AI-powered helpdesks dig into customer interactions to find out where things get sticky and offer smart suggestions to improve the process.
For instance, AI might notice that customers are often confused about how to download and print the shipping label to return items. With this insight, you could make it easier and faster for customers to find and print the correct label.
Gorgias Automate goes a step further by detecting your customers' top concerns and allowing you to create knowledge base articles about them automatically. Brands can use this data to update their Help Center and FAQs, make key webpages more visible, and enhance product pages, ensuring customers find the answers they need quickly and easily.
Customer loyalty isn’t won with flashy gestures. Instead, brands earn it by making things easy. AI is your best friend here, helping you streamline interactions, solve issues before they even arise, and keep customers in the loop without them having to chase down information. Remember, AI is there to enhance an already solid customer experience foundation and to help your team.
It’s time to rethink how you approach customer support. With AI, you can craft a seamless, low-effort experience that satisfies customers and turns them into loyal fans.
Book a demo to see how Gorgias can eliminate customer effort.
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Black Friday is the strongest revenue-generating day of the year for retailers, with $9.8 billion in sales reported in 2023, according to a report by Adobe. For online merchants, the revenue potential is even sweeter, with the online shopping period extended into Cyber Monday.
But, it takes a coordinated effort by customer support, sales, and marketing to encourage a shopper to click “checkout.” Without a solid ecommerce strategy, many online retailers will miss out on the Black Friday - Cyber Monday rush.
Whether you’re looking to optimize your existing strategy or starting from scratch, we’ve got you covered. This guide will help you make the most out of your BFCM ecommerce strategy with a clear list of steps (in chronological order) to help you prepare.
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Black Friday - Cyber Monday — also referred to as BFCM — are two back-to-back sales days that bring in a ton of revenue for both in-store and ecommerce retailers in the US. The Black Friday - Cyber Monday shopping window also kick-starts holiday shopping from Thanksgiving day through the new year.
BFCM isn’t just about one big day of revenue generation. It’s a crucial period for online retailers to capture new customers and convince them to keep shopping through the end of the year and beyond.
Shopper sentiment is shifting away from physical experiences. Online transactions are up by 13% year-over-year, according to research from Criteo. So, you probably won’t see consumers camping out in front of physical stores on Black Friday, but those same shoppers still want to find an excellent ecommerce deal.
After BFCM in 2023, research from Nielsen found the desire for a good deal caused 57% of shoppers to stay on budget and 18% of shoppers to spend more than they planned in the year prior.
Shoppers, Gen Z in particular, are more likely to make a purchase with a brand they’re familiar with. So, ensure your marketing tactics are firing well before BFCM will help folks get to know you before the holiday sales season starts.
When you make a plan early, you give your business more time to craft a great marketing campaign. Plus, you give your team time to figure out how to manage customer service on Black Friday for these high-traffic days.
Considering Black Friday - Cyber Monday is the busiest ecommerce sales event of the year, prepare as early as possible to get a leg-up and stay on top of Black Friday trends.
Related reading: Why proactive customer service is essential for growing your business
Preparing for Black Friday — and building a strong ecommerce strategy — goes well beyond ironing out a limited-time deal.
Tactics like updating key policies, building out customer self-service options, and marketing early will help you be successful.
Displaying clear-cut and easy-to-find policies on your website makes a huge difference to the customer experience. It sets the customer up for success and cultivates a positive sentiment with your brand.
To prepare for the best Black Friday-Cyber Monday possible, we recommend updating these key policies (and your Help Center) with BFCM-related information.
✅ Tip: A tool like Gorgias’s AI Agent learns from your policies to know how to respond to certain topics and escalate tickets. And we know that more automated tickets leads to a lighter workload for your agents. It makes a compelling case for keeping your policies up-to-date.
“The anxiety for customers during BFCM is real,” says Lauren Reams, Customer Experience Manager at VESSEL. “This year, we are planning on leveraging AI Agent to help us get ahead of the most common questions. AI Agent has been so seamless, so we’re confident that it will help us handle the busy season without needing to bring in additional agents.”
BCFM is a popular time for consumers to buy holiday gifts, which means you could see an influx in returns or exchanges.
✅ Tips: Use return management apps like Loop Returns to provide customers with a self-service return portal to process their returns. Take that idea one step further by using AI Agent Actions to send your Loop Returns link or return shipping status automatically.
Integrate Loop Returns with Gorgias and enable customers to initiate their own returns.
Customers expect purchases, especially if they’re buying gifts for upcoming holidays, to arrive on time and quickly (you’re competing with fast shipping speeds from retail giants like Amazon).
If those gifts don’t arrive in time, you’re going to face a lot of angry customers.
✅ Tip: Use your shipping and fulfillment policy to be crystal clear about when you ship orders, how long orders typically arrive, and how customers can look up their order status. AI Agent can perform Shopify Actions, such as editing the order's shipping address. Having this automated means agents do not have to do manual work.
All those Black Friday - Cyber Monday sales equal a ton of packages in transit. You can expect a few to go missing.
When that happens, your customers need to know what happens next.
Make sure you’re clear with your team and customers upfront if you are willing to cover damages (either with refunds or credits). This will help your agents handle the process quickly and consistently. Plus, it gives your customers the peace of mind that accidents won’t put them out.
✅ Tip: Include a policy about damaged items in your FAQs so your customers know what to expect in case anything goes wrong with their order.
Related reading: FAQ Page Template & Tips (+ Free Shopify FAQ Generator)
If you’re on Gorgias, Automate includes Flows, Order Management, and Article Recommendations. These different automations can help you deflect up to 30% of tickets, freeing your agents up for higher-value conversations.
Set up Flows to automatically answer common customer questions specific to Black Friday - Cyber Monday related to:
Related reading: Offer more self-serve options with Flows: 10 use cases & best practices
It turns out that many customer support inquiries your team receives are repetitive.
“If you force agents to respond to every question manually — no matter how small — you're only limiting the time they can spend on tickets that actually need human attention,” says Gorgias Director of Support, Bri Christiano.
That’s why we built Automate at Gorgias: It deflects your most repetitive tickets — up to 30% of your overall ticket volume — so you can focus on the tickets that grow your business.
Tech product retailer Nomad leaned into Gorgias’s automation to support customer service interactions. Not only did the online retailer gain a streamlined way to manage customer feedback, they also reduced response time by 70%.
Customer story: How Nomad uses automation to reduce their response time and resolution time by over 70%
Social commerce is on the rise among consumers worldwide.
Deloitte estimates about one-third of shoppers in the US made a purchase through a social media app in 2021. That number is estimated to be even higher for those who were influenced to buy a product after seeing it on social media.
You don’t necessarily have to sell directly through Instagram, but you can leverage your social channels to generate brand awareness.
The need for social-focused customer support is exactly why online retailer MNML turned to Gorgias. The company found that their shoppers turned more and more to social media for answers to their shopping-related questions.
Ultimately, the company leveled up their customer support on social media to connect with potential buyers.
Get started with these ideas:
Don’t partner with influencers for the sake of it. Instead, think about it like building a relationship with someone who fits your brand ideals and can cross-sell your products to their audience.
To do this, focus less on influencers with millions of followers on Instagram and TikTok. Instead, look for micro-influencers (or creators with less than 100,000 followers) with audiences that match your brand personas.
Once you’ve figured out the Black Friday sales your store will offer, you must ensure people know about them.
Craft content for your social media channels that highlight your deals. Since social media primarily focuses on visuals, start by collecting photos, videos, or illustrations of your products. Then, draft copy for captions, think through the best hashtags, and hand over creative briefs to your design team to build any assets you might need.
The weeks or months leading up to BFCM are prime time to talk about your brand’s Black Friday promotions. Use social media analytics to see which published posts are performing best across your channels.
Turn those high-performing posts into ads on social media by boosting them with a little money. Even with a small budget, you can use social ads to grab even more eyeballs — and potentially bring more people to your website.
A few other ideas to consider:
Imagine Black Friday - Cyber Monday is here. Even better, imagine you’ve got a ton of website traffic full of eager browsers. You need a plan to keep those browsers engaged.
One major step you can take to boost your conversion rate and potential revenue is to increase communication touchpoints and focus on recovering abandoned carts.
Throughout any customer’s journey, there are many opportunities to interact with your brand. One moment might be finding out about your BFCM sale on social media, signing up for emails to get early access, or browsing the best deals before heading to checkout.
The more you interact with customers along the way, the more you can keep them engaged — and personalized interactions increase your chances of converting a first-time shopper into a repeat customer.
Gorgias’s Convert is a CRO tool that easily personalizes interactions at multiple points throughout a customer journey. Convert offers several ways to increase touchpoints and boost overall engagement:
Another way to build in more touch points is to use automated chat campaigns that pop up and engage with your customers at crucial moments. Chat widgets are a small addition to any homepage, landing page, or product page that immediately lets customers know where to go for help.
2. Reduce abandoned carts
Cart abandonment is a major source of lost retail sales for any ecommerce business, considering about 70% of online carts are abandoned.
You can easily target customers who have opted into an email list or receive SMS messages from your brand. Design emails or text messages designed to trigger if a cart is abandoned.
Include copy that builds a sense of urgency to drive customers back to their shopping carts to “buy now” before the deal is over.
There’s even a chance to use re-engagement to increase your average order value by upselling once that customer returns to your site.
Repeat customers are valuable — like, really valuable.
According to Gorgias research, returning customers make up about 21% of a brand’s customer base but generate 44% of that same brand’s revenue.
Your brand should re-engage with anyone who shops on your website during the BFCM rush. Those same people could become returning customers who give your shop a revenue boost during the rest of the holiday season.
The perfect moment to re-engage a customer starts at checkout. When someone makes a purchase through your online store, offer them an immediate discount that goes toward their next purchase.
At CX Connect LA 2024, Ron Shah, CEO of Obvi, shared his brand’s strategy for offering discounts to generate revenue. Ron knew implementing AI to support Obvi’s two-person customer support team was necessary to help the brand grow without eliminating the need for his human agents.
“The time saved by AI handled a lot of the redundant work our agents were doing, which meant we could turn them into part-time sales agents. We also gave them a code to help them prevent a refund from happening or upsell somebody. It created a completely new shift in their mindset. They realized, ‘Oh wow, you're not just taking something away from me (with AI) — you're actually elevating my opportunity.’”
✅ Tip: You can increase the touchpoints to re-engage with an existing customer by building a reminder email that triggers one week after their initial transaction. That way, you not only stay at the top of their inbox, you also stay top of mind.
Loyalty programs are a tried-and-true method to build engaged, returning customers.
In a recent survey, Yotpo found that over half of surveyed consumers agreed a loyalty program would encourage them to purchase more from a brand.
If you already offer a loyalty program, make sure new customers know about how to get the VIP experience with your store. Build awareness touchpoints into your loyalty program marketing strategy. You can also prompt buyers to become loyal customers after they make their first purchase.
A successful, positive, and repeatable customer experience doesn’t end after midnight on Cyber Monday. It’s a road rather than a destination.
Consumer habits are always changing, and your support teams must be prepared to handle customer requests.
One way to anticipate your customer’s pain points is to look at customer feedback.
Reviews and social media activity is a great place to start. You might also consider putting a more formal customer sentiment strategy in place, with a CSAT survey to collect direct feedback from customers.
This feedback helps your team prioritize what needs to improve so you’re not left reaching in the dark.
The name of the game this Black Friday - Cyber Monday isn’t just to get a ton of online sales; it’s to set up your ecommerce site for a successful holiday shopping season.
Success could look like:
If you want to move the meter, focus on a strong Black Friday marketing strategy that starts now.
Gorgias is designed with ecommerce merchants in mind. Find out how Gorgias’s time-saving automations and convenient platform can help you create successful customer experiences.
Claim your demo today, or sign up to try Gorgias.
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TL;DR:
AI changes the way CX teams operate. But we firmly believe that it’s a good thing.
It will help you improve your team’s workload, say goodbye to burnout, and create a more consistent and speedy experience for your customers.
Here’s the process we recommend for pitching Gorgias’s AI Agent to your boss, complete with an FAQ section for quick answers.
Jump to a section:
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Gorgias views AI as an extension of CX teams, and that’s how many of our customers see AI Agent as well. Baby Gold calls theirs Michelle, Psycho Bunny calls theirs Lisa.
These autonomous agents allow your human agents to focus on more complex and nuanced issues, providing a higher level of service where your customers need it most.
Here are some other things that make AI Agent a great addition to your team:
📚 Further reading: Our AI Approach: Onboard, Automate, Observe, and Coach
Rest assured that AI Agent and Gorgias operate under a zero data retention (ZDR) policy. Once data is used, it isn’t stored.
We’re SOC 2 Type II Certified and follow strict regulations in regards to data security.
You can view the terms that cover the data we collect and how we use Artificial Intelligence by reading Our Master Service Agreement (MSA) and Data Processing Agreement (DPA).
🎯 Resource: How AI Agent works & gathers data
AI Agent provides consistent, accurate, and on-brand responses based on the information in your Help Center, Shopify order data, Macros, handover instructions, and the actual custom Guidance you set for it.
It might just surprise you with just how specialized it can get.
“Sometimes agents forget personal details to call out when communicating with our customers, like birthdays or weddings,” says Sindi Melgar, the Customer Service Manager at Baby Gold.
“But I noticed on a few different occasions where AI Agent (ours is named Michelle) is highlighting these things and is saying, ‘Congratulations on your wedding!’ Just the tone of voice that Michelle is able to adopt is definitely on brand for us.”
When you set up AI Agent, you’ll also let it know the types of topics you’d like it not to answer.
AI Agent automatically hands over tickets to your team whenever it lacks confidence in an answer or detects an angry customer.
But you can also use handover rules to choose how AI Agent behaves when it passes tickets to your human team, and add specific topics that it should always hand over to your team.
🎯 Resource: Customize how AI Agent behaves
Don’t like something AI Agent said? Or, did you love an answer it gave?
It’s easy to let AI Agent know by telling it you liked the response, saying it should have pulled from a different resource, or reporting an issue.
🎯 Resource: How to coach AI Agent and give feedback
AI Agent uses your Shopify order data, Macros, your brand’s webpages, as well as your Help Center to give your customers accurate and on-brand responses. It also prioritizes any Guidance that you set.
🎯 Resource: Why having a quality knowledge base is essential to using AI for CX
We wouldn’t expect you to onboard a new tool without some actual statistics and reviews. Below, browse three success stories and the fantastic metrics that AI Agent helped their teams achieve.
After just one month of implementing AI Agent, the team at VESSEL not only increased the number of emails automated via AI Agent by 20%, but reduced first response time to 58 seconds and saw their resolution time decrease to one minute and six seconds.
When Baby Gold implemented AI Agent, they achieved a 49-second first response time, a one-minute and four-second resolution time, and answered 1,361 tickets. They also quadrupled their email automation rate.
Psycho Bunny saw a 99.8% faster first response time, 99.4% faster resolution time, and 26% of tickets resolved by AI Agent.
“Our customer support KPIs are already fantastic: we're already leading in the industry,” said Tosha Moyer, Senior Customer Experience Manager at Psycho Bunny.
“To improve on that, we need AI — it’s not physically or financially possible with human agents alone.”
AI Agent isn’t going to find lost packages, pick up the phone, or fix damaged products. While this might seem obvious, it’s important to understand AI Agent’s core capabilities, as we want this to be an exciting and useful addition to your team.
“AI Agent does a great job of efficiently handling returns and exchanges, and split shipment tracking info,” shares Tosha Moyer. “The overall tone is good and some of its responses are really excellent.”
Below, find the top use cases for AI Agent, as well as the specific actions you can configure for it within Gorgias.
These are the top AI Agent use cases that we recommend:
The specific actions you currently can configure for AI Agent include:
With more to come! And to quiet any worries, it’s worth mentioning that AI Agent will not perform any actions without you configuring or activating them first.
Offering fast, accurate, and 24/7 support can significantly enhance your brand reputation and build customer trust, which can translate into higher customer loyalty and increased revenue.
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TL;DR:
For support teams, sending the right answer at the right time, every time, is the ultimate goal. But with limited resources and operating hours, how can you be there for your customers 24/7? We’ve got an answer.
Designed specifically for ecommerce brands, AI Agent is an autonomous support assistant that steps in where human agents are stretched thin: handling repetitive tickets. AI Agent is trained on your brand’s policies, voice, and instructions, helping you resolve customer inquiries like your agents — but faster.
We’ll cover 10 types of inquiries AI Agent can resolve instantly, complete with template instructions (Guidance) and real-life examples. Plus, keep in mind five best practices to get the most out of your new AI teammate.
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Each use case comes with a template for Guidance instructions that acts like a built-in training manual for AI Agent. Then, see how AI Agent uses those templates to respond to real customer tickets.
Note: Guidance are special instructions that tell Gorgias’s AI Agent exactly how to handle customer questions, including when to hand them off to your human agents. This gives you control over AI Agent, so every AI interaction is always aligned with your brand’s protocols.
90% of shoppers want to be able to track their orders, according to DispatchTrack. Easily fulfill those neverending WISMO requests with one comprehensive Guidance that detects a customer’s current order status to give them the best answer.
Include these key elements in your where is my order? Guidance instructions:
Here’s an example of a where is my order? Guidance setup, available as a template in Gorgias:
Here’s how AI Agent uses that Guidance to assist a customer with their order inquiry:
💡 Pro Tip: Can’t find AI Agent? Double-check that you have an active Gorgias Automate subscription and connect Shopify to Gorgias. To do this, go to Settings > My Apps > Shopify > Update app permissions. You must be an Admin to complete this task.
Shoppers ask product questions to get the clarity they need before buying. These pre-sales questions can make or break their decision to buy your product. Close the gap from browsing to checkout by using AI Agent to deliver quick, accurate answers that help them make confident decisions.
Here’s an example of a product-focused Guidance setup:
Here’s how AI Agent uses that Guidance to assist a customer with their product inquiry:
💡 Pro Tip: AI Agent can also learn information from your web pages. Go to Automate > AI Agent > Public URL sources to sync key web pages like sizing guides, blog posts, and more.
Answering ecommerce return requests can be time-consuming. Requests can range from a simple what is your return policy? question to customers wanting to go through the return process. Regardless, return inquiries can easily be handled by AI and handed off to a human agent if necessary.
Include these key elements in your returns Guidance instructions:
Here’s an example of a returns inquiry Guidance setup, available as a template in Gorgias:
Now, look at how AI Agent uses this Guidance to assist a customer with their return request:
💡 Pro Tip: If you’re using Loop Returns, set up AI Agent to automatically send a returns portal link to customers. This Action fully resolves returns inquiries by directing shoppers straight to their orders.
Order issue tickets often require back-and-forth. The customer states their problem, you ask for photo verification and check if the customer has tried all the different solutions — the list goes on. Let AI Agent cover the bases for you every time, and if needed, escalate the ticket to your team.
Include these key elements in your order issues Guidance instructions:
Here’s an example of a Guidance setup for handling order issues, available as a template in Gorgias:
Here’s how AI Agent follows this Guidance to resolve a customer’s order issue:
Canceling orders is pretty much a race against order fulfillment and your third-party logistics. The key is to catch these inquiries as soon they hit your inbox. The problem? Tickets can come late at night or outside of your business hours. However, when you let AI Agent handle them, customers can rest assured that their request will be dealt with.
Include these key elements in your cancellation Guidance instructions:
Here’s an example of a cancellation Guidance setup, available as a template in Gorgias:
Here’s how AI Agent follows this Guidance to handle a customer’s cancellation request:
💡 Did you know? You can let AI Agent cancel an order when the customer and order meet certain conditions. For example, the Action will only be performed if the fulfillment status is still empty. Go to Automate > AI Agent > Actions > Browse All Actions > Cancel Order in Shopify.
Come holiday season, including Black Friday, you’ll be swamped with loads of discount inquiries. Whether it’s customers asking about discount codes not working or if you have any codes available, these repetitive inquiries are best resolved by AI.
Include these key elements in your discount Guidance instructions:
Here’s an example of a discount inquiry Guidance setup, available as a template in Gorgias:
Here’s how AI Agent follows this Guidance to handle a customer asking for coupons:
Acknowledging feedback, good and bad, can make customers more willing to keep doing business with you. Maintain an honest rapport with customers by letting them know you’re always listening.
Include these key elements in your feedback Guidance instructions:
Here’s an example of a customer feedback Guidance setup:
Here’s how AI Agent uses this Guidance to respond to positive feedback:
💡 Pro Tip: Let AI Agent automatically tag feedback tickets for you by going to Automate > AI Agent > AI ticket tagging. This way, your agents can find all customer feedback organized in one place.
Account management tasks like updating details or managing subscriptions are tedious, time-consuming, and often things customers can do themselves. Let AI Agent handle these tasks to speed up resolutions.
Include these key elements in your account management Guidance instructions:
Here’s an example of a Guidance setup for account management, available as a template in Gorgias:
Take a look at how AI Agent uses this Guidance to help a customer with managing their rewards:
💡 Pro Tip: Use Recharge Actions to automate subscription cancellations or skip shipments with AI Agent. Go to Automate > Automate > Actions > Browse All Actions > Cancel subscription in Recharge or Skip next subscription shipment in Recharge.
Influencer marketing is on the rise as customers look to social proof when deciding what products to buy. With the right Guidance, your AI Agent can easily manage collaboration and marketing partnership inquiries.
Include these key elements in your collaboration requests Guidance instructions:
Here’s an example of a collaboration request Guidance setup:
See how AI Agent uses this Guidance to respond to a collaboration request from a content creator:
AI Agent isn’t designed to handle all tickets. For highly complex and sensitive topics, instruct AI Agent to reroute them to your human agents who are equipped to handle certain subjects with more caution and context than AI.
For example, a makeup brand would disable AI Agent from taking on tickets about allergic reactions or health concerns so customers receive safe advice.
Here are other messages you should prevent AI Agent from answering:
Take a look at how AI Agent escalates a ticket about a damaged product:
Note: AI Agent automatically escalates messages with angry language and sentiment to your support team — no Guidance needed.
While AI Agent answers most customer inquiries, you’ll still need to be there to provide it with the barriers to keep its answers on-brand and accurate.
Here are five best practices to keep in mind when creating Guidance instructions.
Prime AI Agent with essential brand information by creating Guidance for the top five most common customer questions:
You can automate a significant portion of customer support and save time for your team just by letting AI Agent answer these tickets.
Always use clear and descriptive names for your Guidance. AI Agent relies on this information to identify whether the Guidance is relevant to the customer’s question.
For example, instead of naming it “Shipping,” use something like “Shipping policy – domestic & international” to help AI Agent choose the right response.
It’s important to include detailed examples to help AI Agent detect the intent behind your incoming tickets. Clear examples let AI Agent match customer inquiries with the correct response more reliably.
For instance, instead of just saying, “Answer shipping questions,” give it an example: “For domestic orders, say: ‘Shipping takes 5-7 days. For international orders, it takes 10-15 days.’” This helps AI Agent detect when a question is about shipping timelines and respond appropriately.
Customer needs and products change over time, so it’s important to check back on your Guidance to make sure it’s relevant. AI Agent’s responses should reflect any changes to your policies, products, or processes to provide customers with up-to-date information.
Before going live with new or updated Guidance, use Test Mode to make sure AI Agent is responding as expected.
Here are key things to check in Test Mode:
Right out of the box, Gorgias includes Guidance templates to help AI Agent manage your FAQs, like returns inquiries, shipping questions, and more.
Equip your AI Agent with Guidance and watch your support team thrive with more time to nurture your customer relationships and handle complex tasks.
See how AI Agent can transform your support team within minutes by booking a demo today.
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Jordan Brown, Founder of Omnie, recently hosted a workshop at CX Connect in Los Angeles on creating better customer support programs with AI.
If you weren’t able to attend live, or you just want a refresh, we’ve put together a recap of the workshop.
We'll cover how to get started with building your AI customer support strategy and, once you're up and running, how to measure success and ensure AI is operating properly.
You can also watch Jordan’s full workshop below:
First, Jordan did a bit of “myth busting” and went through everyone’s most top-of-mind concerns for implementing AI. Here’s what they were worried about:
Concern: Unsure which customer service metrics to track and how often to monitor each AI response to ensure it's accurate.
Jordan’s response: He recommends monitoring customer satisfaction, escalation rate, automation rate, and customer sentiment.
Concern: How to make everything into your brand voice and not just sound robotic, but personalized.
Jordan’s response: Create brand guidelines and set them up as guidance for your AI chatbot.
Concern: How to use AI as a member of my team without freaking out my team that it's going to take over their jobs. What kind of new tools are they talking about, and how will my team's roles evolve with AI?
Jordan’s response: Agents will naturally feel like they're being replaced by AI, but they'll just have a different focus — sales, monitoring AI, supporting it, and training it. Having that conversation with them is a good idea.
Concern: We’re just a small team, and we’re worried about stopping to invest our time and energy into setting it up, which could potentially affect the service to customers who already reached out to us.
Jordan’s response: That's understandable. Implementing AI will save time in the end, but it's a huge change.
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Here’s what Jordan recommends for weaving AI into your customer experience program:
You've all probably experienced poorly built AI chatbots, especially with massive companies where it's impossible to find their phone number, and you're stuck in chatbot loops.
That situation really benefits the brand because they don't have to talk to customers, saving costs. But you want to benefit both the brand and the customer, so you need to implement AI properly.
That means setting up AI with a personalized touch, and making sure it's successful so that both brands and customers enjoy the benefits.
Here’s what your top priorities should be:
📚 Further reading: Why having a quality knowledge base is essential to using AI for CX
Advanced AI tools work off confidence scores. Each AI response has a confidence score, indicating how confident the AI is that its response is accurate.
At Omnie, Jordan likes to set up AI in phases, where the AI only answers when it's 100% confident. Anything less goes to an agent to avoid risking the customer experience.
You don't have to turn on AI for everything immediately — you can ramp up slowly.
Automation and AI also don't need to handle a ticket fully from end to end.
For example, if a customer wants to return something because they changed their mind, great. But if there’s an issue with the product, send it to someone on the retention team to try and salvage the sale. If it’s for particular reasons, automate the return.
📚 Related: Ecommerce returns: 10 best practices for taking your online store to the next level
Empathy and personalization are critical. At Omnie, Jordan and his team weren’t comfortable with automation a year ago because it felt robotic. But with new technology like ChatGPT, you can inject your brand tone and voice.
You could be funny, concise, chatty — whatever fits your brand.
They worked with Jason Momoa's water company, where the bot talks like him, making it a unique brand tone.
When AI is implemented properly, the customer thinks they’re talking to a human, as seen with Frye, a shoe company that’s been around since 1863. Omnie is saving them 240 hours a month of support time, automating nearly 800 tickets, and customers think they’re interacting with a human named Caleb.
To get started, determine your brand tone and voice. If you don’t have a brand book, figure out how you want to talk to your customer so it’s consistent.
📚 Related: New data shows 4 ways automation impacts customer service
As you ramp up, test in the playground before going live, especially for businesses with sensitive information. Monitor the metrics for success: customer satisfaction, escalation rate, automation rate, and customer sentiment. AI isn’t something you set up and walk away from — it requires constant maintenance.
Experience firsthand how Gorgias AI can transform your support strategy and save your team time by automating repetitive tasks and keeping your brand’s voice front and center. Book a demo now.
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TL;DR:
AI Agent is an autonomous AI support assistant designed specifically for ecommerce brands. Trained on your store’s Shopify data, policies, and brand guidelines, AI Agent responds to customer interactions with personalized, high-quality answers.
But is it the good type of AI?
As AI emerges more and more as a necessity for CX teams, there are a few common concerns among leaders. Worries that it will steal customer data, use data to enhance OpenAI’s LLM, or leverage shopper data for things outside of its scope are just a few.
To quell those concerns, we’ll go into the specifics of how AI Agent actually collects and uses data.
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Jump to an answer:
Gorgias’s AI Agent uses merchants’ unique data, including orders, ticket information, product catalogs, and store content, and then uses a blend of state-of-the-art LLMs, including OpenAI and Anthropic, to help it construct natural, human-like responses.
The information AI Agent has access to is approximately the same data as the one presented in the Shopify widget in the Gorgias helpdesk. We push this same information to AI Agent to compute the next step for the customer.
Some of the data permissions that AI Agent has when integrated with Shopify include access to all orders, all draft orders, order edits, fulfilments, products, customers, themes, discounts, scripts, and content.
AI Agent processes the information from the ticket to understand where to pull the relevant data from, such as correlating information from the account associated with the interaction as well as the intent of the message. Here’s how it works.
AI Agent first analyzes the content of the ticket to identify the key information and intent behind the customer's inquiry.
It correlates this information with the available data sources, such as Guidance your team sets up (which takes precedence over other knowledge sources), Help Center articles, Macros, and any other integrated knowledge bases.
AI Agent understands the context of the message and retrieves relevant data. If there are multiple sources of information, it determines which source is most pertinent to the query.
If the ticket has vague or insufficient information, AI Agent will ask clarifying questions to ensure it pulls the correct information.
Before sending the response, AI Agent undergoes an internal QA process where it verifies the information and creates an internal note for the merchant. This note includes information on what knowledge and Shopify data was used, and shows "reasoning" for the event if the QA failed.
Merchants or admins can provide feedback on whether the resolution was good or bad, and AI Agent uses this feedback to improve future responses.
Gorgias and AI Agent do not store shopper or customer data.
AI Agent operates under a zero data retention (ZDR) policy, meaning that once the request is processed, the data is not stored.
📚 Further reading: Our Master Service Agreement (MSA) and Data Processing Agreement (DPA) govern the use of all Gorgias services, including AI Agent. If you’d like to learn more, these terms detail the data we collect and how we use Artificial Intelligence.
Data privacy and security are top priorities for us, and our systems are designed to handle data in a secure manner without retaining personal or sensitive information.
AI Agent uses language models developed by OpenAI. OpenAI does not use customer data to train their models, and there is a zero data retention policy. Any data sent through the API is not stored beyond the duration needed to serve the request pulled.
Gorgias is SOC 2 Type II compliant and adheres to strict regulations and standards to ensure the privacy, security, and proper handling of sensitive data.
AI Agent and Gorgias comply with stringent data privacy regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), ensuring that shopper data is handled securely and responsibly without being used for model enhancement.
This approach ensures that shopper data remains private and is not utilized beyond the scope of providing immediate customer support.
“We were initially nervous about using AI, but it has quickly proven its worth. Our community members have even mistaken the AI Agent for a real person, which speaks volumes about how well it aligns with our brand voice.”
—Zoe Cranney, Community Experience Expert, LSKD
Yes! AI Agent was built not only to provide instant and accurate responses, but also with transparency in mind. For every interaction that AI Agent has, it provides you with an internal note that covers:
While no AI tool is capable of perfect accuracy 100% of the time, we put several safeguards in place to keep AI Agent from sending inaccurate information.
When AI Agent responds to a customer, it pulls from your team’s specific documents. Aside from the Guidance you set, which it prioritizes, AI Agent uses your Shopify order data, Macros, your brand’s webpages, as well as your Help Center.
Using AI Agent is unlike only relying on ChatGPT for answers, which uses broad information. AI Agent draws from your data only, making its responses highly accurate and personalized to your brand.
LLMs like OpenAI and Anthropic’s main role in AI Agent is to recognize and form natural-flowing responses. It can speak in different languages and tones to align with your brand voice. This, combined with your own internal knowledge sources, helps add that human touch that sets it apart from automated emails and bots.
As another layer of control, we let you define topics that AI Agent should completely ignore and hand over to your team.
For example, some topics — such as medical questions or legal threats — are too sensitive to handle with AI. You can add these to your Exclusion or Handover topics to ensure AI Agent does not respond to them.
You can improve AI Agent’s responses by providing feedback on how it handled tickets. You can either approve of its behavior or suggest adjustments to improve future interactions.
For example, when an influencer reached out to hip toddler carrier brand Wildride and said, “I really love you guys,” AI Agent replied, “Love you too ❤️❤️”.
Amber van den Berg, Head of Customer Experience, found this really funny, as it was exactly the type of response the team would have given. But if that response wasn’t quite right, or wasn’t on brand, they could have given AI Agent that feedback.
You have the choice of whether or not to disclose your use of AI in response generated by AI Agent.
However, for maximum legal protection, we recommend using your email signature to indicate that the message your customers receive has been created with AI.
Note: Some laws, such as the California Bolstering Online Transparency Act, prohibit misleading consumers about the use of automated artificial identities.
"I saw how well AI Agent was replying to customers and really started to think about how we could optimize it to work for us even more,” said Amber van den Berg, Head of Customer Experience at Wildride.
“Within one month, AI Agent was answering 33% of emails, which is quite impressive." This was essential for Wildride’s CX team after viral social media content bumped 1000 tickets per month to 1000 tickets per week.
Now, the team is freed up to focus on more complex issues, and AI Agent can fill in the rest.
Book a demo to see how AI Agent can work for you.
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Customer expectations continue to rise — around 82% of service pros say customers expect their requests to be resolved in less than three hours. Given the pressure to meet these climbing demands, more brands are turning to automation and AI.
It’s not only about providing a fast, helpful, and efficient customer experience. Brands must also stay ahead of the competition and adopt the latest tech for long-term success.
Luckily, brands like Shinesty are adopting tech like AI and automation to meet consumer demands. It’s worth it — since adopting automated CX in 2023, Shinesty’s resolution time has decreased by 50%, and their overall satisfaction rate is up.
In a recent workshop, Molly Wallace Kerrigan, the Marketing and CX Director at Shinesty, shared her team’s strategies for setting up automation, maintaining brand voice, and optimizing customer experience (CX).
You can also hear Molly share these insights herself by watching the workshop here:
Before using Gorgias Automate, Shinesty hired about 20 seasonal employees, including CX agents, to help with the peak holiday season. In 2023, they only hired two, bringing their total to five agents. It was clear that Automate saved them money.
“When Automate came along, it changed everything... We only hired two agents, raising our team from three to five. That was our biggest game changer with Gorgias.”
Molly shared their impressive journey to automating 54% of their CX tasks — a feat transforming their customer service operations, especially during high-demand periods like the holiday season. Most importantly, they achieved this without losing their brand’s personality.
Here’s how they did it:
First, Shinesty identified the most common customer inquiries that could be automated. They prioritized high-volume tasks such as WISMO (where is my order?), subscription cancellations, and account management. Automating these repetitive inquiries reduced the pressure on their human support agents.
Before rolling out automation, Shinesty cleaned up its helpdesk. The team re-evaluated existing workflows, removed outdated processes, and ensured their helpdesk was ready for automation. Laying the groundwork helped the team transition to automation more efficiently.
A key part of Shinesty’s strategy was empowering customers to find answers on their own. Molly emphasized the importance of creating simple, humorous help articles that resonate with their brand. Regular audits of these resources meant customers could self-serve more easily, reducing the need for human intervention.
AI-powered article recommendations help Shinesty identify ways to improve their use of automation. For example, AI suggested updating some existing help articles based on common customer questions, helping Shinesty address gaps proactively.
Instead of overhauling everything at once, Shinesty rolled out automation gradually. The team focused on key areas and then expanded. Eventually, they automated 54% of their CX tasks without overwhelming their team or compromising service quality.
Automation doesn’t mean eliminating human agents. Instead of getting bogged down in repetitive tasks, their small team of agents now has the chance to focus on more valuable tasks and specialize.
“With a smaller team, we could develop our agents more, giving them opportunities to specialize in different areas. Our satisfaction rate has increased, and our resolution time has decreased by 50%.”
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Molly strongly encourages businesses not to hesitate when it comes to adopting AI tools. “Don't be afraid. Just do it. AI is here to stay, and it's not going anywhere,” she emphasized.
Integrating AI into your CX strategy allows you to keep up with customer demands and position your brand ahead of the competition.
📚 Related reading: The hidden power and ROI of automated customer support
Molly’s advice is clear: AI is a game-changer for businesses looking to stay ahead. The tools are intuitive, easy to implement, and designed to enhance your team’s capabilities rather than replace them.
Gorgias’s AI Agent comes with pre-built templates that make it even easier to get started. These templates provide a solid foundation, allowing you to quickly set up automated responses and workflows that align with your brand’s tone and style. Molly pointed out, “The templates were a great starting point, and the guidance part was simple.”
By adopting AI, you can automate routine tasks and ensure consistent and empathetic customer interactions. Your team will also have more time to focus on more complex and valuable activities.
As Molly noted, AI allows your team “to develop beyond mindless tasks” and offers “empathetic responses without turning on the customer,” which can significantly improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Read more: How Shinesty automates 50%+ of tickets to offer great CX with a team of 5
Looking ahead, Gorgias is rolling out exciting new features for the AI Agent that will level up CX automation. One of the most anticipated upgrades is the ability to perform actions like canceling orders or changing addresses automatically — tasks that currently require human intervention.
Another upcoming feature is automated QA, which will enhance the quality assurance process by removing subjectivity and ensuring more consistent results.
Want to see how many routine tasks you could automate? Book a demo to see Gorgias’s AI Agent in action.
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According to our recent survey, 69.2% of respondents already use AI and automation in their roles, with support leaders and agents being the highest adopters.
However, in order to be successful, AI needs a robust knowledge base to learn from. The more knowledge and context, the smarter AI will be.
Below, find the tips you need to set up a great customer knowledge base in order to use AI most effectively.
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Aside from acting as a self service resource for customers, knowledge bases now serve a dual purpose — they also act as a data source that provides AI with the training it needs to accurately answer questions from your customers.
That’s the case for Gorgias’s AI Agent, an autonomous AI team member who can resolve customer inquiries without the involvement of humans. While teams also provide the AI with Guidance during the setup process, your knowledge base is the primary source for AI Agent to be onboarded, have a consistent source of truth, and provided faster and complete resolutions.
The more information you provide your AI with, the faster it will be able to deliver accurate responses — and the sooner your customer support team can move onto more important things than answering another WISMO request.
Building a quality knowledge base is essentially the first onboarding step for using AI in your customer service operations. It’s the main data source for AI, sort of like a handbook or manual. The more thorough the Help Center is, the less agents will have to tweak and guide AI at the start.
The more up-to-date and accurate your knowledge base is, the more accurate your AI’s responses to your customers will be. Errors or inconsistencies in knowledge bases can lead to flawed AI behavior.
The benefit of that is that AI will consistently intake any new information you add as long as your Help Center articles are updated. For example, brands who have new or different policies won't have to worry about setting aside time for AI to digest the new info –– it will automatically pull them from the Help Center.
📚Further reading: How your CX Team will evolve with AI
An AI customer support rep can resolve tickets 99.4% faster than human agents –– and that’s full resolutions, not just first responses! But those full resolutions will only be as helpful as your knowledge base is.
Quality data improves AI accuracy and efficiency. For CX, that quality data comes from a robust knowledge base.
For example, clothing brand Psycho Bunny was able to successfully implement AI Agent in part because of their thorough knowledge base.
They have articles that cover: Shipping & Delivery, Order Status, Returns & Exchanges, Buy Online Pick Up in Store, products & FAQs, and Payment & Billing.
“AI Agent helps immensely with data reporting and reducing human error, because it tags tickets accurately and follows processes consistently,” says Mary Mundy, Technical Support Specialist at Psycho Bunny.
Knowledge bases also enable AI systems to learn and adapt over time, especially if they’re consistently edited and updated to reflect new or changing policies or product information.
Adaptability is crucial for a high-performing CX team, and your AI tool needs to be able to rise to that challenge. That was the case for premium sport and travel accessory brand Vessel.
“I was a little bit hesitant about using AI Agent initially,” says Lauren Reams, their Customer Experience Manager.
“We knew that we were interested in more automation because we have had more customers reaching out, but weren’t sure that it would be able to meet their growing needs.
“It’s been incredible to see how adaptable AI Agent is, and how it can quickly pick up on the small things — for example, if something is a hot topic for us, you can see AI Agent start talking about it, and knowing when it’s something that needs to be handed off to our team.”
Now, Vessel boasts a 20% automation rate and a resolution time of just 1.06 minutes.
A reliable knowledge base fosters trust in AI systems. It’s a cycle: the better the information in your knowledge base is, the better your AI Agent can speak on your behalf.
For example, fine jewelry brand Baby Gold has built trust with customers through a more personalized AI experience.
“What I like about AI Agent is that the responses are so different, and it makes it sound like it's an actual agent,” says Sindi Melgar, Baby Gold’s Customer Service Manager.
“We've gotten feedback from customers who say, Michelle, has been helping me, Michelle did this for me, Michelle did that for me — so that's awesome. We provide personalized items, so we should provide a personalized experience and journey for our customers.”
Aside from being AI’s most knowledgeable sidekick, your Help Center is a prime self-service hub for customers.
They should be able to locate policies like shipping and returns and answers to product FAQs. If you want to go the extra mile like Baby Gold does, create a portal where shoppers can start a return, track or cancel an order, or report an issue.
This might go without saying, but customers won’t know your policies if you don’t clearly list them on your website. A policy section helps set expectations upfront and builds trust.
Some common policies to include are:
🛑 Challenge: Identifying your frequently asked questions manually, especially if you have a ton of tickets that come in on the daily, a wide variety of questions, or topics that require super personalized responses. Yes, you can source your brand’s specific FAQs manually by speaking to your agents, but you might not cover everything.
✅ Solution: Some frequently asked questions are pretty standard across ecommerce stores. Your shoppers will always need to know your shipping information, return and exchange policies, order cancellation windows, the status of their most recent order, and where they can reach out for 1:1 support.
If you use a helpdesk, you’ll likely be able to see an aggregate of top questions. With Automate, it's easy — customers' most asked questions are listed in your Overview dashboard with an option to automatically create a Help Center article for each, answer included.
📚Further reading: FAQ Pages: Examples, Benefits, and When to Add a Help Center
🛑 Challenge: Scaling your knowledge base to answer all relevant questions can be a daunting task, especially at the beginning.
✅ Solution: You don’t have to create your knowledge base from scratch! You can use an AI tool like ChatGPT to create it or, check out the 50 Help Center templates in this article to establish a solid foundation.
🛑 Challenge: If your knowledge base doesn’t accurately reflect how your brand engages with customers or how it shows up online, your AI won’t sound like you either.
✅ Solution: If your brand is all about personalization, for example, include that in a “Who we are” article in your Help Center like Baby Gold does.
“Sometimes agents forget personal details to call out when communicating with our customers, like birthdays or weddings,” says Sindi Melgar, Baby Gold’s Customer Service Manager, “But I noticed on a few different occasions where the AI Agent is highlighting these things and is saying, congratulations on your wedding! Just the tone of voice that our AI Michelle is able to adopt is definitely on brand for us.”
🛑 Challenge: Continuously updating the knowledge base to ensure it remains relevant can be time-consuming, especially the longer you wait to review it.
✅ Solution: Because AI is such a huge time saver, your team should have more time available to edit and maintain your knowledge base, as well as coach any AI tools you use. For example, Psycho Bunny sees 26% of all tickets resolved by AI Agent.
Schedule time each month or quarter, depending on how often your policies or products change to keep your knowledge base current and relevant. If your knowledge base has outdated information, your AI most certainly will, too.
📚Further reading: The Gorgias AI Approach: Onboard, Automate, Observe, and Coach
Gorgias’s AI Agent learns your policies and brand voice to autonomously handle support queries via email –– just like a human agent.
Our customers have found that it often doesn't matter if an agent or AI responds to a customer so long as a resolution is reached quickly.
That was the case for Ron Shah, CEO of health and wellness brand Obvi:
“People just want to know things fast; they want things quickly. As long as they're getting accurate responses, most people don't care how.”
Within the first four weeks of its launch, AI Agent supported 300 brands, 60 of which reached a 20% automation rate. It was able to process 10,000 messages in one week.
“These might look like modest numbers on a screen, but they’re translating to significant benefits for the people who monitor, manage, and innovate on ways to deliver exceptional customer experiences — and we feel grateful to be able to facilitate this shift,” says Gorgias CEO and Co-founder Romain Lapeyre.
Investing in and prioritizing high-quality knowledge bases will support both your CX team and your customers. Give your team time back, create better customer experiences, and get on the cutting edge of AI for customer support.
See AI Agent in action and book a demo.
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TL;DR:
Guess what? Automating your customer support doesn’t mean you don't care about every customer interaction—it’s quite the opposite.
Think about it… if someone wants to cancel an order, they simply want it done without any attempts at a personalized upsell. This type of response usually doesn’t require any additional flair.
Automation allows you to meet customers' needs promptly for straightforward requests. At the same time, it gives your team the bandwidth to invest more time and energy into solving intricate problems and building stronger customer relationships.
Many brands using Gorgias Automate features are saving both time and money, reducing response times, and even increasing sales generated directly from support.
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As a solopreneur, it’s pretty self-explanatory. You’re busy with all aspects of your business, so automating what you can is going to help you prioritize and focus on more important things.
But what about those who have customer support teams? This might sound counterintuitive, but Automate isn’t geared toward any specific type of brand.
It benefits everyone at every stage of growth, whether you’re a single founder who wears many hats or lead a large CS team at an enterprise business.
Take Obvi—this mid-market health and wellness brand has a lean CX team of only two support agents. Although surprising, given their size and stage of growth, they’ve been able to automate the tedious and repetitive parts of CX.
For example, during BFCM 2023, Obvi’s CEO Ron Shah decided to use Gorgias Automate to boost CX efficiency even further while still providing excellent customer support.
“I told our team we were going to onboard Automate for BFCM, so a good portion of tickets would be handled automatically. There was a huge sigh of relief knowing that customers were going to be taken care of.”
—Ron Shah, CEO and Co-founder at Obvi
Obvi now handles 150+ tickets per day without adding any headcount, thanks to a 27% automation rate—which they achieved within two weeks of onboarding Automate.
Even for enterprise brands with larger CX teams, Automate helps them deal with the huge influx of queries that don’t require a human response—things like, “Where’s my order?” or “Can you cancel my order?”
And it’s also more than the support teams who benefit. With more time given back to agents for strategic thinking, support teams can share helpful advice across the entire organization:
This way, customer support becomes less about the speed of ticket resolution and more about providing high-quality customer service that returns the favor with higher CLTV. How? Let’s review a few stories from brands using Automate.
💡 Pro Tip: Deflect WISMO tickets and let customers track their order by activating Order Management in your Automate settings. Go to Automate > your store > Order Management and toggle Track Order on.
Every brand eventually faces a common dilemma: how to scale efficiently while keeping customer experience high and costs low.
This was no different for Psycho Bunny, the vibrant menswear brand known for its edgy twist on classic styles and its iconic skull-and-crossbones rabbit logo. As the company grew, so did the challenge of maintaining top-notch customer support without skyrocketing overhead costs.
"As we continue to grow this multi-million dollar company, the most important thing is maintaining or improving our current KPIs and CSAT, but without raising our customer support overhead. And being able to maintain this for the next 5–10 years."
—Tosha Moyer, Senior Customer Experience Manager at Psycho Bunny
Recognizing the need for innovation, the team turned to AI for a solution, specifically through Gorgias. Quickly after setup, the team began trialing AI Agent and named it Lisa.
Gorgias’s conversational AI tool, AI Agent, is an extension of your team. Just like a new support agent, AI Agent can:
For Psycho Bunny, AI Agent quickly became a vital member of the team, resolving 26% of customer tickets with lightning speed—99.4% faster than human agents.
By handling repetitive questions like order status and returns, Lisa freed up human agents to tackle more complex and high-value customer interactions.
One of the standout features of AI Agent is its ability to respond with empathy and personalization, reflecting the specific information customers provide.
"We love the empathy in AI Agent’s responses," said Mary Mundy, Technical Support Specialist at Psycho Bunny. "Replacing a generic automated reply with a response that identifies the issues and has empathy, while communicating the key information the customer needs, is awesome."
The impact was immediate and impressive. Lisa answered queries 10 times faster than the team average, typically resolving tickets in under 2 minutes compared to the 4+ hours it took human agents.
Within the first two months, AI Agent shot to the top of Psycho Bunny’s customer support leaderboard for first response and resolution times, all while generating higher CSAT scores (4.67) than the team average (4.6).
💡 Pro Tip: Give your AI Agent some personality to match how your human agents speak. Go to Automate > your store > AI Agent > Configuration tab, and in the Tone of Voice dropdown menu, choose from Friendly, Professional, Sophisticated, or Custom tones.
Kirby Allison, the luxury shoe and garment care retailer, has been a staple for well-dressed customers since 2011. However, their growing success came with a hefty challenge: an overwhelming influx of customer support inquiries.
With just two dedicated team members handling a surge of repetitive questions and manual processes, Kirby Allison’s customer support team was stretched thin.
The pressure was on Addison Debter, Head of Customer Service, who not only managed customer queries but also juggled inventory management, product information updates, and website development.
"We were inundated with simple, repetitive questions: 'Where is my order?' 'What kind of shoe polish do I need?' We had to keep repeating similar answers to similar questions. And we were doing the exchanges and returns manually, one by one. We were losing so much time. We couldn't follow up with customers as quickly as we wanted," Addison shared.
The team wanted a better way to handle these tickets, so they switched from Zendesk to Gorgias, specifically for the automation features.
"Our favorite features are definitely Flows and Article Recommendations," Addison said. "They drive so much automation for us. 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."
Flows allow you to display up to six commonly asked questions directly in your chat widget. If a customer clicks on one of those questions, they’re redirected to articles from your knowledge base where they get the answer quickly. It’s an entirely self-serve experience.
Auto responses have also been impactful for this team. These work by using Rules to automatically reply to emails and messages based on the context of the customer's message.
The results? Within just two months, Kirby Allison saw a 23% increase in conversions and a staggering 46% boost in sales from support.
Automating responses to pre-sales questions freed up the team to engage in conversations that led to sales, improving both revenue and efficiency.
💡 Not sure which FAQs to include in your Chat? Check out our list of 50+ FAQ templates here.
The holidays are always difficult for support teams. The stakes are high, and so is the influx of support tickets.
Thankfully, customers can get the answers and guidance they need faster and more easily via self-serve order management, Flows, and AI-driven Article Recommendations.
Shinesty, the brand that’s all about making the world take itself less seriously, started out selling wacky vintage suits. Nowadays, they’re best known for their men’s underwear range, including the signature Ball Hammocks, which promise booty bliss and scrotal serenity.
Shinesty also offers a subscription service, delivering a fresh pair of underwear each month with exclusive prints and discounts.
As with many ecommerce brands, Shinesty’s peak sales period spans from Black Friday through Christmas. The year-round customer support team of three builds up to 20 agents during the holidays to handle this surge.
For the 2023 holiday season, Molly Kerrigan, Senior Director of Retention, aimed to boost efficiency through automation. The goal? Help the CX team work smarter, not harder, and maintain their stellar customer satisfaction without increasing headcount.
“We get a lot of praise from our customers, and they talk highly of our CX team after 1:1 interactions. We can’t lose that as we scale,” Molly emphasized.
The team was swamped with repetitive questions about order status, discounts, and account management—all important queries but ones that don’t necessarily build customer relationships. Self-service solutions seemed like the answer, but previous tools struggled with Shinesty’s subscription model complexities
“Other tools required a high level of customization to handle the subscription element. But Gorgias Automate has been straightforward,” said Molly.
After seeing the impact early, Molly and her team doubled down on optimizing their use of Automate, specifically for
These automations are accessible via Chat, the Help Center, or the Contact Form, giving customers fast answers without needing to speak to an agent.
📚 Read more: Offer more self-serve options with flows: 10 use cases & best practices
Shinesty’s Flows are so effective that many have an automation rate of over 90%, meaning they resolve customer inquiries 90% of the time without human intervention.
Automate helped Shinesty significantly save on recruitment, training, and overtime costs. Shinesty’s first response time has dropped by 65% and resolution time by 69%. This has resulted in the fastest resolution times Shinesty has ever seen, with the smallest CX team they’ve ever had—just five agents for the 2023 peak season, compared to 20 in 2021 and 12 in 2022.
Today, shoppers expect a high-quality shopping experience, and we know that they love having the power to solve problems on their own, on their schedule. In fact, 84% say a company's customer experience is as important as its products and services.
While we’ve seen how Automate can help you meet those expectations, a core component to making all of the flows work effectively is a customer knowledge base. This is crucial for any effective customer support automation strategy. Why?
A few reasons:
A knowledge base is an interactive portal that connects your customers to both sales and customer service. That means making it easy for them to find answers before making a purchase and helping them troubleshoot any possible issues afterward.
This brand’s Help Center shines with its customer-focused design.
At the top of the page, it addresses common questions like returns policy and product compatibility, allowing customers to find answers quickly without scrolling. To enhance the shopping experience, BrüMate offers an interactive quiz that guides customers to the perfect product, saving them the hassle of extensive research.
The Help Center also includes easily accessible links for package tracking and returning to the main site, with a chat bubble for immediate assistance. When the customer service team is offline, customers can still access helpful articles.
💡 Did you know? You can teach AI Agent information from specific URLs! Simply go to Automate > AI Agent > Configuration > Knowledge > Public URL sources.
“We’ve started pushing people towards resources that are in our Help Center. We're trying to help our customers self-solve.”
—Colin Waters, leading at The Feed & former Associate Director of Customer Experience at BrüMate
By integrating Automate into your customer support strategy, you can significantly reduce your team's workload. Gorgias Automate is proven to be able to handle 30% of inquiries autonomously within just 30 days.
Curious about how Automate can benefit your business? Book a demo to learn about the advantages of Gorgias Automate and AI Agent and see firsthand how they can transform your customer support operations.
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TL;DR:
Your customer experience team is considering investing in AI and automation, but you might be wondering: What will happen to your team after?
They aren’t going anywhere.
Instead, your team has more time to tackle high-priority work that often gets put on the back burner, like:
We’ve found that automating just 30% of your incoming ticket load can take on the work of three support agents. Overall, AI is a tool that can streamline customer service work and make your agents' lives easier.
Just as a helpdesk unifies all customer messages and removes the part of the process where agents have to jump between inboxes, AI eliminates the grunt work of reading and resolving repetitive tickets and more.
Automating tickets opens a world of opportunity for your support agents. Let’s break down how your CX team will evolve once AI joins the party.
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One of the biggest benefits of incorporating AI within your ecommerce CX strategy is encouraging your team to become AI coaches.
When you automate “traditional” CX tasks, like answering incoming tickets, your team gains back time to provide feedback to continuously improve your AI and create more effective processes.
Empowering your human agents to become AI coaches could happen in multiple scenarios, such as:
Psycho Bunny uses Gorgias’s conversational AI tool, AI Agent, to automate 26% of customer tickets, providing empathetic and personalized responses to customer questions rather than generic auto-replies.
An incoming customer inquiry may occasionally require an agent to refer to internal, non-public information. At Psycho Bunny, AI Agent uses Guidance to leverage internal information and prompts to properly resolve or escalate issues as needed.
“The Guidance feature is so important because we have a lot of processes that we definitely don't want described in a customer-facing article, but we want AI Agent to be able to access that information and manage tickets accordingly,” says Tosha Moyer, Senior Customer Experience Manager at Psycho Bunny.
AI can handle most of your incoming repetitive questions, like “Where’s my order?” or “What’s my size?” but where it falls short is tackling high-priority issues, like a question asked shortly after a purchase is made.
When it comes to ticket prioritization, we recommend using AI to handle low-priority tickets to free up your team to solely take care of the most pressing customer issues. Low-priority tickets are not time-sensitive or tied to generating a sale, making them perfect candidates for automation.
With AI handling easy-to-resolve issues, your team can focus on high-priority and revenue-related requests. High-priority tickets include those tied to revenue, such as VIP or returning customer inquiries, escalated cases like potential bad reviews, and conversations needing immediate responses via SMS or live chat.
Every conversation with a customer is an opportunity to drive a sale.
Your support team is on the frontline of customer interactions. No one knows your brand's customers and their pain points better.
When you allow AI to manage ticket loads, the nature of your team changes from simply managing grunt work to becoming more like sales associates.
This is an opportunity for agents to think beyond answering tickets and to become cross-functional partners across the brand, providing more value to the business overall by:
Manduka implemented Gorgias Convert, an ecommerce marketing tool designed to turn first-time shoppers into repeat customers. Using onsite campaigns, Convert leverages audience segmentation to provide proactive and personalized interactions to increase conversions and boost average order value.
For instance, when an online shopper looks likely to leave Manduka’s website and meets certain conditions, a discount code campaign is triggered if customers sign up for email or SMS marketing messages.
Between April and August 2023, Manduka’s on-site Convert campaign saw:
“Gorgias Convert is amazing, we highly recommend it,” says Jessica Botello, Customer Service Manager at Manduka. “Gorgias Convert is almost a one-to-one translation of the in-person retail experience to the online retail experience where that wasn't available before.”
(For anyone considering implementing Convert, we also offer a Convert Bootcamp to get CX teams up and running in just a few weeks.)
When AI can automatically handle the bulk of incoming customer inquiries, you can put your human team on channels that push conversations and higher lifetime value (LTV).
Here are some ways to enhance your customer experiences:
Caela Castillo, Director of CX at JAXXON, notes that automation is not a total replacement for agents but a tool that provides instant information to shoppers while allowing agents to focus on more critical, revenue-generating tickets.
While Automate automatically resolves 37% of their tickets, JAXXON agents have more time to attend to higher-impact conversations, such as escalations and particular product-related questions. In addition, they can spend more time in the back end of their helpdesk by creating engaging chat campaigns and improving their self-service resources.
AI makes agents' jobs more strategic.
With a bulk of tickets automatically managed, your team can spend less time putting out small fires. Agents can identify trends in customer interactions and make better-informed decisions that affect more than the CX team.
The key is to share insights and collaborate with other teams to improve the business as a whole.
Here are specific insights to share with certain teams:
Topicals wanted to reduce the high number of returned products by providing more helpful information to shoppers before they went to the checkout, so they leveraged Gorgias Automate to handle 69% of incoming tickets.
With Automate, Topicals’ return rate dropped significantly, and sales from customer support increased by 78%. Agents also gained free time to think more strategically about the customer experience overall. Thanks to improved pre-sales conversations, customer satisfaction scores are now at 4.8/5.
As a result, the Topicals team now better understands what types of customer experience generate more sales and higher satisfaction scores. Best of all, they can leverage these insights to continuously fine-tune the experience.
“Being able to track customer satisfaction scores in Gorgias is a really big help to us. Before, we didn't know if we were doing well or not, but now we can see people like the service we provide. And we use the KPI tracking data for internal monthly meetings to review performance and see where we can improve.”
— Deja Jefferson, Customer Experience Manager at Topicals
There’s a lot of fear around AI. We get it — change is hard (and scary).
It’s important to choose a tool you can trust. At Gorgias, AI and automation aren’t new trends. From Automate to AI Agent, Gorgias has led the revolution in AI-driven customer support solutions for 15,000 ecommerce brands.
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