CX Design
Why Your Strategy Needs Customer Service Quality Assurance
TL;DR:
- Manual QA is time-consuming and inconsistent. Reviewing conversations manually makes it difficult to ensure uniform quality across agents and touchpoints.
- Automating QA saves time and improves accuracy. Automation ensures all tickets are reviewed with the same quality, freeing up agent time to create stronger customer connections.
- QA helps teams continuously improve. It enables better agent training and brings forth actionable feedback to exceed customer expectations.
- Implement QA one step at a time. Begin by setting KPIs, introducing small changes, and investing in automation tools to streamline and measure success effectively.
Forrester’s 2024 Customer Experience Index reports that 39% of brands’ customer experience (CX) quality has declined over the past year.
It can be challenging to get a full understanding of how your team –– and AI, if you use it –– are truly performing.
This is true even with metrics like CSAT.
“A 5-point scale only tells you and your agents so much, and relying on consumers providing feedback further limits what you’re able to look at and learn from,” says Kayla Oberlin, Senior Manager of Customer Experience at amika.
Quality Assurance (QA) is becoming a more crucial component of a customer experience strategy, especially one that prioritizes customer happiness.
We’ll cover the importance of customer service QA, best practices, tools, and tips to implement QA effectively.
🗺️ This article at-a-glance
- What is QA (Quality Assurance) in CX?
- Why QA is critical for customer experience
- Best practices for implementing QA in CX
- Challenges
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What is QA (Quality Assurance) in CX?
In the CX context, QA (Quality Assurance) refers to reviewing customer conversations to improve your support team’s performance and enhance customer satisfaction. QA ensures a consistent and satisfying customer journey across touchpoints, including your website, support channels, and social media.
Common QA pain points for CX teams
Aside from accuracy issues, a manual quality assurance process is:
- Time-consuming: Manual conversation reviews are slow and labor-intensive.
- Limited visibility: It’s difficult to get a clear, scalable view of team and AI performance.
- Inconsistent: Maintaining uniform quality across customer service teams can be tough.
- Resource allocation: Difficulty in ensuring the right skills, training, and resources are in place.
- CSAT limitations: Negative scores often reflect policies, not agent performance.
The solution isn’t for CX teams to skip the QA process altogether but to automate it.
According to research from McKinsey, “A largely automated QA process could achieve more than 90 percent accuracy — compared to 70 to 80 percent accuracy through manual scoring — and savings of more than 50 percent in QA costs.”
With an automated QA process, brands can:
- Save time: Automated quality checks help support agents to focus on the most critical tickets.
- Ensure consistency: Both human agents and AI agents are evaluated with a unified, comprehensive QA score.
- Boost performance: Agents receive targeted coaching to provide more consistent customer experiences.
- Meet customer expectations: Customers benefit from higher-quality support with quicker resolutions and accurate responses.
Why QA is critical for customer experience
According to Statista, 94% of customers are more likely to purchase again after receiving top-notch support. Quality assurance ensures that every customer gets the same experience, and provides agents with the feedback to learn and stay on-brand with each resolution.
At its core, QA:
- Prevents errors
- Ensures consistency
- Builds trust with customers
- Helps with personalization
- Aids in better coaching and training
- Offers opportunities for continuous improvement
Prevent errors
Addressing errors early is important, as even small mistakes can harm customer trust and create lasting negative impressions. QA tools can prevent mistakes because of better coaching and training. This can stop misinformation in its tracks –– and from escalating into bigger problems down the line.
Ensure consistency
QA makes sure that all customer touchpoints, like calls, emails, live chat, and even AI responses, are handled with the same level of care. This is especially helpful when training new team members, introducing new products or policies, or during high-traffic periods.
Build trust
Consistent and reliable experiences build customer trust and loyalty. If you were to reach out to a brand and have an amazing experience the first time but a bad experience the next, you’d probably question which experience was the norm.
Top-notch experiences that happen time and time again tell your customers that you’ll always be there to help. This can boost repeat sales and even referrals: According to Statista, 82% of customers recommend a brand after a great experience.
Personalize experiences
Aside from increasing happiness and making customers feel heard and appreciated, personalized support also affects your bottom line. Statista notes that 80% of businesses found that providing personalized customer experiences led to increased spending for consumers.
Aids in better coaching and training
With QA, teams are able to rate and review all tickets instead of spot-checking. This provides them with a:
- Quicker turnaround on coaching opportunities
- Wider volume of tickets they can review, learn from, and use for training
- Better understanding of when a Macro or a process is leading to incomplete or unhelpful conversations
- Bigger opportunity for constructive feedback and flow improvements that are based on real responses and not frustrations with brand policies
Continuously improve
Whether it’s lowering resolution times, introducing a knowledge base, or adding an AI agent to your team, making continuous improvements will help you stay ahead of the competition.
Implementing a QA program (especially if you can automate it) is one of those additions that provides you with the refinements you need on a resolution-to-resolution level.
Best practices for implementing QA in CX
QA best practices include:
- Establish a baseline for metrics and KPIs
- Monitor and evaluate regularly
- Implement automation tools
- Collect customer feedback
Establish a baseline for metrics and KPIs
As you set out to integrate a Quality Assurance process into your CX program, first establish benchmarks for various metrics and KPIs. These benchmarks help track and evaluate the performance of QA as you implement it.
If you don’t already track customer support metrics, CSAT, first response time (FRT), resolution time, and net promoter score (NPS) are great ones to start with.
💡Tip: If you use Gorgias, you’ll find your current support performance statistics in the Statistics menu. Make sure that you can see back at least six months. Then, compare an equal time frame for post-QA implementation.
Monitor and evaluate regularly
While it might sound a bit “meta” to monitor your quality assurance (which is already monitoring your support responses), it’s still worth noting.
Ensure that your QA process works smoothly, helps your metrics rather than hurts them, and provides actual helpful feedback to your agents.
Implement automation tools
The simplest way to maintain your support quality standards is to use an automated QA tool. Automating the QA process lets CX teams get deeper insights into agent strengths and areas for improvement, and captures deeper insights than a CSAT score could.
Collect customer feedback
Understanding how customers feel will allow you to fine-tune your processes and ensure you’re delivering a consistent and high-quality experience. Here are a few ways to collect feedback:
- Surveys and reviews - Post-interaction surveys or direct reviews provide real-time feedback on what customers think of their experience.
- Social listening and real-time feedback - Monitoring online reviews, social media mentions, and customer comments offers insight into how your customers are feeling that might not be captured through formal surveys.
Challenges of adding QA
Lack of resources, ineffective training, poor communication between team members, not having the right tools, and doing everything manually are some of the challenges you can encounter when adding a QA process.
Here are a couple of solutions we recommend:
- Start with phased rollouts. Rather than rolling out a QA process across your whole team, let more seasoned agents experiment with it first to give you feedback and make tweaks.
- Make incremental improvements. Changing an entire CX process at once to include QA can be overwhelming. We recommend making small changes (like starting to send CSAT surveys if you don’t already) one at a time. These changes will allow you to better measure what’s really working.
- Invest in better technology. A manual QA process can be more time-consuming than helpful. Look for an automated QA tool that’s already integrated into your helpdesk. It will allow you to measure AI and agent responses equally, while also measuring results from a handy dashboard.
Ensure customer experience meets quality standards
By prioritizing QA, your team can identify potential problems early, reduce errors, and improve overall performance, leading to a smoother, more reliable experience for customers –– and your CX team.
In the long run, brands that focus on QA can gain a competitive edge, building stronger relationships with customers and driving sustainable growth. Book a demo now.
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TL;DR:
- AI Agent reduces workload and prevents burnout for CX teams. It handles routine queries and allows your human agents to focus on providing a higher level of service where it's needed most.
- AI Agent is secure and compliant with industry standards. Gorgias uses a zero data retention policy and follows strict security regulations, including SOC 2 Type II certification.
- AI Agent delivers personalized, on-brand responses. Custom Guidance and data from sources like Shopify allow AI Agent to maintain brand consistency while providing tailored customer interactions.
- Real-world success stories show tangible results with AI Agent. Brands like Psycho Bunny and Baby Gold have seen significant improvements in response times and resolution rates by implementing AI Agent.
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:
- Start with the benefits
- Outline the data & security safeguards in place
- Highlight its brand accuracy and personalization
- Share success stories
- Set expectations
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Start with the benefits
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:
- ⏰ 24/7 availability: AI Agent operates around the clock, ensuring that customer inquiries are addressed promptly at any time, including weekends and holidays.
- 🏔️ Scalability: AI Agent can handle a high volume of inquiries simultaneously without any decrease in performance. This scalability is particularly valuable during peak times like BFCM.
- 🚀 Efficiency and speed: AI Agent can process and respond to queries much faster than human agents, leading to quicker resolutions and improved customer satisfaction.
- 🦎Adaptability: AI Agent can quickly adapt to new information, products, or changes in policies immediately – all you have to do is add them to your knowledge docs and to the Guidance you set.
- 🦾 Full control: You stay in full control of how AI Agent behaves in specific scenarios. Give AI Agent custom Guidance to ensure that each interaction with your customers reflects your brand’s values, policies and tone.
📚 Further reading: Our AI Approach: Onboard, Automate, Observe, and Coach
Outline the data & security safeguards in place
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
Highlight its brand accuracy and personalization
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.”
Ensure certain topics are handed over or excluded
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
Provide feedback on responses
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
Prioritize your team’s docs
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
Share success stories
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.”
Set expectations
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.
AI Agent use cases
These are the top AI Agent use cases that we recommend:
- Where is my order? (WISMO) inquiries
- Product-related questions
- Returns
- Order issues
- Cancellations
- Discounts (including BFCM)
- Customer feedback
- Account management
- Collaboration requests
The specific actions you currently can configure for AI Agent include:
- Cancel an order in Shopify
- Edit a shipping address in Shopify
- Send Loop Returns portal deep link
- Send return shipping status from Loop Returns
- Cancel a subscription in Recharge
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.
Enhance your brand reputation and build trust
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:
- AI Agent adapts to your brand's unique tone of voice. Choose from three default voice options (Friendly, Professional, and Sophisticated), or create countless types of tone with the Custom option.
- Aligning AI with your brand voice builds consistency. A consistent tone in customer interactions helps build trust and brand loyalty.
- Specify what AI Agent can and can’t say. Like your human agents, tell AI Agent your brand do’s and don’ts. From going all out with fun and emoji-filled replies to avoiding certain words, use custom instructions to make AI Agent sound distinctly on-brand.
People are only able to identify AI-generated content 46.9% of the time. That’s less than half the time!
In the ecommerce customer service industry, this is just one reason teams are getting more comfortable with using AI.
Better language processing abilities mean AI can be a better extension of CX teams, relieving agents of repetitive questions, like where is my order?, while speaking in a way that’s familiar and delightful to customers.
Upholding a strong brand voice should be one of your top priorities in CX. With Gorgias’s AI Agent, you can choose AI Agent’s exact tone of voice, from sophisticated to fun. Below, check out seven AI Agent brand voice examples from real customer conversations.
“We’ve had customers respond to the AI thinking they were speaking to a real person. That’s how elevated the response was from AI.”
—Emily McEnany, Senior CX Manager at Dr. Bronner’s
What is Tone of Voice?
Tone of Voice refers to how AI Agent communicates with your customers. In Gorgias, you can select from three pre-built tone options:
- Friendly
- Professional
- Sophisticated
Or, you can create a custom tone, keeping your brand guidelines, style guide, and target audience in mind.
Note: AI Agent and Tone of Voice are only available to Gorgias Automate subscribers.
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7 Tone of Voice Examples for AI Agent to Match Your Brand's Style
Explore how effectively AI Agent adapts to seven distinct tones in the examples below. First, we’ll show you what a preset AI Agent tone option sounds like, then we’ll move on to six examples using custom instructions.
Feel free to copy and paste our provided instructions to set up your AI Agent with the custom tone of your choice, or, even better, take some inspiration to create your own.
1. Friendly
A friendly AI Agent is the go-to for most CX teams. A Friendly tone of voice is outgoing and welcomes inquiries with enthusiasm. If you were to imagine the model support agent, they would speak like this.
The Friendly tone of voice is available by default in AI Agent’s settings.
How it looks in action
Here’s how an AI Agent with a Friendly tone of voice responds to a customer asking for samples and coupons:
2. Direct and brief
Now, we move away from AI Agent’s default Tone of Voice options and toward the vast possibilities of the Custom option.
If you prefer your AI Agent get to the point in as few words as possible, create a Custom tone of voice that breaks up text into separate lines, limits paragraphs to two to three sentences, and keeps responses short.
💡 Tip: Access a custom tone of voice by going to Automate > AI Agent > Settings > Tone of Voice > Custom. A text field will appear where you can write your instructions.
Tone of voice instructions:
Acknowledge the customer's feelings by briefly repeating their initial concern(s). Break text up, don’t send entire paragraphs, and keep responses short and easy to read. Keep interactions brief but filled with empathy. We are not long-winded. Keep an informative tone while remaining professional, clear, and easy for customers to follow. Insert links where needed. Don't use too many adjectives when expressing empathy. Never tell the customer to email support or contact our customer service team.
How it looks in action
Here’s how an AI Agent with a direct and brief tone of voice responds to a customer who wants to cancel their order:
3. Fun (with lots of emojis! 🤗)
Who says support agents can’t have personality? Bring some fun into your conversations by creating a custom tone of voice that allows your AI Agent to use emojis and exclamation points.
Tone of voice instructions:
Greet with first name only. Acknowledge the customer's feelings by repeating their initial concern(s). Be concise and provide shorter responses, try to keep your responses to a few sentences. Use a warm, positive, and engaging—like chatting with a helpful, considerate friend. Sign off with "Best Regards". Avoid jokes or comments related to sensitive topics. Make the customer feel like a friend. You can include approved emojis for a personal touch and exclamation points. Approved emojis to use: 💞🫶✨🥰💖🎀💓💘🥳💗💕💯 You should recognize and celebrate personal milestones mentioned by customers, making the interaction feel more personal. After the customer's initial message, there's no need to restate their issue in follow-up responses.
How it looks in action
Here’s how an AI Agent with a fun tone of voice responds to a customer asking about exchanging their damaged product:
4. Comforting
Customer support often gets a bad rep. Customers anticipate long response times and unpleasant interactions. Flip customer expectations by giving your AI Agent a calming and comforting voice that can instantly fix negative experiences.
💡 Tip: Brands in the wellness and baby industry would do well to use a comforting tone of voice for their AI Agent.
Tone of voice instructions:
Our brand embodies the role of a nurturing parent, promoting happiness, growth, and well-being while creating moments of joy and inspiration. Stay genuine and reflect childlike wonder without being overly sentimental. We maintain a positive and supportive tone, offering a safe, comforting space. Avoid admitting fault or apologizing. Be shorter in replies. Do not offer replacements. Do not give out phone numbers.
How it looks in action
Here’s how an AI Agent with a comforting tone of voice responds to a customer asking about exchanging their damaged product:
5. Bro-y
Give your AI Agent a laid-back, “we’ve got your back” vibe that feels like chatting with a buddy. This tone keeps things casual, approachable, and like you’re ready to tackle any issue together.
Tone of voice instructions:
Sound like a gym bro. Speak casually and friendly. Be eager to help. However, do not go overboard with puns or stereotypical phrases. You may use the following emojis: 🤙💪🏋️ End responses with "Stay awesome,"
How it looks in action
Here’s how an AI Agent with a bro-y tone of voice responds to a customer asking about glove sizing:
6. Punny
If your brand isn’t afraid to lean into humor and puns, this tone will definitely connect with your audience. Let your AI Agent use wit and clever wordplay to keep conversations lighthearted and customers smiling at their screens.
Tone of voice instructions:
Speak in bee and honey puns and use colorful emojis. Use at least one emoji per message. Keep your messages brief. Sign off with a different pun in every conversation. If a customer is upset or needs urgent help, avoid puns.
How it looks in action
Here’s how an AI Agent with a punny tone of voice responds to a customer asking about suit sizes:
7. Bonus: Robotic
In all of our examples, AI Agent responses can easily be mistaken for one of your human agents. But if, for any reason, you want to change that by making your AI Agent sound robotic — it’s possible.
Tone of voice instructions:
Sound like a robot. Make robot sounds and puns. Use short, direct, and easy-to-read sentences.
How it looks in action
Here’s how an AI Agent with a robotic tone of voice responds to a customer asking about exchanging their damaged product:
Say it how you want with AI Agent
Like a chameleon, AI Agent adapts to your brand voice. Whether it’s friendly, professional, or a custom tone, you can be sure that every interaction aligns with your brand’s identity.
With AI Agent on your side, you have the power to make each conversation feel authentic. Take it from Psycho Bunny’s Senior Customer Experience Manager Tosha Moyer who says, “The overall tone is good, and its responses are really excellent.”
Ready to see AI Agent’s excellence for yourself? Book a demo and discover how AI Agent can be a permanent part of your team.
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Featured articles
How to Leverage Tools to Manage a High Volume of Sales on TikTok Shop
TikTok Shop generated 68.1% of gross market value sales across all social media platforms in 2024 and $3.8 billion in sales in 2023. Clearly, it’s becoming a massive channel with abundant opportunities for sellers.
To effectively harness TikTok Shop, however, brands with high-volume sales need to understand the specific challenges they will face when launching on the social platform.
Many of these are operational, like maintaining an accurate inventory list between platforms, supporting customers efficiently, and fulfilling a large number of orders.
When used together, AfterShip Feed and Gorgias can help you overcome these operational hurdles and start selling on TikTok Shop sooner.
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Streamline order management & customer support on TikTok Shop
TikTok Shop is the commerce-enabled side of TikTok, where brands and creators can list their products for sale. Shoppers then make a purchase through shoppable (in-feed) videos, live shopping, or product showcases. The app aims to provide a “frictionless checkout experience,” enabling shoppers to engage with their favorite accounts and add-to-cart in a flash.
While setting up a TikTok Shop is relatively simple, if you already run an ecommerce store that does a high volume of sales, adding TikTok Shop as an additional channel will be a little more complex. Thankfully, tools like AfterShip Feed and Gorgias can help you solve many operational issues and provide the same best-in-class customer experience on TikTok Shop as you do on your other channels..
Here’s a highlight reel on how you can implement both tools to improve efficiency and customer satisfaction, tackling issues like fulfillment or customer support inquiries from the same customers on different channels.
Centralize customer support with Gorgias
800+ Gorgias customers currently use the TikTok Shop integration. It’s quick and easy to connect. With it, you can:
Manage all customer interactions in one place
Coordinating customer support across different channels can be a pain. With Gorgias, however, you’ll be able to manage inquiries more efficiently and handle all shoppers’ messages by responding to TikTok Shop inquiries directly from Gorgias using text, images, and videos.
Additionally, you can address order-related issues and manage cancellations, returns, and refunds from TikTok Shop in the same Gorgias dashboard you use for your existing channels.
Automate ticket creation
Leverage Gorgias’s automated ticket creation to reduce First Response Time (FRT) and ensure that you don’t miss a single customer inquiry from TikTok Shop. Save time by handling repetitive tasks (like order status updates) with automation.
Enhance customers’ experience
Enabling the Gorgias TikTok Shop integration will allow you to maintain better control over communication and provide a consistent customer experience. Customers shopping via TikTok Shop will benefit from quicker responses, improving overall satisfaction and boosting brand loyalty.
Simplify operations with AfterShip Feed
AfterShip Feed is a reliable TikTok Shop management tool with 1,800 customers. It auto-syncs products, inventory, and orders between TikTok Shop and ecommerce platforms.
Partner AfterShip Feed with TikTok Shop to:
List on TikTok Shop more efficiently
AfterShip Feed makes listing high volumes of products on TikTok Shop easier through bulk uploads and editing, enabling you to update up to 10,000 SKUs at once.
It uses AI to add key product details and keep your product listings accurate and consistent. Tools like category templates and product ID generation make it even easier to list your full catalog.
Safeguard your revenue
AfterShip Feed has several features that will help you avoid lost revenue, especially during busy times like BFCM.
Inventory threshold
Inventory threshold helps you determine the minimum amount of inventory you need to have on hand to avoid selling out or buying too much. You can also set a fixed amount of inventory aside for TikTok Shop.
Price rules
Price rules help you set the ideal prices for each item you sell to protect your profit margins.
Fulfillment hold
A fulfillment hold stops an order at the fulfillment stage to ensure sufficient funds on the customer side, sufficient stock on yours—or to solve another issue behind the scenes. TikTok Shop has a standard 1-hour fulfillment hold, which can cause issues with inventory syncing on your main ecommerce platform.
Streamline order management
AfterShip Feed supports multiple fulfillment methods and integrates with many returns solutions. Sync orders from TikTok Shop with your existing fulfillment systems, ensuring timely and accurate deliveries. You can sync up to 24,000 orders to Shopify per hour.
Other features include order ID, shipping method, and product-SKU mapping.
Which are the top-grossing TikTok Shop industries?
Two industries in particular see massive sales from TikTok Shop: beauty and personal care, and womenswear and underwear. According to a 2024 report from Statista, the beauty category saw over 370 million sales and women’s fashion 284 million sales in 2023.
The beauty category alone has generated almost $2.5 billion in GMV, while the womenswear category has seen $1.39 billion.
If your brand belongs to one of these categories, including Gorgias and AfterShip Feed in your TikTok Shop toolkit could be a great fit for you.
Gorgias and AfterShip create better experiences
Pairing Gorgias and AfterShip Feed will help you deliver a fantastic customer experience and grow your business on TikTok Shop.
A Complete Guide to Black Friday Ecommerce in 2024
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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What is Black Friday - Cyber Monday?
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.
Why you need to prepare for BFCM now
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.
In-person BFCM experiences are out, and ecommerce is in
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.
Consumers are eager to spend despite concerns about inflation
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.
Brand familiarity matters
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.
Get proactive rather than reactive
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
Pre-Black Friday preparation: What to do before the holiday
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.
1. Update key policies on your website before BFCM
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.”
Returns and exchanges
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.
Shipping and fulfillment
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.
Lost packages
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)
Automate self-service options
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:
- Shipping policy: Will my items arrive by the holidays?
- Get a gift recommendation: Can you help me find a gift for a friend?
- Return policy: Can I return a gifted item?
- BFCM discounts: Do you offer any holiday discounts?
Related reading: Offer more self-serve options with Flows: 10 use cases & best practices
2. Reduce strain on your customer service team
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%
3. Build a marketing campaign to tap into social commerce
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:
Partner with influencers to generate brand awareness
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.
Create content that focuses on your store’s Black Friday deals
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.
Put a little money behind your most successful organic social media posts
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:
- Prompt your customers to sign up for an SMS reminder or push notification on their smartphones or mobile devices.
- Give early sale access to email subscribers, incentivizing customers to build a deeper relationship with your brand.
- Pin the sale date and deal information at the top of your social media profiles, especially Instagram.
How to maximize revenue during BFCM in 2 steps
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.
1. Increase customer touchpoints to keep shoppers engaged
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:
- AI-powered cross-sell campaigns to offer product recommendations.
- Up-sell campaigns to showcase higher-priced items.
- Share timely discounts, free shipping, or valuable product insights.
- Offer 1:1 support with a smooth hand-off to Gorgias Live Chat.
- Leverage Shopify browsing data to offer product recommendations.
- Set up onsite campaigns without any coding.
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.
How to retain new customers you get during BFCM
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.
1. Offer a discount for next time
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.
2. Invite customers to join a loyalty program
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.
3. Continue to improve your customer experience strategy
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.
Give your ecommerce strategy a boost this holiday shopping season
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:
- A reduction in BFCM returns or exchanges
- Having the perfect amount of inventory
- Seeing higher-than-average sustained engagement on your social channels
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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Building Customer Loyalty Through Effective Post-Purchase Support and Automation in Ecommerce
Let's talk about something that often gets overlooked in ecommerce: what happens after someone hits that "Place Order" button. You might think the hard part's over once you've made the sale, but here's the thing the post-purchase experience can make or break your relationship with customers.
In today's competitive online marketplace, those relationships are everything — especially considering that loyal customers spend an average of 67% more per purchase than new customers.
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The importance of post-purchase support and automation in ecommerce
Providing an excellent post-purchase customer experience can turn one-time customers into loyal advocates who are more likely to make repeat purchases and recommend your brand to others.
It's all about the customer experience
When someone buys from your store, they're not just getting a product — they're starting a relationship with your brand.
A great post-purchase experience shows customers you actually care about their satisfaction beyond just making the sale. 90% of U.S. customers say that an immediate customer service response is "important" or "very important.”
When you nail this part, something magical happens: one-time shoppers transform into passionate advocates who not only come back for more but can't help telling others about their amazing experience with your brand.
Having accessible support and an efficient and easy returns process may make the difference between a happy customer and an unsatisfied one.
Building trust that lasts
Trust is everything in online shopping. When customers feel supported after making a purchase, they're much more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt if something goes wrong down the line.
It's like building a friendship: every positive interaction adds another layer of trust. And that trust translates directly into repeat business and glowing recommendations.
The post-purchase support experience makes a huge difference in building that trust. In fact, 96% of customers say excellent customer service builds trust.
Keeping your return rates down
Great post-purchase support can actually help reduce your return rates. By addressing concerns quickly and providing clear information upfront, you can prevent many returns before they happen.
This can save you money on shipping and restocking and create a smoother experience that keeps customers happy and your business healthy.
Making processes more efficient
Automation eliminates manual tasks, freeing up your team to focus on more strategic initiatives. By automating repetitive tasks, you can improve efficiency and productivity, allowing your team to focus on more value-added activities.
You can automate everything from customer support to returns and exchanges to your order tracking and more. Besides meeting customers' straightforward needs, automation allows you to focus your team's energy on solving bigger problems and strengthening customer relationships.
Accuracy, guaranteed
Automation helps ensure consistency across all your post-purchase processes.
When customers know they can count on a reliable experience every time they shop with you, it builds confidence in your brand.
Plus, fewer mistakes mean happier customers and less time spent fixing problems.
Creating better customer experiences
Speed matters in today's world, and automation helps you deliver faster, more personalized responses to customer needs.
Whether it's instant order updates or quick responses to questions, automation helps you meet and exceed customer expectations. The result? More satisfied customers who feel valued and understood.
How to automate the post-purchase experience for better loyalty
Here are some ways to automate the post-purchase experience:
Automate your returns and exchanges process
Streamline the returns process with automated return labels, tracking, and updates. Use ReturnGO to automate this process, saving time and reducing manual errors. With automated returns, you can provide a hassle-free experience for customers, encouraging them to return to your store in the future.
Automated returns can help to improve the customer experience by making the returns process easier and more convenient. 65% of customers say the speed and ease of refunds affect where they choose to shop.
By automating tasks such as generating return labels and tracking packages, you can reduce the time and effort required for customers to return items.
Think about it from their perspective — if returning an item is hassle-free, they'll feel more confident buying from you in the future. It's like having a safety net that makes customers more comfortable taking chances on new products.
Centralize customer support
In today's fast-paced world, customers expect quick and efficient support. Using a customer experience platform like Gorgias, you can manage all your customer support tickets in one place, making it easier to provide fast, accurate help when people need it.
By centralizing your post-purchase support, you can manage support tickets more efficiently, respond to customer inquiries quickly, and provide the most up-to-date information. This centralized approach can hugely improve response times.
Keep customers in the loop
Nobody likes being left in the dark about their order. Automated post-purchase notifications keep your customers informed every step of the way - from order confirmation to delivery and returns. Using tools like ReturnGO, you can send personalized updates that make customers feel looked after. This is essential for building customer loyalty.
Keeping customers informed about their orders can help reduce customer anxiety. When customers know what to expect, they’re less likely to worry about their purchase and are more likely to keep buying from you again and again.
Create an integrated workflow
To truly streamline your post-purchase customer service, if you connect your returns management system with your customer support system, you really bring all of the pieces of a puzzle together.
When these two systems are in sync, you can create a smooth workflow that makes things easier for both your team and your customers.
By automating tasks like creating support tickets and processing returns, you can save time and create a more reliable, efficient system that helps you serve customers better. No more jumping back and forth between systems to check on a return when a customer reaches out about it.
The ReturnGO-Gorgias integration makes this happen seamlessly, with features like:
- Automatic ticket generation: When a customer requests a return, a support ticket is automatically created on Gorgias, saving you time and preventing errors.
- Real-time updates: Return request information is automatically updated from ReturnGO to Gorgias, so your team always has the latest details right there.
- Centralized system: No more digging through multiple systems. This means your support agents always have access to the most up-to-date information and respond quickly and efficiently to customers.
- Smart widget: The ReturnGO-Gorgias integration includes a widget embedded in your Gorgias dashboard, for managing RMAs directly from within Gorgias. This widget enables your team to:
- View RMA information: See all the relevant details about a return, including the customer's information, the items being returned, and the reason for the return.
- Take actions on the RMA: Easily approve or reject a return request directly from Gorgias.
The ReturnGO-Gorgias integration makes it easy for your team to manage returns and communicate with customers without having to jump between systems to hunt for information.
The path to lasting customer loyalty
So, there you have it! In the world of online shopping, how you handle the after-purchase experience can be just as important as making the sale in the first place.
By automating your post-purchase process, you can create a seamless and satisfying customer experience.
Tools like ReturnGO and Gorgias can help you create the kind of experience that builds customer loyalty.
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Further reading
How To Lower Average Response Times to Meet Customer Expectations
Your customer support team juggles a variety of responsibilities. But it will all come crumbling down if you can’t provide helpful responses to customer messages with a fast response time.
Customer expectations regarding average response time have become increasingly demanding in recent years. 90% of customers rate an immediate response as "important" or "very important" when they have a support request, with 60% of customers defining "immediate" as 10 minutes or less.
To help your customer service team meet these expectations, this article will cover everything you need to know about average response time — from how to calculate your average response time to seven proven tips for lowering it.
What is average response time?
Average response time, also known as average reply time, measures how long it takes for a customer support team to reply to a customer inquiry. This metric helps assess how quickly a company assists its customers and directly impacts customer satisfaction scores.
A lower average response time usually indicates faster customer service, while a longer response time can mean slower assistance. Companies often aim to reduce this time to provide better support and satisfy their customers.
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Why ecommerce merchants need to know their average response time (ART)
Average response time is a vital customer support KPI for ecommerce merchants because customers expect prompt responses. Even if your support team is friendly, professional, and helpful, your customer's experience suffers if they have to wait forever to hear back from you.
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By improving customer loyalty and thus boosting your average customer lifetime value, offering a low average response time can directly benefit your brand's revenue. In fact, brands that resolve their customers' concerns within six hours or less see an estimated revenue lift of 2%.
Average response time (ART) vs. average handle time (AHT)
The difference between average response time (ART) and average handle time (AHT) is that AHT is how long a support agent spends on a call or support ticket that they open, while ART is how long it takes to first respond to a customer support request.
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When you add AHT and ART together, you get average resolution time, which measures the total time it takes to resolve a customer's issue, including the amount of time they spend waiting for the first contact.
Average response time formula + how to calculate
There is a simple formula for performing an average response time calculation:
Average response time = Total amount of time to respond to tickets divided by the # of tickets
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Let's look at a real example. If you had four support tickets one week that took 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 25 minutes, and 20 minutes to respond to, here's what your average response time calculated would look like for that week:
Average response time = (10 minutes + 15 minutes + 25 minutes + 20 minutes) / 4
Average response time = 17.5 minutes
That said, calculating average response time by hand isn’t feasible for most brands, especially as your customer base (and number of responses) increases. Fortunately, most customer service platforms and helpdesks calculate these kinds of performance metrics for you:
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In Gorgias, you can also break down real-time support metrics (like first reply time, resolution time, revenue generated by support, CSAT, and more) broken down by:
- Agent: To understand each agent’s performance and workload
- Time period: To understand how a new process compares to an old one
- Ticket type: Using tags like Urgent, VIP, Return Request, and more
📚 Recommended reading: Our VP of Success’s guide to evaluating customer service
What is a good average response time?
The answer to this question depends on the customer support channel that you use: Each channel has different customer expectations and urgency. For instance, average response time benchmarks for email requests will naturally be much higher than those for live chat messages, when the customer is actively waiting for a response.
This is why it’s important to calculate your average response time for each specific channel.
Your industry can also impact what constitutes a good average response time. A company selling B2B software is likely to have longer response and resolution times than an ecommerce company due to the technical nature of their product and the expectations of their shoppers.
With that in mind, let's take a look at average response time benchmarks for each different type of customer support channel.
Average response time benchmarks by channel
Here are best-in-class, average, and below-average response time benchmarks based on the customer support channel that you are using according to our Director of Support, Bri Christiano:
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ART benchmarks for email
- Unacceptable: Multiple days
- Blow average: 1 day
- Average: 12-24 hours
- Above average: Under 4 hours
- Stellar: Under 1 hour
ART benchmarks for social media
- Unacceptable: Multiple days
- Blow average: 1 day
- Average: 12-24 hours
- Above average: Under 4 hours
- Stellar: Under 15 minutes
ART benchmarks for SMS
- Unacceptable: Over 1 hour
- Blow average: 1 hour
- Average: 10 minutes
- Above average: Under 5 minutes
- Stellar: Under 1 minute
ART benchmarks for live chat
- Unacceptable: Over 1 hour
- Blow average: 1 hour
- Average: 10 minutes
- Above average: Under 5 minutes
- Stellar: Under 1 minute
If your reply times aren’t close to these benchmarks, don’t worry. It’s much more important to continually improve on your current than it is to match industry benchmarks. Focus on developing your customer service automations, customer service training, and templates to help your team offer fast replies.
7 tips for lowering average response time
If you would like to improve your average first response time, here are some of the top strategies that Gorgias customers have used to speed up their response times!
1) Implement live chat, SMS, and other live support channels
Live support channels like live chat and SMS inherently support faster response times than social media and email channels — which is probably why 43% of customers list live chat as their preferred customer support channel.
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Adding a live chat widget to your website such as Gorgias Live Chat enables anyone who visits your website to quickly connect with a live support agent. Gorgias live chat also integrates with SMS, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and other social media platforms so that you can offer live chat support via these channels as well.
You can also incentivize your customers to use these faster channels by sharing a service-level agreement (SLA) that lets them know they won’t have to wait as long if they use live chat or SMS. Berkey Filters, a Gorgias customer, does this brilliantly at the top of their Contact Us page:
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How Gorgias helps
Gorgias offers fast-loading live chat widgets that let you offer live chat support directly from your website. You can also connect your live chat support to SMS and social media messaging platforms to offer chat support via these channels, too.
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The biggest benefit of Gorgias is the additional tools and features designed to speed up your response times and improve the quality of your customer support services even further:
- Automated Rules to auto-respond to simple tickets and trigger relevant actions (like order cancellations)
- Macro templates to reduce copy/pasting and writing from scratch
- Ticket prioritization to help you handle urgent support requests, fast
📚 Recommended reading: Our guide to omnichannel customer service
2) Install self-service menus in your chat widget
Installing self-service options (like chatbots and self-service menus) in your chat widget is an excellent way to ensure that customers on your website can find immediate answers to common questions. This directly lowers ART by reducing your support team’s workload so that they are able to respond to complex tickets that can’t be resolved with self-service faster.
However, practice caution when implementing chatbots. While some are strong, others diminish your customer experience. That’s why we believe self-service options that don’t pretend to be human are superior:
How Gorgias helps
Gorgias’ Automate lets you add Self-service Order Management and Quick Response Flows to your chat widget.
Self-service Order Management lets customers handle the following via self-service, both in the live chat as well as a Help Center:
- Requests returns
- Cancel orders
- Track orders
- Report issues
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Quick Response Flows let you add buttons to your chat widget that provide instant answers to FAQs, without roping in your agent:
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If the customer isn’t satisfied with the pre-loaded response, they can click “No, I need more help” to be connected with a live chat agent.
📚 Recommended reading: Learn more about how Gorgias Live Chat supports your team
3) Use automation to answer simple questions instantly
We've already touched on how you can use automation tools to provide immediate answers to common customer questions, and using Gorgias to add self-service menus to your live chat widget is one example of this practice in action.
However, you can also use automation to answer simple customer questions that come in via email, social media, and SMS.
For instance, creating automated responses to customer questions such as “where is my order” and “what is my tracking number” can eliminate a large volume of support tickets, providing an immediate response to these questions while at the same time speeding up the response to other tickets by freeing up your support team.
How Gorgias helps
Gorgias provides Rules, Macros, and Intent/Sentiment Detection features to create automated customer support workflows:
- Intent detection scans the language of all tickets
- Rules trigger when a relevant ticket is found, taking action (like canceling a recent order or updating a shipping address) and responding to the customer
- Macros are the templates that get sent to the customer, with variables that automatically populate with customer information from other tools like Shopify, AfterShip, and more
Here’s what an automated response to “Where is my order?” (WISMO) looks like in Gorgias:
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This automated workflow works across email, social media, live chat, SMS, and more.
4) Use autoresponders to acknowledge customers' requests immediately
Remember that first response time is an entirely different metric than resolution time. In other words, you don't have to immediately resolve a customer's issue to achieve faster response times — you just have to respond to the customer's request and let them know that you're working on the issue.
One great way to do this is to use autoresponders that acknowledge the customer's request the instant that they send it in. This way, customers know that your team got their message and is working on their request. While this automatic response might not resolve their issue, it is a response still the same and counts toward reducing your average response time. Another big benefit of leveraging autoresponders is that it allows your brand to respond to customer requests outside of normal business hours when live support agents are not available.
How Gorgias helps
You can set up a Rule in Gorgias, usually for live chat, SMS, and other instant messaging channels, to automatically respond to customers and let them know an agent is on their way.
Here’s what that kind of Rule looks like in Gorgias, from a real customer (Berkey Filters):
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5) Build out a knowledge base or self-service help center
By offering a comprehensive knowledge base or a self-service help center, you can provide the answers to common customer questions so that customers can find the information they need on their own.
This won’t be directly reflected in your average response times: If customers resolve the issue on their own, no ticket is created and nothing gets measured. However, if a bulk of simple requests get deflected from self-service options, your helpdesk will be much less cluttered with repetitive requests, letting agents respond to leftover tickets that much faster.
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Plus, separate from average response times, self-service options are great to boost customer satisfaction and provide the necessary variety of support channels to meet customers where they’re at.
Not convinced yet? Check out some of the other stellar advantages of customer self-service support options.
How Gorgias helps
With Gorgias, you’ll be able to create a comprehensive knowledge base — we call them Help Centers — that includes product information, information on your returns policies, general shipping information, and any other information that your customers commonly request. You can also offer self-service order management (described above) in Help Center, just like the chat widget:
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Gorgias makes it easy to create a helpful and attractive knowledge base for your brand that includes answers to all of your customers' most common questions.
Branch built an excellent help center using Gorgias. It's well organized, easy to navigate, and lets Branch customers find information on everything from returns to ordering to general product questions.
6) Prioritize customer service tickets automatically with a helpdesk
Some tickets demand a faster response than others. If you detect that a customer is upset or angry, then it's important to respond to their request as quickly as possible to prevent them from churning.
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Some companies dedicate a customer service agent to routing duty, where they manually assign incoming tickets. With a high-quality helpdesk like Gorgias, you can prioritize tickets automatically so your agents can focus on responding to the most important tickets without manually triaging each ticket. Since agents aren’t required to manually triage tickets that are prioritized automatically, they’ll be able to respond to them faster.
📚 Recommended reading: Our Director of Support’s guide to automatic ticket prioritization
How Gorgias helps
With Gorgias' Intent and Sentiment Detection features, you can automatically analyze each ticket using powerful natural language processing (NLP) technology.
From there, you can create Rules to atomically assign a priority level to each ticket.
Here’s an example of a Rule that automatically tags tickets with “Urgent Order Edit” whenever a customer requests changes to an order made in the last two days, so you can apply the change before the order ships:
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For more prioritization tips within and outside of Gorgias, check out our Director of Support’s guide to automatic ticket prioritization.
7) Create template responses for your most common questions
Before you can leverage automation to respond to common customer questions, you need to create template responses for each of these questions.
This starts by identifying your frequently asked questions and then creating a template response for each one. Along with reducing ART by empowering automated responses to common customer questions, these templates can also serve as helpful resources for your live representatives. This lets them respond to questions without recreating the wheel each time.
How Gorgias helps
Gorgias’ templates are called Macros, and they’re much more powerful than run-of-the-mill templates thanks to variables. Variables are like blanks in the template that automatically populate with personalized customer information pulled from ecommerce platforms (like Shopify, BigCommerce, and Magento) and other ecommerce tools (like Klaviyo, AfterShip, and more).
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Learn how Gorgias helps brands reduce response times by up to 96%
Reducing your average response time is a crucial part of providing a great customer experience — and it's one of the many advantages we help ecommerce brands achieve.
Using Gorgias, customers like Timbuk2 cut their average response times by up to 96%! Read the full story here to learn more about how Gorgias helped Timbuk2 lower their ART and generate 35% more revenue.
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12 Best Shipping Software Tools for Ecommerce Stores [2023]
Once your ecommerce business starts attracting a large number of customers, keeping up with order fulfillment can quickly become a full-time job.
For most brands, ecommerce shipping is a significant expense and time-suck. The average cost to fulfill an online order amounts to 70% of the order's value, according to eFulfillment Service.
At the same time, customer expectations regarding shipping management and order fulfillment have only grown more demanding, with 96% of customers now defining "fast delivery" as same-day delivery, according to Invesp. Not to mention the new normal of free shipping. (Thanks, Amazon.)
It is also worth noting that, according to Pitney Bowes, 54% of customers will shop with a retailer less often or never again after a negative delivery experience.
The good news is that there are plenty of great shipping software solutions designed to help you optimize your customer experience and make order fulfillment less of an expensive hassle. To help you choose the best shipping software for your online store, we'll discuss what to look for in shipping management software before diving into the 12 best shipping software tools for ecommerce stores available today.
Top ecommerce shipping software for your online store
- ShipBob
- LateShipment.com
- AfterShip
- Shipup
- ShippingChimp
- Wonderment
- NetSuite
- 2Ship
- Shippo
- Essential Hub
- Shopify Shipping
- ShipStation
If you are searching for shipping software solutions that will help make your online business more efficient and profitable, there are plenty of great tools to choose from. Below, we’ve compiled 12 of the best shipping software tools on the market today, including their customer review score from G2:
1) ShipBob: 3.3 ⭐(68 reviews)
If you would like to take the hassle of order fulfillment and inventory management off of your hands entirely, partnering with ShipBob is a great option. ShipBob is a third-party logistics (3PL) company that enables ecommerce store owners to ship their products — in bulk — directly to ShipBob's warehouses. From there, ShipBob takes over all inventory management and order fulfillment services, including picking and packing, shipping orders to customers, carrier routing, managing returns, and everything in between.
📚Recommended reading: Our comparison of ShipBob and Shopify Fulfillment Network.
Pros
- Easy to set up and use thanks to a comprehensive onboarding process
- Completely eliminates your order fulfillment responsibilities
- Provides an information-packed help center for mastering the platform and resolving common issues on your own
Cons
- Customer service issues are unfortunately common
- Very expensive
- Order returns sometimes go missing
Key features
- Allows you to choose between a variety of shippers, including FedEx, DHL, UPS, and USPS
- Integrates with all major ecommerce platforms
- Allows you to strategically split your inventory across multiple locations for faster shipping services
Pricing options
ShipBob requires you to contact them for a custom pricing quote.
🔌 See how ShipBob integrates with Gorgias.
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2) LateShipment.com (no G2 reviews)
LateShipment.com allows you to create a branded post-purchase experience for your customers. This tool makes it easy to create customized tracking pages and tracking widgets for your website, as well as pages and widgets for processing order returns. LateShipment.com also provides real-time shipment tracking information and a wealth of other valuable data that you can use to optimize your shipping management process.
Fun fact: LateShipment.com is also on our list of the best returns management software.
Pros
- Includes 24/7 customer support and a dedicated customer success manager with every plan
- Offers a 21-day free trial
- Delivers a wealth of actionable insights that a business owner can use to improve their order management and fulfillment process
Cons
- Does not allow you to print shipping labels
- Requires you to combine multiple plans to unlock all features
- Does not offer a flat-rate plan
Key features
- Provides predictive alerts for shipments that are likely to encounter delays
- Makes it easy to create customized SMS and email shipment notifications
- Allows you to drive repeat purchases by turning your tracking pages into marketing opportunities
Pricing options
- Parcel Audit and Shipping Refunds Plan - 35% of refunds claimed
- Delivery Experience and Management Plan - $0.07 per shipment tracked
- Returns Experience Management Plan - $7/month plus $0.35 per return
🔌 See how LateShipment.com integrates with Gorgias.
3) AfterShip: 4.2 ⭐(49 reviews)
AfterShip is a shipping solution that provides insightful real-time tracking data for all of your store's orders via a centralized, user-friendly dashboard. The biggest selling point of AfterShip is the fact that it allows you to create branded tracking pages and shipment notifications.
📚Recommended reading: Our guide to post-purchase experience to help you provide the best ecommerce experience possible, from checkout to repeat purchase.
Pros
- Capable of integrating with a wide range of ecommerce platforms
- Enables you to track both purchases and returns
- Easy to set up and use
Cons
- Customer support issues have been reported
- Tracking information is not always up to date with courier's tracking data
- Limited integrations with other ecommerce software tools
Key features
- Allows you to create automated post-purchase workflows
- Provides actionable insights into your post-purchase experience and shipping methods
Pricing options
- Free plan - $0/month for up to 50 shipments/month
- Essentials plan - $9/month for up to 1,200 shipments/year
- Pro plan - $199/month for up to 60,000 shipments/year
- Enterprise plan - custom pricing for 300,000+ shipments/year
🔌 See how AfterShip integrates with Gorgias.
4) Shipup: 4.4 ⭐ (18 reviews)
Shipup is a shipping platform that provides three key features: create branded real-time tracking notifications and tracking pages, receive alerts about delays or delivery incidents sent straight to your existing CRM, and receive a range of useful analytics that you can use to improve your company's shipping process.
Pros
- Long list of integrations with other ecommerce software tools, including Gorgias
- Intuitive and customizable dashboard
- Easy to set up and use
Cons
- Does not allow you to print shipping labels
- Does not offer any inventory management solutions
- Pricing is expensive compared to similar shipping options
Key features
- Attractive and customizable email notification and tracking page templates
- Allows you to display product recommendations in your shipping update emails
Pricing options
- Starter plan - €0.18/package plus €181/month
- Pro plan - €399/month
- Enterprise plan - custom pricing
🔌 See how Shipup integrates with Gorgias.
5) ShippingChimp (no G2 reviews)
Like many order fulfillment software solutions, ShippingChimp lets you create branded tracking notifications and tracking pages. It also allows you to track the status of all your shipments from a user-friendly dashboard. In addition to these features and its ease of use, what really sets ShippingChimp apart is the fact that it provides store owners with a customizable self-service returns portal for facilitating customer returns.
Pros
- Excellent customer support
- Offers a 30-day free trial
- Provides a wealth of analytics, including CSAT scores for gauging customer loyalty
Cons
- App is sometimes prone to freezing
- Does not allow you to print shipping labels
- Does not offer any inventory management solutions
Key features
- Provides customers with automated and branded shipment updates
- Allows you to forecast delivery exceptions
- Streamlines the order return process by providing customers with a self-service returns portal
Pricing options
- Basic plan - $19/month for up to 500 shipments/month
- Pro plan - $99/month for up to 2,000 shipments/month
- Premium plan - $199/month for up to 5,000 shipments/month
- Enterprise plan - custom pricing available upon request
6) Wonderment (no G2 reviews)
Wonderment is a post-purchase shipping platform designed to help you reduce "Where is my order?" tickets by providing customers with automated order updates. In addition to sending automated shipping updates via email and SMS, Wonderment also provides order lookup and reporting that includes a daily digest of stalled, delayed, and lost orders.
Pros
- Integrates with Klaviyo for fully-branded and customizable shipping update emails
- Makes it easy to send automated shipping updates via SMS
- Completely free for stores with less than 500 orders/month
Cons
- Does not allow you to print shipping labels
- Dedicated support and onboarding comes at the additional cost of $.04/shipment
- Only capable of integrating with Shopify stores
Key features
- Allows you to create automated shipment update workflows
- Easy to use dashboard makes it simple for your team to keep track of shipping incidents
Pricing options
- Starter plan - $0/month for up to 500 shipments/month
- Premium plan - $100/month for up to 4,000 shipments/month
- Premium Plus plan - $100/month plus $.04/shipment for 4,000+ shipments/month
🔌 See how Wonderment integrates with Gorgias.
7) NetSuite: 3.9 ⭐ (2,207 reviews)
Netsuite offers a wide range of ecommerce software solutions. For the purposes of shipping and fulfillment, it is Netsuite's multichannel order management solution that you want.
Netsuite's multichannel order management solution enables you to execute multiple order fulfillment and inventory management tasks across your supply chain from a single dashboard, including direct shipping products from a warehouse and placing purchase orders to ship to various warehouses.
Pros
- Provides complete inventory visibility across multiple warehouses, 3PLs, and suppliers
- Supports complex processes such as split shipments, continuity programs, dropshipping, personalized products, and digital fulfillment
- Highly customizable
Cons
- Some features require varying levels of coding to install
- Though pricing is custom, Netsuite products are generally quite expensive
- Occasional performance issues
Key features
- Capable of automating the end-to-end order lifecycle
- Provides a single-pane-of-glass view of your entire inventory
- Automatically fulfills orders from the most economically-located warehouse
Pricing options
Netsuite's multichannel order management solution is included with a Netsuite license. The price of a Netsuite license is only available upon request.
🔌 See how NetSuite integrates with Gorgias.
8) 2Ship: 4.5 ⭐ (13 reviews)
2Ship is a shipping software solution designed to help ecommerce stores lower their shipping costs by comparing prices across carriers. Along with making it easy to find the best rates for each product you ship, 2Ship also provides tracking updates and the ability to print shipping labels.
Pros
- A wide variety of pricing plans to choose from
- Great customer support
- Capable of integrating with a variety of ecommerce tools and platforms
Cons
- Some carriers are not listed
- Can be a little slow to load
- A little confusing to set up
Key features
- Allows you to compare rates, choose carriers, and print shipping labels from a single dashboard
- Provides tracking data and analytics reports
Pricing options
2Ship offers a long list of pricing options, ranging from $10/month for up to 10 shipments/month to $449/month for up to 5,000 shipments/month.
9) Shippo: 3.9 ⭐ (44 reviews)
With Shippo, ecommerce store owners can manage orders across multiple sales channels from a single dashboard. You can:
- Create discounted shipping labels and packing slips by comparing rates across shipping carriers (like USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL Express)
- Track shipments and notify customers about the status of their order
- Automatically generate labels for returned products to streamline the returns process
Pros
- Easy to set up and use
- Offers both flat-rate and per-shipment pricing plans
- Capable of integrating with a wide range of ecommerce tools and platforms
Cons
- Slow customer support
- Does not provide a mobile app
- UI has room for enhancements
Key features
- Batch processing allows you to process multiple shipping labels with a single click
- Allows you to create customized and automated shipping update notifications
Pricing options
- Starter plan - $0/month and $.05/shipment
- Professional plan - $10/month
- Premier plan - Custom pricing available upon request
10) Essential Hub: (no G2 reviews)
Essential Hub is a shipping API designed to connect your shopping carts and warehouse technology in order to search for the best rates across shippers and automate order fulfillment processes with automation rules. Best of all, the API is customized and set up on your behalf based on a thorough analysis of your store's existing order fulfillment process.
Pros
- Done-for-you implementation including an analysis of your shipments and volume
- Implements rate shopping and customized automation rules
- U.S.-based customer support available via phone, text, email, and video-conferencing
- Integrates with 200+ ecommerce tools and platforms
Cons
- Essential Hub's onboarding process is not as thorough as it probably should be
- Downloading orders and addresses can only be done from an admin account
- Issues with the software not printing all of the labels in a batch have been reported
Key features
- Multi-carrier rate shopping for both domestic and international shipping with custom forms
- Automation rules for streamlining your order fulfillment process
Pricing options
Custom pricing is available upon request
11) Shopify Shipping (no G2 reviews)
Shopify Shipping is an app that comes included with a Shopify subscription. With this app, Shopify store owners can access discounts on USPS, DHL, and UPS shipping rates, buy and print shipping labels within their Shopify store, and fulfill orders from the same dashboard used to manage products, customers, and inventory.
Shopify Shipping also simplifies the process of paying for shipping by allowing you to pay shipping costs from the same statement as your monthly Shopify subscription.
Pros
- Comes included and pre-installed with a Shopify subscription
- Allows you to pay for shipping costs and your Shopify subscription in a single bill
- Provides a user-friendly dashboard for order fulfillment and tracking
Cons
- Only available for Shopify stores
- Bulk-printing labels is limited to 20 labels at a time
- Can only be used to ship products to the USA or Canada
Key features
- Allows you to search real-time shipping rates and discounts before printing shipping labels directly from your Shopify store
- Provides detailed order fulfillment analytics
- Allows you to track packages directly from your Shopify store
Pricing options
Shopify Shipping comes included with a Shopify subscription, which starts at $29/month.
📚Recommended reading: Our list of the best 40+ Shopify apps for ecommerce brands.
12) ShipStation: 4.3 ⭐ (259 reviews)
With ShipStation, ecommerce store owners can import orders from over 100+ sales channels, marketplaces, ERPs, or CRMs. You can also utilize barcode scan-based workflows, bulk updates, and automated rules to streamline the order fulfillment process, compare shipping rates and print labels, and automatically provide customers with tracking numbers when their orders ship.
Pros
- Easy to set up and use
- Offers a wide range of integrations
- Excellent reporting and analytics
Cons
- Sometimes prone to technical hiccups
- Live chat support is not available on the Starter plan
- Accommodates international shipping but does not allow you to print international return labels
Key features
- Enables you to import orders from multiple sales channels
- Compares rates across shipping providers and gives you the option for bulk label printing
- Streamlines the order fulfillment process via bulk updates, automation rules, and scan-based workflows
Pricing options
ShipStation offers six different pricing plans, starting at $9/month for a Starter plan that offers 50 shipments/month, and going up to an Enterprise plan that costs $159/month for up to 10,000 shipments/month
🔌See how ShipStation integrates with Gorgias.
What to look for when purchasing shipping software
When comparing shipping software options, there are several important factors to consider. Some of the most valuable features to look for in software designed to assist with order management and fulfillment include:
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Integrates seamlessly with your other software tools
Choosing shipping software that integrates with your online store’s other software is highly beneficial. Shipping software that integrates with your email marketing software, for example, makes it easy to send branded shipping update emails.
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Similarly, software that integrates with your customer support software can make it much simpler to manage customer issues regarding order fulfillment. Most shipping software is cloud-based, and integrates with a wide variety of software. But, it’s worth the extra research to see whether they integrate with your ecommerce tech stack.
Below, we’ll share whenever a shipping tool integrates with Gorgias to save you the extra search.
Allows real-time tracking of customer orders
The ability to track orders in real-time is one of the most important capabilities to look for in shipping software. Real-time order tracking allows you to better manage the order fulfillment process on your end and provides your customers with timely shipping updates.
If you would like to create a shipping process that will help ensure a positive customer experience then real-time order tracking is a great place to start.
However, you don’t need . If you use Gorgias, Automate lets customers track orders within your chat widget and Help Center — no shipping software needed.
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📚Recommended reading: Learn how to provide real-time order tracking to customers (and avoid answering WISMO requests).
Assists with label printing
Even for small businesses, filling out shipping information by hand for each product sold is often far too time-consuming to be a feasible management system. This becomes next to impossible for high-volume stores.
Thankfully, many shipping software tools allow you to choose a carrier and print shipping labels from within the platform. Some tools allow you to print return labels as well, ensuring that you never have to worry about creating shipping labels manually.
Integrates with your ecommerce platform of choice
Along with choosing shipping software that integrates with all of the other tools that your ecommerce business relies on, it is also essential to choose software that integrates well with your ecommerce platform — like Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, or Magento.
For example, the best shipping software for Magento stores isn't always going to be the best software for Shopify or eBay other ecommerce platforms. Before you purchase a shipping software solution, you want to be sure that it deeply and easily integrates with your ecommerce platform for optimum functionality.
Provides assistance with inventory management
Order fulfillment is not the only task that great shipping software can help with. With the right tools, an ecommerce business can also streamline and automate its inventory management process.
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Purchasing shipping software designed to assist with inventory management means that your inventory is automatically updated each time an order is placed, helping you keep track of your available supply. This is also a helpful way to prevent products from going out of stock.
Manage your shipping and customer service with Gorgias
From helping you compare shipping rates across carriers and print shipping labels to creating branded order tracking pages, purchasing shipping software solutions can provide your online store with a number of advantages.
At Gorgias, we recognize the immense value of these shipping software solutions. We have designed our comprehensive customer service platform to seamlessly integrate with a large number of popular shipping tools, making it easy for you to manage and resolve customer issues regarding order fulfillment.
To see how Gorgias can help you upgrade your shipping and customer service alike, be sure to check out this link to learn more about all that Gorgias has to offer!
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40+ Best Shopify Apps To Optimize Your Ecommerce Store
Shopify comes equipped with everything you need to get your ecommerce store up and running, but if you really want to optimize it for time-saving efficiency and maximized sales, you are going to need to rely on some third-party apps from the Shopify app store.
From automating your email marketing campaigns to helping you better manage your inventory and much, much more, there is a large number of capabilities offered by the best Shopify apps. To help you decide which of these apps is the best choice for your ecommerce business, we'll take a look at the most important qualities to look for in a Shopify app before diving into the 40+ best Shopify apps available today.
For easy skimming, we've pulled out the top 10 Shopify apps for ecommerce stores below.
- Best customer service app: Gorgias
- Best email marketing app: Klaviyo
- Best SMS app: Attentive
- Best sales & conversion app: Recharge
- Best checkout app: One Click Upsell
- Best inventory management app: ShipBob
- Best returns app: Loop Returns
- Best social media app: Instafeed
- Best SEO app: SEO Manager
- Best loyalty and retention app: Yotpo
What to look for in a Shopify app
While the exact features and functions of Shopify apps can vary dramatically from app to app, there are still a few essential qualities that you will want to look for no matter what type of app you are needing. This includes qualities such as:
1) Integrates with your other ecommerce tools and platforms
Like people, Shopify apps work best when they work together. Being able to integrate your email marketing app with your shipment tracking app, for example, means that you'll be able to send automated shipping updates to customers.
Integrating your customer support platform with your call center app, meanwhile, means that your agents providing phone-based customer support will have a wealth of data on the customers they are speaking with at their fingertips throughout each call.
These are just two examples of how it can be beneficial to choose apps that can integrate with your other ecommerce tools. Of course, it's also important to choose apps that will integrate with your ecommerce platforms, which is why all of the apps in our list are capable of integrating with Shopify, Shopify Plus, or both.
2) Allows for customizations
Plug-n-play solutions that don't offer much room for customization may seem convenient at first. As your business grows and scales, though, you are likely to find that these solutions no longer meet your needs like they once did.
While learning how to navigate Shopify apps that offer a wide range of customization options might require a bit of a learning curve, it's almost always worth it in the end.
3) Receives regular updates
Even the most well-polished apps still require regular updates and maintenance to continue functioning correctly. In addition to scheduled updates and maintenance, it is also essential to choose apps whose providers are willing to work with you to quickly correct any bugs or issues that come up while you are using the app.
This makes great customer support a vital quality to look for in Shopify app providers no matter what type of app you are purchasing.
Best Shopify customer service apps
1) Gorgias
Gorgias is an all-in-one customer support platform (including a helpdesk and live chat support) that provides a centralized help center for your customer support agents to provide great, revenue-generating customer experiences.
Gorgias lets ecommerce brands centralize conversations from every channel, empowered with features including:
- Rules to automatically respond to simple tickets, prioritize customer service requests, and more
- Macro templates to provide personalized customer service at scale
- Self-service features like easy order tracking, FAQs, and help centers
- Detailed analytics to help you evaluate your customer service program and ROI
If you are looking for a tool that will improve the customer experience on your website while at the same time reducing the burden of your customer support team, then Gorgias for Shopify is an excellent app to consider.
Key features
- Streamlines and automates the process of creating, organizing, and assigning customer support tickets
- Live-chat support via a fast-loading chat widget
- Provides a user-friendly dashboard for customer support agents to work from
- Detailed analytics and reporting of customer service data
Pricing
- A Basic plan that costs $60/month and includes 350 tickets/month
- A Pro plan that costs $300/month and includes 2,000 tickets/month plus revenue statistics and a Magento integration
- An Advanced plan that costs $750/month and includes 5,000 tickets/month plus a dedicated Success Manager
- Custom pricing available upon request for companies with larger tickets per month needs and/or the need for custom services
Available on Shopify Plus?
- Yes
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2) Tidio
Tidio is an app that provides both live chat and chatbot capabilities for your Shopify store, with AI-powered chatbots that allow you to automate up to 40% of your customer support conversations.
Key features
- Receive live visitor notifications when someone visits your site
- The ability to easily share pictures, videos, and other files directly within the chat widget
- The ability to program chatbots to showcase promotions and discounts to improve your conversion rate and boost sales
Pricing
- A Free plan that costs $0/month
- A Chatbots plan that costs $39/month and includes additional features such as unlimited active chatbots and chatbot templates
- A Communicator plan that costs $15/month per operator and includes additional features such as live typing and the ability to track viewed pages
Available on Shopify Plus?
- No
3) HelpCenter
Help Center is a customer support solution that provides tabs for organizing your product descriptions, live chat software, a HelpDesk ticketing system, and an FAQ builder that allows you to create a comprehensive FAQ page in just a matter of minutes.
Key features
- The ability to automatically flag and organize tickets based on priority
- Automated workflows for speeding up time-consuming customer support tasks
- Customers are able to access live chat support on-site or through Facebook Messenger
Pricing
- A Free plan that costs $0/month and includes basic features plus 50 tickets/month
- An FAQ plan that costs $3.99/month and includes full FAQ set-up, basic Tabs features, and 3,500 tickets/year
- A Tabs plan that costs $3.99/month and includes unlimited product page tabs, basic FAQ features, and 3,500 tickets/year
- A HelpDesk plan that costs $9.99/month and includes full HelpDesk setup and features, basic Tabs and FAQ features, and 17,000 tickets/year
- A Professional plan that costs $14.92/month and includes full HelpDesk, Tabs, and FAQ features plus 17,000 tickets/year
Available on Shopify Plus?
- No
Best email marketing and SMS Shopify apps
According to data from the Content Marketing Institute, 31% of B2B marketers say email newsletters are the best way to nurture leads. With these must-have Shopify apps for email marketing, you can automate your email marketing campaigns, create stunning branded emails, better segment your list for improved targeting, and beyond.
4) Automizely Email Marketing
With Automizely Email Marketing, online store owners are able to create email campaigns that are both personalized and automated in addition to helping them create professional-quality emails using Automizely's drag-and-drop email editor.
Key features
- The ability to add a broad range of features to your emails such as product recommendations and a countdown timer
- The option to filter and segment your subscriber list based on a range of customer behaviors and other criteria
- All email templates are 100% mobile responsive
Pricing
- Automizely Email Marketing offers flexible pricing depending on the size of your contact list and how many emails you send each month. For more information on Automizely Email Marketing pricing, you can check out the app's pricing calculator.
Available on Shopify Plus?
- No
5) Omnisend
Omnisend is a highly-popular email marketing tool that provides access to pre-built email and SMS workflows and templates, gives you the ability to segment your subscriber lists based on a wealth of data, and allows you to create automated email marketing campaigns that are sent out based on customer activity triggers.
Key features
- Detailed analytics and reporting that you can use to segment your subscriber lists
- The ability to create a wide range of custom triggers for launching automated email campaigns
- Excellent 24/7 customer support
Pricing
- A Free plan that costs $0/month and offers up to 500 emails and 60 SMS messages per month
- A Standard plan that costs $16/month and offers up to 6,000 emails and 60 SMS messages per month
- A Pro plan that costs $59/month and offers unlimited emails and up to 3,933 SMS messages per month
Available on Shopify Plus?
- Yes
See how Omnisend integrates with Gorgias.
6) Klaviyo
With Klaviyo, you are able to easily segment your email list for personalized targeting before creating automated email campaigns that can be sent out based on a variety of custom triggers.
Key features
- Automatically send out emails and SMS messages based on triggers such as cart abandonment triggers, price drop triggers, and back-in-stock triggers
- A centralized analytics dashboard that provides well-organized data regarding all of your SMS and email campaigns
- An extensive library of pre-built templates and workflows that you can use to speed up your campaign creation process
Pricing
- Pricing for Klaviyo depends on how many emails/SMS messages you intend to send each month, but you can check out this link for a Klaviyo pricing calculator.
Available on Shopify Plus?
- Yes
See how Klaviyo integrates with Gorgias.
7) Attentive
Attentive is an SMS and email marketing solution that makes it easy to build and optimize campaigns while remaining compliant with SMS and email marketing regulations. This platform is designed to help store owners grow their subscriber lists and engage with these lists more effectively with segmentation and targeting functionality to generate high-impact campaigns.
Key features
- Custom integrations using Attentive's Public APIs and developer resources
- Rewards management
- Design editor to create sign-up forms for your website and social media platforms
- A/B testing
- Audience manager to target customers with personalized messages
- Business intelligence to help measure campaign performance
Pricing
- Attentive’s pricing models aren’t publicly available, but they do offer demos and a free trial.
See how Attentive integrates with Gorgias.
Available on Shopify Plus?
- Yes
Best sales and conversions Shopify apps
Selling more products is the ultimate goal of every Shopify store owner. With these sales and conversions Shopify apps, you can boost your sales with sales enablement tools such as SMS messaging tools, loyalty and referral programs, list segmentation tools, and beyond.
8) Cartloop
Marketed as a conversational text marketing ecommerce platform, Cartloop is designed to help ecommerce brands grow their subscriber base and engage with them on a more personal level. With highly targeted campaigns, Cartloop leverages simple text messages to help Shopify store owners increase revenue.
Key features
- 24/7 live support
- ROI tracking
- Campaign segmentation for more effective targeting
- Campaign management and analytics
- Auto-responders and event-triggered actions
- Engagement tracking
Pricing
- A Growth plan that costs $99/month with a 14-day free trial
- A Pro plan that costs $299/month with a 14-day free trial
Available on Shopify Plus?
- Yes
9) Recharge
Recharge is a Shopify app for store owners who sell subscription-based products or services that makes it easy to set up and manage subscription programs in addition to providing your customers with the ability to manage their subscriptions either via SMS or through a user-friendly customer portal.
Key features
- Reduces churn by giving customers the option to pause or alter their subscription rather than canceling it
- Integrates with all popular payment processing solutions to allow subscription-based payments
- Provides a wide range of actionable insights that you can use to optimize your subscription offerings
Pricing
- A Standard plan that includes basic features and costs $0/month plus 1% + 10¢/transaction
- A Pro plan that includes additional features such as a customizable shopper portal and product variants and costs $300/month plus 1% + 19¢/transaction
Available on Shopify Plus?
- No
See how Recharge integrates with Gorgias.
10) Postscript
Postscript is an SMS marketing tool that allows you to grow your SMS subscriber list with customizable opt-in tool templates, create hyper-targeted list segments based on your Shopify store data, and easily message customers with both one-on-one and mass messages.
Key features
- Customizable opt-in popups for generating new leads
- Allows you to create an unlimited number of "text to join" keywords
- Allows you to create automated SMS messaging campaigns that are triggered by over 65 different customer events
Pricing
- Pricing for Postscript is dependent on the number of messages you send each month. Check out this link for a Postscript pricing calculator.
Available on Shopify Plus?
- Yes
See how Postscript integrates with Gorgias.
11) Spently
With Spently, Shopify store owners are able to turn their standard Shopify post-purchase notification emails into customizable, branded emails complete with product recommendations, discount codes, and other custom features.
Key features
- Allows you to create automated email campaigns based on triggers such as cart abandonment and back-in-stock alerts
- Provides a drag-and-drop email designer for customizing all 27 Shopify email notification templates
- Access ROI-based reporting and analytics from Spently's in-app dashboard
Pricing
- Pricing for Spently is dependent on the number of orders your store processes each month. Check out this link for a Spently pricing calculator.
Available on Shopify Plus?
- No
Best development Shopify apps
Shopify provides all of the tools you need to create a basic online store. If you would like to create new features for your store that are not already supported by Shopify, though, you are sure to find these Shopify development apps highly beneficial.
12) Omega Instant Search
Shopify's default product search function can be somewhat limited. With Omega Instant Search, though, you are able to develop a product search function for your store that is much more powerful thanks to features such as spell correction, fallback search, redirects, and synonyms.
Key features
- The search module requires no preliminary configuration and is ready for your customers to use immediately after it is installed
- The search module allows for customizable configurations
- Provides customers with filters for narrowing down their search
Pricing
- Pricing for Omega Instant Search is only available upon request
Available on Shopify Plus?
- No
13) Buddha Mega Menu
A mega menu is a feature that allows you to display multiple menus from a single dropdown in your store's navigation, making it much easier for customers to find the specific products and collections that they are looking for. With Buddha Mega Menu, you can create an attractive and fully-functional mega menu for your Shopify store in a matter of minutes and cross-sell like a pro.
Key features
- Easy to configure and install
- Provides a range of design features such as countdown timers, featured products, and banners to highlight your promotions
- The ability to create a customizable mega menu for your Shopify store
Pricing
- Buddha Mega Menu is free to download and use
Available on Shopify Plus?
- No
14) Smart Bar
Smart Bar is an app that allows you to quickly create promotional bars and banners for your online store and populate these promotion bars and banners with conversion-boosting features such as countdown timers and free shipping bars.
Key features
- An impressive library of promotional bar and banner templates that are fully-customizable
- The ability to display multiple promotional bars and banners on one page
- Analytics tools that record clicks, views, click-through-rate, and heatmap
Pricing
- A Free plan that costs $0/month that includes basic features and the ability to create up to three promotional bars
- A Premium plan that costs $0/month that includes additional features and the ability to create unlimited promotional bars
Available on Shopify Plus?
- Yes
15) Easy Redirects
404 page errors can potentially cost your store a lot of customers by both encouraging would-be customers to navigate away from your website and harming its SEO. With Easy Redirects, though, you can automatically find and fix all 404 errors on your Shopify store.
Key features
- One-click install with no coding required
- Quickly and easily import bulk URL redirects into Shopify from a CSV file
- Automatic 404 tracking, error reports, and resolution
Pricing
- A Basic plan that costs $0/month and bulk 301 redirects, group redirects, and statistics and analysis
- A Premium plan that costs $10/month and includes everything found in the Basic plan as well as redirect patterns to automate redirects, automatic 404 tracking, and 404 page error alerts and reminders
Available on Shopify Plus?
- No
16) Hextom
Hextom is a SaaS company that offers a number of different development solutions for Shopify stores, including a bulk image edit solution, a bulk product edit solution, an email collection bar, a payment processing tool for converting foreign currencies, a countdown timer bar, and more.
Key features
- Offers a total of 13 Shopify store development solutions
- Easily edit your product descriptions and images with bulk image edit and bulk product edit capabilities
- The option to pick and choose the specific solutions you need for your Shopify store
Pricing
- Pricing for Hextom is dependent on the specific solutions that you choose
Available on Shopify Plus?
- No
17) Vela
Vela is a solution that provides a centralized dashboard for managing multiple Shopify stores as well as the ability to bulk edit every aspect of your product descriptions.
Key features
- The ability to manage multiple Shopify stores from a single Vela account
- Bulk edit all product attributes including descriptions, photos, variants, and prices
- Optimize your product photos with filters, refinements, and cropping
Pricing
- A Vela Lite plan that costs $5/month and includes basic listing editing features
- A Vela Pro plan that costs $10/month and includes everything in the Vela Lite plan as well as copy and publish functionality, profiles, a photo library and editor, and early access to new integrations and features.
Available on Shopify Plus?
- No
Best checkout Shopify apps
According to data from Baymard Institute, 70% of shopping carts are abandoned before the customer completes their checkout. By enabling you to create fast and optimized checkout pages, these checkout Shopify apps can help you lower your abandoned cart rates and ultimately increase sales.
18) One-Click Checkout
One-Click Checkout is an app that enables you to create "Buy Now" buttons for your products that take customers directly to the checkout page as well as create a checkout popup that shows customers the items in their cart each time they add a new item to the cart.
Key features
- 24/7 customer support via phone, chat, or email
- Provides an Amazon-like one-click checkout experience
- Checkout popup and "Buy Now" buttons are both fully-customizable
Pricing
- A Free plan that costs $0/month and includes "leads to checkout" functionality for "Add to Cart" and "Buy Now" buttons
- An Unlimited plan that costs $9.95/month and includes "cart summary popup" functionality for "Add to Cart" and "Buy Now" buttons plus flexible checkout flow management
- A Priority Support plan that costs $18.95/month and includes everything in the Unlimited plan plus up to 3 hours/month of customizations, a dedicated manager, setup assistance, and priority queue for customer support
Available on Shopify Plus?
- No
19) Klarna
Integrating payment processing app Klarna into your online store provides your customers with the ability to split the cost of their purchase into four interest-free payments while still ensuring that you get paid upfront and in-full.
Key features
- On-site messaging to let customers know that Klarna financing is available for their purchases
- Allows you to create "try before you buy" promotions by giving customers an extra 30 days to complete their payment
- As a credit service, Klarna pays merchants upfront and in-full even if the customer is financing their purchase
Pricing
- Karina charges a fee of $0.30 per transaction along with a variable fee of up to 5.99% of the purchase total
Available on Shopify Plus?
- No
20) Fast Checkout In One Click
Fast Checkout In One Click is an app that allows you to create animated "Buy Now" buttons that direct customers straight to checkout, skipping the cart page and reducing the likelihood of an abandoned cart. Make your sales channels work harder for your brand.
Key features
- The option to add a cart page popup window that is displayed after a customer clicks "Buy Now"
- Animated "Buy Now" buttons to capture customers' attention complete with a variety of animation styles to choose from
- Utilizes native theme style to be compatible with most Shopify store themes but can be customized if needed
Pricing
- Fast Checkout In One Click costs $4.49/month
Available on Shopify Plus?
- No
21) Transcy
Transcy is a language and currency conversion app that will automatically translate both the content and USD prices on your online store into the language and currencies of the customer viewing them, making it one of the best apps for stores that sell to a lot of international customers.
Key features
- Detects the customer's location then auto-translates your store into the customer's native currency and language with support for all major currencies and 111 different languages
- Currency exchange rates are updated daily and can be adjusted manually
- Allows you to display separate images for different languages to better target your store to specific demographics
Pricing
- A Free plan that costs $0/month and includes translation for one additional language and two additional currencies
- An Economy plan that costs $9.90/month and includes translation for two additional languages and all major currencies as well as additional features such as multilingual SEO
- A Starter plan that costs $19.90/month and includes translation for 111 additional languages and all major currencies as well as additional features such as image replacement options
- An Essential plan that costs $39.90/month and includes translation for 111 additional languages and all major currencies as well as additional features such as a dedicated customer success manager
Available on Shopify Plus?
- No
22) Buy Me Button
Buy Me Button is a Shopify checkout solution that offers features such as "Buy Me" buttons that take customers straight to checkout, a cart preview popup that appears when customers add a new item to their cart, and "Quick Buy" buttons that allow customers to purchase products from any page or listing on your website.
Key features
- "Quick Buy" buttons allow customers to purchase products directly from any product listing pages
- All buttons automatically inherit the design of the Shopify store where they are installed and can be further customized upon installation
- Shareable links allow customers to share products on social media
Pricing
- A Free plan that costs $0/month for up to 50 "add to carts" per month
- A Small plan that costs $2.95/month for up to 250 "add to carts" per month
- A Medium plan that costs $4.95/month for up to 750 "add to carts" per month
- A Large plan that costs $6.95/month for unlimited "add to carts"
Available on Shopify Plus?
- No
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23) One Click Upsell
One Click Upsell is a Shopify app designed to help store owners increase their average order value by presenting customers with upsell opportunities at checkout. With One Click Upsell, you can create one-click upsell options that are shown to customers either before or after checkout that allow them to add additions to their purchase with just a single, convenient click.
Key features
- Upsell offer page templates that have been tested by high-volume Shopify stores
- The option to choose different upsell options for various products, product variants, and collections
- Built-in split testing
Pricing
- A Tier 1 plan that costs $24.99/month for up to $200 in total monthly upsell revenue
- A Tier 2 plan that costs $49.99/month for up to $400 in total monthly upsell revenue
- A Tier 3 plan that costs $59.99/month for up to $500 in total monthly upsell revenue
- A Tier 4 plan that costs $79.99/month for $500+ in total monthly upsell revenue
Available on Shopify Plus?
- Yes
Best inventory management and returns Shopify apps
Keeping track of your inventory and ensuring that you always have the appropriate amount of products in stock to meet customer demand can sometimes be a time-consuming challenge.
With these inventory management Shopify apps, though, you can streamline and automate your various inventory management processes, freeing you up to focus on bringing in new customers and growing your store's revenue.
24) Katana Manufacturing ERP
Katana Manufacturing ERP is an inventory management solution that allows you to optimize inventory movements by setting up reorder points and prioritizing your sales orders.
Key features
- Manage production, scheduling, and resources from one location
- Omnichannel order management
- End-to-end traceability for tracking batches, materials, expiration dates, and beyond
Pricing
- An Essential plan that supports up to three warehouses and costs $99/month
- A Pro plan that supports unlimited warehouses and costs $299/month
Available on Shopify Plus?
- Yes
25) Stock Sync
With Stock Sync, store owners are able to set up automatic inventory updates, update existing products via over 80 different connection methods, and set quantity rules to avoid overselling.
Key features
- Provides a centralized and easy-to-understand overview of your inventory levels
- Capable of integrating with up to 80 different channels, including Amazon S3, QuickBooks, eBay, Google Drive, Etsy, and OneDrive
- Capable of reading all file formats
Pricing
- A Free plan that costs $0/month and supports up to 2,000 SKUs
- A Basic plan that costs $5/month and supports up to 2,000 SKUs and 1 update feed/supplier
- A Pro plan that costs $10/month and supports up to 10,000 SKUs and 2 update feeds/suppliers
- An Enterprise plan that costs $49/month and supports 35,000 SKUs and 5+ update feeds/suppliers
Available on Shopify Plus?
- No
26) QuickBooks Commerce
One of the most well-known inventory management solutions, QuickBooks Commerce is a platform that allows you to manage your product listings across multiple channels, track products from inventory to fulfillment, automatically update your inventory levels, and much more.
Key features
- Automatically adjust stock levels for new products, damage, shrinkage, returns, or promotions
- Detailed stock history for all products
- Barcode scanning capabilities for searching for products by barcode and entering product information into sales and purchase orders
Pricing
- QuickBooks Commerce costs $50/month
Available on Shopify Plus?
- Yes
27) Stocky
Stocky is an inventory management solution offered by Shopify that enables Shopify store owners to achieve complete visibility over their inventory through detailed inventory analytics and insights such as demand forecasting. Stocky also makes it easy to create and manage purchase orders from one place.
Key features
- Provides inventory management recommendations based on profitability and rate of sales
- Enables staff to use a barcode scanner to receive and place inventory quickly and accurately
- Provides a user-friendly dashboard for creating and tracking purchase orders
Pricing
- Stocky is free to install with a Shopify POS Pro subscription
Available on Shopify Plus?
- No
28) ShipBob
More of a logistics service provider than an application, ShipBob is a service that allows ecommerce store owners to ship their products in bulk to ShipBob warehouses across the country. Once you've delivered your products, ShipBob then takes over all inventory management and order fulfillment responsibilities on behalf of your online store — picking, packing, and shipping products to customers as they're ordered.
ShipBob is a common alternative to Shopify Fulfillment Network.
Key features
- ShipBob completely eliminates the burden of order fulfillment, including managing product returns
- Strategically located warehouses allow you to offer faster shipping to locations across the country
- Includes built-in reports and analytics that provide a window into product performance
- Offers a comprehensive help center that will help you master the platform and resolve any issues that you might experience
Pricing
- ShopBob is free to install and bills for orders shipped, receiving inventory, warehouse storage, and custom projects.
- Request pricing for a custom quote or use the U.S. to U.S. shipping calculator to get started.
Available on Shopify Plus?
- Yes
See how ShipBob integrates with Gorgias.
29) AfterShip Returns Center
AfterShip Returns Center is a solution for managing customer returns that allows store owners to create a branded and interactive self-service returns page, provide customers with automated real-time updates regarding the status of their orders and returns, and set up smart routing rules to ensure that items are sent back to the right place at minimal cost.
Key features
- Detailed analytics on returned products that you can use to improve both your returns process and your product offerings
- Tools for encouraging customers to exchange their items rather than returning them for a refund
- Offers customers flexible return options such as in-store dropoff or the ability to print prepaid shipping labels
Pricing
- A Free plan that costs $0/month and offers up to three returns per month
- An Essentials plan that costs $9/month and offers up to 20 returns per month
- A Pro plan that costs $199/month and offers up to 1,000 returns per month
- An Enterprise plan with custom pricing that offers 3,000+ returns per month
Available on Shopify Plus?
- Yes
See how Aftership integrates with Gorgias.
30) Loop Returns
Encouraging exchanges for returned products rather than refunds is a great way to reduce the often substantial impact that product returns have on a store's bottom line. With Loop Returns, Shopify store owners can let customers take control of their returns and exchanges and free up their team.
Key features
- Customizable product return portals allow customers to manage returns themselves and reduce your support team's workload
- Meaningful metrics provide insight into your returns and refunds and identify supply chain, positioning, and other issues
- Enables customers to automatically apply the value of their return to any order using the "Shop Now" feature
- Allows you to apply variable bonus credits to customers who choose to exchange their returned product
Pricing
- A Starter plan that costs $59/month and supports up to 1,000 returns/year
- An Essential plan that costs $200/month and includes automatic return approval, cross-border shipping, and more
- An Advanced plan that costs $415/month and has unlimited destinations, unlimited return policies, and more
Available on Shopify Plus?
- Yes
See how Loop integreates with Gorgias.
Best social media marketing Shopify apps
According to a report from eMarketer, the number of US customers who purchased products directly from social media platforms grew to 80.1 million in 2020 and is expected to increase to 96.1 million in 2022. With these social media marketing Shopify apps, you can ensure that you are leveraging the advantages of social media marketing to their full potential.
31) Outfy
With Outfy, Shopify store owners are able to automate the process of promoting their products on social media by creating and scheduling product promotion posts that can be automatically posted across multiple social media channels at once. Outfy also makes it easy to create collages, videos, and GIFs that you can use to make promotional posts really stand out.
Key features
- Capable of auto-generating and publishing product promotion posts that are created based on a range of predefined settings
- Enables you to turn your product pictures into GIFs, videos, and collages
- Provides a variety of promotional post templates to choose from
Pricing
- A Starter plan that costs $15/month and includes basic features and support for one account on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, and Twitter for a total of five social media accounts
- A Pro plan that costs $30/month and includes additional features such as video posts and support for one account on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, and Twitter for a total of five social media accounts
- An Ultimate plan that costs $60/month and includes everything in the Pro plan plus support for two accounts on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, and Twitter for a total of ten social media accounts
- An Enterprise plan that costs $100/month and includes everything in the Pro plan plus support for five accounts on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, and Twitter for a total of 25 social media accounts
Available on Shopify Plus?
- No
32) Zotabox
Zotabox is an all-in-one ecommerce marketing platform that offers over twenty different marketing tools in one package, including tools such as a landing page builder, a Facebook reviews integration, Facebook live chat, and a promo popup.
Key features
- Exit intent tools for reducing your cart abandonment and bounce rates
- Promote customer testimonials with Facebook/Google integration
- Advanced display options available for all tools
Pricing
- A Starter plan that costs $12.99/month for websites with up to 5,000 visits per month
- An Express plan that costs $29.99/month for websites with up to 25,000 visits per month
- A Platinum plan that costs $79.99/month for websites with up to 150,000 visits per month
Available on Shopify Plus?
- No
33) Instafeed
With Instafeed, Shopify store owners are able to display content from their Instagram profile on their Shopify store in order to create social proof and expand the reach of their Instagram content.
Key features
- Image and video support
- Fully-customizable Instagram feed that allows you to choose the feed title, the number of rows and columns, and the space between posts
- Tag products in your posts to create shoppable Instagram feeds
Pricing
- A Free plan that costs $0/month and includes basic features and one Instagram feed
- A Pro plan that costs $4.99/month and includes additional features such as product tagging and the ability to display likes plus support for up to three Instagram feeds
- A Plus plan that costs $19.99/month and includes the option to filter your posts by hashtag plus support for unlimited Instagram feeds
Available on Shopify Plus?
- No
34) Facebook Channel
Facebook Channel is a tool that allows you to sell your Shopify products directly on Instagram and Facebook by making it easy to set up Facebook and Instagram shops.
Key features
- Automatically syncs products from your Shopify store to Facebook and Instagram shops
- Provides free and paid marketing tools such as audience builder Facebook ads and retargeting ads that you can use to promote your products on social media and grow your audience
- Allows you to easily manage all of your Facebook and Instagram stores within the app
Pricing
- Facebook Channel is free to install
Available on Shopify Plus?
- No
Best SEO Shopify apps
If a Shopify store has great products but no one ever visits it, does it make a profit? Unlike the well-known "tree falling in a forest" puzzle, there's a simple answer to this question, and the answer is "no.” By utilizing these search engine optimization (SEO) Shopify apps, you can ensure that Google lists your store snippets as high as possible in the results for relevant searches and boost the number of potential customers who find your site.
35) Plug In SEO
Plug In SEO is an app for Shopify stores that automates the tedious SEO process by automatically detecting and resolving a wide range of SEO issues such as broken links and missing metadata.
Key features
- A keyword tool that provides keyword suggestions for your site's content
- Offers templates for adding meta titles and meta descriptions in-bulk, for better search snippets
- Periodic SEO audit reports delivered to your inbox
Pricing
- A Free plan that costs $0/month and includes basic features such as SEO checks and broken link checks
- A Plus plan that costs $20/month and includes additional features such as automatic SEO improvements and SEO reports
- A Pro plan that costs $29.99/month and includes additional features such as a homepage speed report and premium support/training videos
Available on Shopify Plus?
- No
36) SEO Manager
SEO Manager is an app that provides a range of features for boosting your website's SEO, including features such as detecting and automatically fixing broken links, JSON-LD data support, automated title, description, and image alt text templating, Google sitemap submission, and much more.
Key features
- 404 error logging and real-time 404 repairs
- A keyword suggestion tool
- Reconfigures your website with SEO-boosting JSON-LD data
Pricing
- SEO Manager costs $20/month
Available on Shopify Plus?
- No
37) TinyIMG SEO & Image Optimizer
If the images in your Shopify store are not optimized, they could slow down your loading speeds and thus harm your site's SEO. With TinyIMG SEO & Image Optimizer, you can automatically compress all of your site's images without reducing their quality, speeding up your loading times and boosting your SEO. TinyIMG SEO & Image Optimizer also provides a range of other SEO features such as broken link detection and redirect and metadata optimization.
Key features
- Provides the option to optimize images automatically or manually
- Provides SEO and page speed audits
- Provides automatic JSON-LD microdata and metadata optimization
Pricing
- A Pay As You Go plan that costs $0/month for up to 50 free image optimizations per month. Additional image optimizations cost 3¢/image.
- A 24 Months plan that costs $47.76/year for up to 5,000 free image optimizations every two years. Additional image optimizations cost 1¢/image.
- A Monthly plan that costs $9.99/month for up to 1,000 free image optimizations per month. Additional image optimizations cost 2¢/image.
- A Special Offer plan that costs $19.99/month for up to 3,000 free image optimizations per month. Additional image optimizations cost 1¢/image.
Available on Shopify Plus?
- No
Best loyalty and retention Shopify apps
38) Yotpo
Yotpo is a review app that lets you stay engaged with customers, using email or SMS and a variety of customizable opt-in tools. Segment your lists based on detailed customer analytics, whether new or returning. The most unique selling point of Yotpo, however, is its tool set for encouraging customer reviews and dynamically displaying those reviews on your website.
Key features
- Provides customers with the ability to include photos and videos in their product reviews
- A powerful SMS flow builder
- Customizable on-site opt-in solutions
Pricing
- A Free plan that costs $0/month
- A Growth plan that costs $19/month
- A Prime plan that costs $59 a month
- Premium and Enterprise plans with custom pricing
Available on Shopify Plus?
- Yes
See how Yotpo integrates with Gorgias.
39) Retention Rocket
Retention Rocket is an SMS marketing platform that allows you to grow your SMS subscriber list and encourage long-term loyalty with TCPA compliant opt-in templates. Message individual customers or entire subscriber lists directly from the app, and create automated SMS messaging campaigns that can be triggered by a wide range of customer events.
Key features
- Allows you to create automated SMS flows and series such as an abandoned cart flow, a customer win-back series, a welcome series, and more
- Provides TCPA compliant opt-in methods such as "text to join" keywords, opt-in landing pages, and opt-in popups
- Provides the option to send customer browser push notifications
Pricing
- A Free plan that costs $0/month and includes up to $5 in free SMS messages per month
- A Bronze plan that costs $10/month and includes up to 333 free SMS messages per month
- A Sliver plan that costs $49/month and includes up to 2,450 free SMS messages per month
- A Gold plan that costs $199/month and includes up to 19,900 free SMS messages per month
- An Enterprise plan with custom features and pricing
Available on Shopify Plus?
- No
40) Smile.io
Smile.io is an app designed to help you improve your customer retention and increase your lifetime customer value by making it easy for you to create and manage loyalty and referral programs for your Shopify store.
Key features
- Allows you to create points programs that reward customers for desirable actions such as repeat purchases and referrals
- On-site nudges that remind customers when they have points available to spend
- Allows you to search for customers by name in order to adjust their points manually
Pricing
- A Free plan that costs $0/month and includes basic features such as options for creating points and referral programs
- A Starter plan that costs $49/month and includes additional features such as program branding and rewards emails
- A Growth plan that costs $199/month and includes additional features such as on-site nudges and points expiry
- A Pro plan that costs $599/month and includes additional features such as a VIP program and unlimited integrations
- An Enterprise plan that starts at $1,000/month and includes additional features such as API access and custom reporting
Available on Shopify Plus?
- Yes
See how Gorgias integrates with Smile.io.
41) LoyaltyLion
With LoyaltyLion, Shopify store owners can retain more loyal customers and increase repeat purchases with customized loyalty programs. This platform simplifies the management of your customer loyalty program and offers a number of promotional marketing tools that help you promote your program to new and existing customers.
Key features
- Notifications that alert customers that they have reward points available for incentives
- CRM
- Loyalty features that you can embed on product and post-purchase pages
- Referral tracking
- Point statements for customers
- Rewards management
- Loyalty tiers
Pricing
- A Classic plan that costs $399/month and includes 2,000 monthly orders
- An Advanced plan that costs $699/month and includes 4,000 monthly orders (with the option to add more)
- A Plus plan that costs $1,500/month and includes 10,000 monthly orders (and scales as your business grows)
Available on Shopify Plus?
- Yes
See how Gorgias integrates with LoyaltyLion.
Find out why companies use Gorgias for Shopify customer service
Tthe right Shopify apps can provide you with a broad range of revenue-boosting capabilities, from tools to grow your subscriber lists to tools for improving the quality and efficiency of your customer support (and everything in between).
At Gorgias, we are dedicated to helping Shopify store owners grow by providing their customers with the best possible experience as efficiently as possible.
If you would like to see for yourself the many benefits that Gorgias provides to Shopify store owners, see how Gorgias works with Shopify and sign up for Gorgias today.
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BFCM Automation: Insights from Top Ecommerce Partners
Yotpo, Loop Returns, ShipBob, TalentPop, Onepilot, Dedication Agents, and C(x)atalyze by Brolly Labs share the strategies and tools that can revolutionize your brand’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday approach.
We’ll share some of their success stories, helpful tips, and checklists for BFCM that will help you plan and optimize tasks that traditionally demand extensive time and resources.
Explore how to harness automation to enhance marketing efforts, simplify returns management, and elevate customer support interactions.
BFCM Loyalty & retention automation tips from Yotpo
In 2023, the tools that brands use for loyalty and retention marketing automation have gotten more sophisticated and effective, allowing for deeper integrations between them.
This gives brands the ability to create personalized, timely engagement at every touchpoint, creating a fully connected journey across channels — while building retention strategies that keep customers coming back long after BFCM and the holiday shopping season.
Key elements to automate for BFCM
Automating loyalty program updates, like points earned and progress to the next loyalty tier, keeps customers engaged between purchases and gives them a reason to come back.
One thing brands shouldn’t automate is blasting out tons of generic offers to their entire customer base. Leverage advanced segmentation and predictive analytics to send targeted campaigns around what — and when — your customers are likely to purchase next.
BFCM retention marketing automation checklist
Nailing your post-purchase flows is essential for BFCM and beyond. Automated transactional messages with order and delivery updates are crucial for giving customers peace of mind and building trust — and if you can integrate your shopping info to time review requests at the right time, even better.
Here are all the flows that you should automate:
- Welcome flows. Set up these flows before BFCM to send when a customer subscribes to email and SMS or joins your loyalty program.
- Browse and cart abandonment flows. Activate before BFCM to bring customers who abandon the shopper journey back with a reminder or discount.
- Upsell and cross-sell flows. Boost the average order value of your store and promote repeat purchases. Map out complementary products for promotion well in advance of BFCM so your flows are ready to go on Black Friday.
- Winback flows. Deploy these flows for pre-BFCM offers based on their past purchases to bring lapsed back to your brand and prime them for your BFCM promotions.
- Transactional flows. Have these set up and tested in advance of BFCM so customers can receive accurate updates on order and delivery status.
- Review requests. Integrate your reviews with your shipping software to ensure that you’re sending requests at the right time, i.e. after the customer has received the item and had a chance to use it.
- Loyalty flows. Ensure that loyalty flows are set up before BFCM so you can extend exclusive offers to rewards program members. Keep members updated on points and spending status and any exclusive perks.
- VIP flows. A week or two before BFCM, segment your most loyal customers and offer them early access to your BFCM sales.
DIME Beauty’s approach to automation & retention marketing
DIME Beauty is a brand that thinks about retention marketing year-round by finding unique ways to use automation to engage and retain their customers.
Since launching with the Yotpo Platform, DIME has seen an impressive 15% increase in their repeat purchase rate — now it’s consistently above 55%. When you look closer, it’s because DIME engages customers in every channel. Here’s everything else they accomplished:
- Personalized communications on post-purchase upsell flows consistently produce 130x ROI
- +300x ROI on abandoned cart flows tailored to loyalty members eligible for redemption
- 70% of DIME’s loyalty members are subscribed to SMS, and when they engage a loyalty member via that channel, these customers are twice as likely to redeem loyalty points
- Members subscribed to SMS purchase 3x more a year than loyalty members not subscribed to SMS
DIME will be going into BFCM 2023 with their marketing automation strategies already in place and tested, giving them the ability to turn their influx of new shoppers into repeat buyers and loyal customers.
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Loop’s tips for automating returns and exchanges in 2023
This year, there are plenty of new automation tools that you can use to help improve your returns and exchanges.
Loop has built out real-time exchange and return tracking so that there’s no more wondering where the products are. They’ve also built Loop Point of Sale, which allows brands to unite their online ecommerce operations with their in-store operations. With Loop POS, brands can save up to an estimated 780 hours of labor every year.
Key processes to automate for BFCM
While AI-driven return management systems can offer speedy inventory management and predictive analytics, if they aren’t seamlessly integrated into your returns process, they run the risk of depersonalizing the customer experience.
BFCM returns automation checklist
⏱️ Three months before BFCM
Customize your return policies. With Loop’s Workflows, you can leverage automation to help determine which customers and which return reasons should get which return policies. This can take some time to figure out, so we recommend starting about 3 months out.
Implement easy-to-use, automated processes. If you haven’t yet automated your returns management process, you’ll want to do so. Because onboarding times can vary, we recommend starting this process 3 months out.
⏱️ One to two months before BFCM
Integrate your tech stack. Once your returns are automated, you’ll want to integrate the rest of your tech stack with your returns management solution so that all of your BFCM processes (marketing, customer support, and more) run as smoothly as your returns will. Depending on who your providers are, this might take about a month or two.
Seek negotiated rates and processing efficiencies.
Look into streamlining your reverse logistics processes. Many 3PLs offer automated warehouse processes, and Loop offers negotiated rates and rate shopping to help make your returns more cost-effective.
Elevate your exchanges. Build sophisticated exchange automation options, like Loop’s Shop Now feature, which allows your customers to easily shop your entire catalog during an exchange.
Shipping and fulfillment: automation tips from ShipBob
As the first fulfillment solution to integrate with Gorgias, ShipBob has seen how more brands are enabling seamless customer support and shipping data in one place to streamline post-purchase order inquiries and actions.
This relatively new integration allows brands to connect their customer support team directly to detailed fulfillment information, so they can answer tickets and kick off follow-up communications without having to leave Gorgias, giving a more detailed answer to "Where is my order?"
They can even create automation when orders are in exception or on hold to proactively alert customers about delays as soon as they occur.
Processes to automate for BFCM
- Establish fulfillment guidelines for recurring, automated processes. For instance, consider a scenario where each time an order is imported from your store, you want to insert marketing collateral into the order.
- Order processing and importing from your store to your 3PL or WMS, and pushing back shipment tracking. Implementing these fulfillment rules streamlines the order processing and shipment tracking stages.
- Instructions for packers in the WMS. Consider using images of products on picklists and gifs/videos for pack-out processes, especially as you hire temp labor/outside help.
- Auto-generated picking lists. Make sure to include SKUs, quantities, and information on where items are located in the warehouse.
- Batch or zone picking via a WMS. This will increase efficiency as your order volume ramps up.
- Order routing that automatically utilizes the most optimal fulfillment center location. Selecting the location closest to the order’s destination for the fastest allows for the most cost-effective delivery.
Keep these elements manual
- Forecast volumes. Weekly isn't enough — know what you need to manage on a daily and sometimes hourly level to make sure you have the right capacity for not only the average but also the heaviest days.
- Build a contingency for every scenario. What action will be taken when weather disrupts the supply chain? How will demand heaviness or lightness change the plan? Having a playbook created in advance will save you time and customers.
- Communications about order delays. You can even go above and beyond by offering a discount on a future order. Customers will appreciate the transparency.
Tasks to tackle in October
- Set automatic inventory reorder points at the SKU level. This is useful when inventory falls below a certain threshold, providing you with greater lead times.
- Establish packaging preferences for each SKU. Whether that’s deciding between box and mailer, and attributes (fragile, HAZMAT, etc.) Automating which packaging materials to be used will increase your efficiency.
- Automate inventory placement, distribution, and replenishment. This is crucial if you store your products in more than one warehouse. You can reduce shipping costs, transit times, and risk if a fulfillment center or carrier gets overloaded during peak, or if carriers are unable to pick up due to severe weather.
- Build carrier cutoff deadlines into workflows. In addition to proactively sharing deadlines with customers, tie them into your shipping methods schedule, automated cart abandonment emails, website banners, and other marketing promotions.
- Weigh and get exact product dimensions for all SKUs. Doing this will help optimize for dimensional weight. If you work with a fulfillment provider like ShipBob, they should already do this for you via Cubiscan machines and box selection algorithms.
- Display estimated delivery dates and 2-day shipping badges on your product pages. These visual cues help customers make informed purchase decisions and set clear expectations for when their items will arrive.
- Spice up your unboxing experience by creating rules. Some examples are automatically adding a marketing insert to every order or gift notes.
How ShipBob helped Sharkbanz save BFCM sales
Sharkbanz was able to save their Black Friday Cyber Monday sales by using ShipBob’s end-to-end freight solution, FreightBob, which automates the shipping of inventory from the manufacturer, to ShipBob’s fulfillment centers, to the end customer.
“The time-savings achieved on the shipment using the dedicated freight service were incredible. We not only cut down our shipping time from Hong Kong to LA significantly but even saved money doing it. Thanks to ShipBob’s freight program, we had no stress and were super well-stocked for the rest of the year, without any kind of inventory issues that have plagued us in the past.
Once picked up from the port, ShipBob cross-docked it from California to Pennsylvania, while keeping some inventory in California too. As it turned out, our sales for BFCM exceeded expectations — so we were lucky that we had FreightBob to deliver extra inventory so quickly. We were in a tough spot, and I don’t think we would have been able to fulfill all of our retail orders across every single SKU throughout the entire BFCM holiday period without it. It came at a really clutch moment!” ––Nathan Garrison, Co-Founder and CEO of Sharkbanz
Customer service BFCM automation
Automating customer service processes during the BFCM period is central to providing a solid customer experience while significantly lightening the load on your reps. We had several partners give us amazing advice on how to set up your BFCM customer support for success.
- TalentPop
- OnePilot
- Dedication Agents
- C(x)atalyze by Brolly Labs
TalentPop’s CS tips for BFCM automation
2023 made it clear that for brands to succeed, they have to start leveraging CX as a revenue-generating channel and not just using it as a channel for solving requests.
At TalentPop, we see a lot of brands address simple requests like WISMO, return/exchange, and order status requests with automation through a chat widget. Many also use self-service options like an FAQ or Help Center to confidently direct customers to the correct answer on-site.
However, brands need to ensure that there’s an easy way for customers to engage with a live support agent if their request can’t be handled through automation. For example, tickets related to pre-purchase questions, product suggestions, and escalated customer situations such as lost packages, damaged orders, and defects should be taken care of by a human as there is a need to establish brand loyalty while exercising sensitivity.
When live agents handle complex issues, simple requests can be resolved with automation and can turn into revenue-generating opportunities.
⏱️ 3 months before BFCM, do the following:
- Historical analysis. Review past BFCM data to anticipate ticket volume, ticket types, and Customer Service Metrics (FRT, Resolution Time, CSAT, Tickets Handled Per Hour) customer behavior.
- Peak timing identification. Determine the busiest customer service hours from previous BFCM.
- Ensure mobile optimization. Ensure the website/app is fully functional and user-friendly on mobile devices.
- Set up performance analytics. Monitor customer service metrics and adjust KPIs and SLAs accordingly.
- Capacity planning. Ensure infrastructure and personnel can handle BFCM volume. Look to onboard more CS agents if needed.
- AI-powered solution implementation. Establish AI in your helpdesk for smarter, faster customer service and problem prediction on simplified Customer Service Requests.
⏱️ 2 months before BFCM, do the following:
- Omnichannel support setup. Ensure all customer service channels are enabled and that your brand can establish a consistent support experience across all platforms.
- Automate error notifications. Create instant alerts in Slack to report any outages to any major software or apps you are using and have established links you can visit to ensure you can track statuses.
- Update Macros. Review existing macros and add a new Macros section to have responses for commonly asked questions and ensure you have new macros created for any questions related to BFCM.
- Implement basic Gorgias automation. Set up Gorgias Quick Response Flows and Order Management Flows. Establish Chat Campaigns on Gorgias to proactively communicate with customers based on BFCM offers or anticipate questions they may have based on where on the site they are navigating. Set automated replies with expected wait times or common solutions.
- Create BFCM-specific tags. Ensure you have tags related to all ticket types and add any tags specific to BFCM to categorize customer interactions. Implement Auto-Tagging to address all ticket types, and automate the process of tagging BFCM-related customer inquiries.
- Customer segmentation. Define VIP criteria based on # of purchases, frequency of purchases, loyalty, etc.
- Dedicated BFCM page creation. Design a specific page detailing all BFCM offers, terms, etc. Ensure it communicates all BFCM-related policies like returns, shipping, etc.
- Agent training sessions. Update agents on BFCM deals, new product offerings, policies, and common BFCM queries. Develop internal knowledge base guides for your top customer service requests to ensure clarity across all team members.
⏱️ 1 month before BFCM, do the following:
- Communicate loyalty benefits. Ensure VIPs are aware of and receive all their loyalty benefits.
- Escalation procedures setup. Have a clear plan for escalating unresolved or complex customer issues.
- Streamline returns & exchanges. Simplify the process for post-BFCM returns or exchanges to avoid unnecessary bottlenecks and delays.
- Plan post-BFCM deals and communications. Strategize for post-sale communications and deals to retain customers.
- Set up email and push notifications. Implement notifications to update users about deals, restocks, etc. Set emails to automatically update customers about orders, shipping, etc.
- Fast-track ticket views for VIPs. Dedicate faster or exclusive support channels for VIP customers by ensuring proper ticket routing to VIP customers.
- Set up automated post-purchase surveys and thank yous. Gather customer feedback on their BFCM shopping experience and send personalized appreciation messages to customers post-purchase.
⏱️ Implement the following ASAP:
- Send exclusive VIP offers. Provide VIPs with special BFCM deals or early access.
- Live chat activation. Enable a live chat on Gorgias to allow for real-time assistance on the website/app.
⏱️ Tasks to do on an ongoing basis:
- Send exclusive VIP offers. Provide VIPs with special BFCM deals or early access.
- Live chat activation. Enable a live chat on Gorgias to allow for real-time assistance on the website/app.
- Send proactive notifications. Notify customers about order statuses or stock changes proactively.
- Feedback loop implementation. Regularly update resources based on customer feedback.
- Keep inventory updated. Ensure stock levels on the site/app are updated in real-time to prevent over-selling.
- Provide seamless order tracking. Allow customers to easily track their BFCM orders in real time.
- Integrate feedback for improvement. Use received feedback to better future BFCM strategies.
Setting Brown Girl Jane up for BFCM Success
Women’s fragrance brand Brown Girl Jane came to TalentPop in October of 2022 searching for the perfect team to help them tackle their influx of tickets during the holiday season.
After helping them crush their goals in 2022, TalentPop is setting them up for success this BFCM with automation. Using Gorgias’s Automation Add-On, TalentPop’s Implementation team was able to set up Rules and Flows to automatically respond to common inquiries that did not require agent oversight.
The result? Brown Girl Jane is now seeing 70% of their tickets resolved through automation, freeing up agent time to focus on customer concerns that require more oversight and drive revenue through upselling and cross-selling opportunities.
The Brown Girl Jane team is now prepared to head into 2023’s BFCM with the confidence that their Customer Service agent will be able to handle the influx of tickets, and more efficiently address customer concerns!
OnePilot’s BFCM automation hacks for CS in 2023
At OnePilot, a customer service outsourcing company, we keep up to date with all things CS and automation.
In 2021 or 2022, mail and phone were still the main channels of communication for brands. The shift to chat and social media allowed brands to pivot to using more automation, especially with the rise in the popularity of AI.
Automation and AI can pre-qualify customers' demands and help human agents to focus on answer quality.
OnePilot’s BFCM customer service checklist
- Train your agents with new tools and processes specific to BFCM
- Prepare alternative channels of communication. Some customers will still prefer the human touch, so make sure that they can easily connect with an agent if they need further support.
- Plan to add additional agents to manage additional BFCM volume.
- Ensure you have key metrics like First Resolution Time, First Response Time, CSAT, and NPS set up to monitor BFCM results.
Dr. BRANDT x Onepilot
A few years ago, Dr. BRANDT was using Zendesk as their ticketing tool, but it required too much time and training for a small brand. With a backlog of tickets and slower shipping times than normal during the BFCM period, there was a real risk of losing revenue, losing customers, and getting negative reviews.
Dr. BRANDT was facing these challenges:
- A doubled ticket volume pre-, during, and post-BFCM across all channels
- Increased customer expectations in terms of responsiveness, expertise, and coverage since many people are in a rush to get gifts on time.
- 5 to 10x more orders to handle
Their small team felt that the helpdesk was “not plug and play” and they needed something simpler to implement. That’s when they decided to use Gorgias which fully integrated with Shopify and other tools in their stack such as Klaviyo and Recharge.
Today, all their channels are connected in a single app, allowing them to streamline their customer support, keep track of their client history, and enhance their partnership with Onepilot.
Dr. BRANDT also automates simple tickets, like WISMO inquiries, to speed up their resolution times. “For these simple questions, customers don’t need a “human touch” — they need fast, helpful responses,” they said.
By taking advantage of automation, their agents can focus on more complex customer demands that require human interaction during the stressful BFCM period.
Dedication Agents’ tips for BFCM automation, CS edition
The advent of generative AI becoming mainstream through ChatGPT has made consumers extremely familiar with automation and self-service options on ecommerce websites.
Dedication Agents sees this with all clients who are looking to empower customers to find information on their own.
And it’s a good idea — arming consumers with self-service tools allows the merchant to scale sales volumes without having to dramatically adjust their store operations.
Automate these processes ahead of BFCM
A smooth-sailing BFCM means automating all answers to customer questions that can be answered from content on your site. The less time the customer spends finding an answer, the more likely they are to make a purchase.
Things like order updates, product information, and shipping policies –– essentially all standard things a customer looks for — should all be automated. More complex items like refunds, chargebacks, and fraud claims are best left for human agents as the user temperament with a dollar has a much higher sensitivity.
⏱️ One month before BFCM, plan to:
Review customer interactions and feedback. Take into consideration what customers say about your products and services to help you streamline support through automation.
Ensure that automated Flows do not sound robotic by using language that caters to what a customer is looking for. This should be done a month before to give you ample time to fine-tune and test messaging to ensure it reflects your brand voice.
Set up automated post-purchase surveys and thank yous. Gather customer feedback on their BFCM shopping experience and send personalized appreciation messages to customers post-purchase.
⏱️ Two weeks before BFCM, you should:
Update all site content. Make sure content is as fresh as possible to ensure customers know how to find what they need. This should be done a couple of weeks before BFCM given customers will start to look at their favorite brands in advance.
Personalized chat flows specific to BFCM. Repurpose chat automations and Macros where necessary to ensure that communications have to do with BFCM. Getting this done two weeks before the rush of BFCM will give you room to carry out tests and modifications.
⏱️ One week before BFCM, you should:
Update and/or double-check store policies, specifically for refunds and exchanges. Maintaining messaging accuracy in emails and chat automations is key to a headache-free customer experience. Do this about a week before BFCM customers have clear expectations about returns and exchanges.
Test all automations. Given the various changes that will likely be made during the BFCM period, it’s best to test out all automations at least one week in advance to allow time to address glitches, unexpected problems, and more.
A Dedication Agents success story
Dedication Agents supports a global artist’s online store that sees heavy volumes of orders and inquiries. Originally, the Dedicated Agents team answered all live chat and emails around order support, which became a very monotonous task since they were answering the same question over and over again.
They then realized they could use automation to free up the team to work on other higher-value tasks.
This became a huge time saver and value add to customer support. Responses became instantaneous which kept customers happy as they waited for their order. Once first response times were reduced, saw future sales increased by 45% with the customers who had originally interacted with the automations — a surprising win.
BFCM customer service tips from C(x)atalyze by Brolly Labs
If you think ticket count will double during BFCM, it will likely quadruple. If you think it will triple, it could end up being 5x.
C(x)atalyze highly recommends using the Gorgias Automation Add-On to manage chat.
The Automation Add-On enables customers to answer their questions in the most efficient way possible. Adding several Help Center articles for BFCM will also enable customers to access specific questions via the Automation Add-On.
In addition, use Gorgias Flows to supplement the chat widget to serve customers even during offline hours.
Putting in the effort to set up automation thoroughly will make things easier for you in the future. A few hours of work on your Help Center and Flows will decrease your work by hundreds of hours during the holidays.
The CS elements C(x)atalyze recommends automating for BFCM
There are two certainties with BFCM:
- There will be operations issues, and tickets will pile up.
- There will be questions. So many questions. Many from new customers.
BFCM is an opportunity that brands must optimize for future growth. This means being proactive with customers when they have sales questions.
Never automate sales questions. C(x)atalyze, recommends adding the live chat function and ensuring that FRT is less than 2 minutes. Then make sure to set up urgent views in Gorgias to categorize “sales leads” based on email and chat so you never miss these opportunities — don’t let them get lost in the inbox shuffle!
Try to automate operational questions as much as possible. Have an auto-reply set up letting customers know you are busy, but will get back to them. Automate all tracking requests, change of address requests, and other questions that can be solved with dynamic variables.
Set up automated responses to these questions
Where is my order?
C(x)atalyze recommends adding the dynamic Gorgias tag for tracking information. You can also dynamically input the customer’s address into the response to provide further peace of mind.
Shipping and delivery questions
These can all more or less be maintained by automation. Nuances include questions about expedited shipping (especially during the holiday season) and shipping speed.
Note: Change of address can be tricky. Make sure you change the address within both Shopify and your subscription management tool if you use one.
- Use a Gorgias rule and Macro to enable the Gorgias change address in Shopify action which will automatically perform this task for you.
- Tag all of these using rules and tags so an agent can review and verify that the process was performed correctly. In this manner, your customers receive an update right away and increase your CSAT score, while your agent can double-check to verify it was done correctly.
Order cancellations
C(x)atalyze recommends automating order cancellations for new orders and non-subscriptions. If a customer places an order by mistake, this automation makes it easy for them to cancel.
Pro Tip: Save subscriptions from cancellations — retaining customers is more cost-effective than acquiring new customers.
Questions about BFCM / holiday season discounts
- Many customers will email inquiring about discounts knowing that most brands provide discounts. C(x)atalyze recommends automating this response by using Gorgias’ “contains” rule feature. Include words such as “discount” AND “BFCM”, “holiday”, “Thanksgiving”, “Black Friday”, “Christmas”, etc.
- In the response, make sure you provide the method by which to receive a discount (e.g. signing up for SMS).
For example, one of C(x)atalyze’s customers in the food space gets tons of questions about when the food will be delivered. This company ran a “lifetime discount” campaign last BFCM, so they set up two key automations that reduced ticket responses by 50%:
- An auto-response rule that automatically responds to customers asking about the discount. Any tickets containing the word “discount” and a “discount/request” intent condition were targeted to generate the lifetime discount for customers.
- An auto-response to WISMO tickets. Using Gorgias Intent and Rules, tickets that included certain keywords (e.g. “where is my order”, “order status”, etc.). received auto-responses that included a tracking URL.
Give your ecommerce strategy a boost this holiday shopping season
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.
If you want to move the meter, focus on setting up strong BFCM automation 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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5 Steps to Get Your Customer Support Ready for BFCM
Let’s cut to the chase: Black Friday and Cyber Monday customer support is intense. For ecommerce customer support teams, the flood of tickets is the online store version of shoppers mobbing through brick-and-mortar stores.
It’s easy to focus on just getting through the flood of tickets. But If you’re proactive, your support team could actually reduce the number of incoming tickets with automation. And with all that time saved, the support team can have a huge impact on the cumulative success of the weekend by unblocking sales, reducing return rates, and more.
Customer support teams are not just there to answer tickets during BFCM — they are key at every stage along the customer journey:
An unprepared or understaffed support team is the quickest way to kill your BFCM success. And with $209.7 billion in forecasted online spending at stake, that’s not something you can take for granted. Here are 5 steps to make your support team the hero of Black Friday 2023.
1. Update your customer service policies and SLAs
Ecommerce sales depend on clear policies around shipping, returns, lost packages, and more. When customers don’t know your policies, they’ll either write to your support team (if you’re lucky) or abandon their cart entirely and head over to Amazon (more likely).
In the first case, your support team is stuck answering repetitive questions like, "What's your shipping policy?" when customers should really have easy access to that information on their own. In the second, you’re directly losing online sales because of a lack of clear customer self-service options. Either way, we’re here to help you solve it.
“Make sure all of your policies are up-to-date before Black Friday-Cyber Monday, and communicate them to both agents (through your SLA) and customers (on key pages of your website). This will reduce the number of tickets you have to field and ensure customers have the information they need to make a confident purchase decision.” —Bri Christiano, Director of Support at Gorgias
Policies for shipping and fulfillment during Black Friday-Cyber Monday
Most customers use BFCM weekend to lock in holiday gifts, so their number one concern on BFCM (after what deal they can score) is often around delivery dates. They want to know if their order will make it on time for the holidays.
How to estimate shipping times to inform your shipping policy
Before communicating shipping dates to customers, work backward with your fulfillment team to determine the absolute last day orders can ship and still arrive in time (factoring in holiday shipping delays).
Once that “drop dead” order date has been determined, it needs to be clearly communicated to holiday shoppers, along with any opportunities to speed up shipping for an additional fee.
Here are some common customer expectations around fulfillment you may want to consider (thanks, Amazon!).
Where to put your BFCM shipping policy
Make your shipping policies (and the “drop dead” date) clear in your:
- Checkout flow (during the shipping method step and order preview step)
- Order confirmation emails
- FAQ page and/or Help Center
- Macros (where relevant)
- Website banner
- Product pages
If you feel uncertain about what those shipping policies should be exactly, check out our guide for ecommerce shipping and fulfillment best practices. Better safe than sorry with an inbox full of angry customer emails.
How to address lost packages during Black Friday-Cyber MondayLost or damaged packages are common during BFCM. The first step for addressing the issue is to understand why they go missing in the first place.
Common reasons packages are lost are:
- The package was never shipped in the first place
- The packing slip fell off or wasn’t properly scanned by the carrier
- The package was delivered to the wrong address
- The package was damaged (usually by fire or water)
- The package was stolen after delivery
Stuff happens. Being upfront about what customers can expect if the worst-case scenario happens is key to recovering and retaining that customer relationship.
Your customer-facing lost package policy should include:
- Any limits in coverage for damages
- How customers should inform of lost packages
- What is required to submit a claim (i.e. pictures, shipping confirmation email, etc.)
- How long a package needs to go undelivered before it’s considered lost
And, don’t forget to set your support agents up for success by providing them with a process that explains:
- What steps they should take to troubleshoot a missing package
- Available macros the team can use in these cases
- Clear guidelines for escalating a case to the fraud team (i.e. number of repeated claims, etc.)
This will help your agents handle the process quickly and consistently, and give your customers the peace of mind that they will be made whole if something goes wrong.
If you’re creating this policy from scratch or want to make sure your policy is covering all your bases, check out our guide on how to handle lost ecommerce packages.
Policy for returns and exchanges during Black Friday — Cyber Monday
If you’ve ever bought a gift for “ the person who has everything” or received tighty-whities from Great Aunt Margret for Christmas, you know how important a return policy is. More than ever during the holiday sales season, your customers are going to want to know your return policy. And, while you can’t eliminate the BFCM returns, you can at least reduce the number of them if you understand where they’re coming from.
In addition to gift returns, the top reasons online shoppers choose to return a product include:
- Item didn't match its product description and/or customer expectations
- Item arrived late and the customer no longer needs it
- "Wardrobing," when serial returners buy and return items without any intention of ever keeping products
- Merchant shipped the wrong product
- Item was damaged or defective
To reduce ecommerce returns, during BFCM or any other time, the more information you give upfront, the less likely people are to return the items later on. Your return policy should be crystal clear to both support agents and customers about the conditions under which you will accept a return for either a refund or exchange. Not sure where to start? Check out our return policy template generator to get started.
Where to put your BFCM returns and exchanges policy
Similar to the shipping policy locations, you want to make your returns and exchanges policy (or at least a link to the full policy) as visible as possible to avoid unnecessary support tickets.
Make your returns and exchanges policies clear in your:
- Checkout flow (during the shipping method step and order preview step)
- Order confirmation emails
- FAQ page
- Help center resource pages
- Macro templates (where relevant)
- Website banner
- Product pages
Set customer expectations with your SLAs
A service-level agreement (SLA) is a document that describes what the client or customer can expect from the provider. A strong SLA is foundational to cultivating understanding and maintaining high satisfaction with your existing customers. Making sure your SLA is up-to-date is more crucial than ever when entering into the busiest times of the year when customer expectations are at their height.
Here are some things you should add to (or update) in your SLA for BFCM:
- Use plain English and simplify as much as possible. Talk to your target audience in language they’ll understand, to avoid confusion
- Design your SLA based on data. Benchmark your SLA expectations against historic data and then adapt to the forecast you calculated above, so you can make the metrics you aim for challenging, but realistic
- Set expectations specific to each customer service channel. Different customer service channels will require different policies. For example, social media response times may be longer than in-app chat responses. (Pro Tip: Use Gorgias Statistics to understand your existing response times per channel to help you craft these SLAs).
- Build in procedures for worst-case scenarios. Your website might crash, you might have more customers than expected, or there could be other unexpected issues — plan ahead to make sure you aren’t caught off-guard.
- Proactively communicate the SLA to your agents and customers. The value of your SLA depends on both of these stakeholder groups understanding the terms, so make sure you communicate it to your agents, to your customers through your helpdesk, and key places on your website (contact us page, live chat widget, etc.).
Berkey Filters, an online retailer that sells water purification systems, does a great job of sharing its SLA for live messaging channels with customers. Their Help page acts as a sort of customer support landing page, setting expectations with customers about the fastest way to reach the team — 2 minutes, for SMS and live chat support.
2. Leverage automation for self-serve support
Your agents have more important things to do than answering the same basic questions over and over (and over and over). The trick? Setting up self-service resources to help customers help themselves.
This includes making information easily accessible by leveraging automation to answer simple or repetitive questions (e.g. “What size am I?”) and making sure your FAQ pages are up-to-date.
With tools like Gorgias, you can even use AI to automatically suggest articles when customers ask last-minute questions in the chat.
Some examples of ecommerce brands taking help centers to the next level are:
- Loop Earplug’s Help Center has easy-to-identify FAQ categories with illustrated buttons. Customers can quickly find the answers they need rather than making them sort through a massive drop-down menu of questions and solutions.
- Steve Madden's Order Management Flows help customers quickly view the status of their orders, request refunds, or report an order issue.
- BrüMate's Flows help their customers easily find the perfect product through their self-service center.
- Topical’s Quick Response Flows answer common customer questions in the chat widget, deflecting 69% of tickets that would have otherwise required agent attention and wait time for customers.
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3. Forecast your ticket volume
Gorgias merchant data shows that the average ecommerce business will see a 20% spike in ticket volume during BFCM. That increase in volume can cripple a support team if you don’t take the time to forecast your ticket volume and staff accordingly. You’ll want to make sure your team has the capacity to answer revenue-driving questions in a timely way so your customers don’t abandon carts due to wait times.
Proactive and data-driven forecasting is the key to reducing wait times and increasing revenue on BFCM. Relying on guesswork or reactive staffing measures will likely leave you with burned-out agents and unhappy customers (not to mention tanking CSAT and NPS).
Or, you may find yourself overstaffed and wasting valuable resources on excess headcount, offsetting any bfcm sales you make. Balancing these two extremes can only be done with a strong forecasting strategy.
If you’re unsure of where to start with your strategy, check out the battle-tested, three-step framework for customer service forecasting, the CEO of HelpFlow, Jon Tucker developed. He manages a 24/7 live chat and customer service team for over 100 brands with this strategy, so you know it’s good stuff! Here’s the Cliffnotes version:
- Calculate your contact rate (i.e. transaction-to-ticket ratio)
To calculate your contact ratio, simply:
- Pull your transaction count for a given period (in Shopify’s UI you can find it under Analytics > Reports)
- Pull your ticket volume for the same time period from Gorgias or a similar customer service platform (pictured in the red frame below)
- Divide ticket volume by transaction volume to calculate your ratio (e.g. 400 tickets divided by 1,000 transactions would yield a contact rate of 40%)
As a benchmark, HelpFlow usually sees a contact rate of 30-50% for stores that haven’t yet streamlined their customer service experience, and 20% for those with more optimized, automated processes.
Use your contact rate to project ticket volume
Once you have your overall contact rate, the next step is to estimate how many orders you'll experience over BFCM. Your estimated order volume and your average contact rate are the two ingredients you need to calculate the estimated ticket volume.
To build a projection of order volume, look at your historical data for:
- Order volume from BFCM the previous year
- Business growth over the last year
- Market trends surrounding BFCM for the current year
Once you forecast ticket volume, the next step is to determine how many team members you need to handle the volume.
Estimate the number of agents needed for the holiday season, based on past capacity
Start by assessing the number of tickets each agent has the capacity for and then divide the number of forecasted ticket volumes by that number to determine how many agents you need for the holidays.
To calculate agent capacity per full-time agent:
- Run a report for the total number of tickets resolved per full-time agent over a specific period using the agent statistics in your helpdesk (in Gorgias, it’s under Statistics > Agents)
- Use the average number to set a benchmark for agent capacity (this number will vary by agent, but an average will give you a good working estimate)
- Next, divide the forecasted ticket volume total by the average agent capacity to find how many agents you will need.
Your agent capacity will vary significantly based on your business, agents, and customer service operation. For example, HelpFlow typically sees anywhere from 40 to 60 tickets per day per agent as a healthy benchmark. And, across Gorgias customers, we see an average of ~60 tickets per day per agent in healthy support organizations.
As a general rule, building in a buffer is a good idea, especially if this is your first year creating your forecasting strategy and there may be some variance in the numbers.
4. Find ways to get more customer service help
While hiring additional customer service agents might seem like an easy solution to the BFCM madness, the unfortunate reality is it’s hardly the time to ramp up new employees.
It’s better to first take a hard look at your existing processes and see where you can optimize for the team you already have, and/or outsource to seasoned pros. This will not only help you run your customer service more effectively but will also help you avoid excess headcount after the holidays.
Offer your existing agents overtime
After you’ve optimized your existing process, consider offering your current agents overtime pay rather than hiring unseasoned agents that would be in excess come January.
For example, if you typically have five agents working eight-hour days, offer an additional 90 minutes each day during the holidays at a holiday-exclusive overtime pay rate. By doing this you can add the equivalent of another full-time agent (i.e. 90 mins per day x 5 agents = 7.5h of workload per day).
Here are some tips from Tucker, to maximize the impact of team overtime:
- Don’t surprise your team with overtime: Keep them informed of upcoming volume so they’re not blindsided and resentful for being asked to extend their shifts.
- Cultivate a sense of comradery: Keep your team informed of forecasts and potential issues — and brainstorm solutions together. This not only creates a sense of teamwork that makes overtime easier to implement but you also may uncover solutions you haven’t thought of.
- Show your appreciation: Offering time-and-a-half pay for overtime hours is a great incentive for agents, and will most likely be more cost-effective than letting sales and customer satisfaction slip.
Agent burnout is a real problem, especially since the pandemic, so be careful asking for too much overtime from your current agents. However, it can be a great short-term solution, especially if you have a healthy team culture. Just make sure you’re following any relevant HR rules and regulations — the penalties can be severe if you aren’t careful.
Bring in an outsourcing agency or BPO
If the amount of overtime your team can work won’t bridge the gap in headcount needed during the holidays, it’s time to look externally for resources. But be forewarned, not all Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) or customer service outsourcing agencies are created equal.
Choosing the right partner agency
“A great outsourcing agency or BPO should be providing advice to make your team more efficient, not just providing temporary agents,” says Tucker. “The net result of finding the right partner is not only the additional tickets from their agents but also the increased output from your existing team.”
Tucker said some of the best ways to find a great customer service vendor is to:
- Ask your helpdesk provider for recommendations: At Gorgias, we have an entire partner program with talented teams that can help you scale (here’s HelpFlow’s partner page).
- Vet your potential agencies’ training processes: This training should be extremely methodical, robust, and agency-driven — it’s a red flag if you’re expected to train their temporary agents.
- Look for an agent turnover rate of less than 10%: It’s common for customer service agencies to have turnover rates of 30% or higher, which means you will be constantly onboarding new hires. (HelpFlow’s turnover rate is only 1% per year, so you’ll get experienced, fully-ramped agents who can hit the ground running during BFCM)
- Seek an agency that asks questions: If they seem desperate for business and fail to dig into the mechanics of your business to know if they can help, it’s a sign they won’t go deep on training either.
5. Double down on chat for BFCM support
Imagine a customer is rushing to get a deal on that one item their kid really wanted for Christmas. They only get as far as the product page when they realize they’re not sure which model is compatible with their kid’s current tech setup though. So, they call your customer support line, but agents are slammed because it’s BFCM and the estimated wait time is over 20 minutes.
The customer, wanting to make sure they get this special gift while it’s still in stock, quickly searches Google for the specs. They land on the site of another retailer that has the product in stock at a comparable price. Better yet, before they even have a chance to try and find the information themselves, a friendly chat assistant welcomes them and asks if they need help finding anything.
The chat conversation quickly helps them determine what model they need and even sends them a direct link to the product page for it after just a brief dialogue. The customer, rather than shuffling through all their tabs to find the other retailer’s site, decide they might as well just purchase the item on the second site since they’re already on the exact product page they need.
This is what chat does best; they help customers while they’re in the flow of shopping. Wherever your customers are on the site, chat keeps all of the information right at their fingertips so they stay on-site and in the online shopping flow. According to recent studies, chat can boost conversion rates by as much as 12%!
With a tool like Gorgias, you can set up chat campaigns that target customers and automatically pop-up based on browsing behavior, pages visited, dwell time, and more. You can use these chat campaigns to offer real-time support, deal notifications, offer unique incentives, and more.
Learn more about how chat campaigns can help you improve the pre-sales customer experience and drive more sales during BFCM (and beyond).
How Gorgias helps support teams drive revenue on Black Friday and Cyber Monday
If your BFCM strategy over-relies on expensive marketing ideas to win new customers, you’re missing out. Of course, acquiring customers is important — but their value is only truly realized if you can keep them around.
According to Gorgias data, repeat customers make up only 21% of the average brand’s customer base but generate 44% of that brand’s revenue because they shop more often and place higher-value orders.
The easiest way to cultivate customer retention beyond the holiday season is through great customer support. And, the best way to provide great customer support is by giving your customer service teams the tools they need to streamline operations.
Gorgias helps empowers your support teams to retain customers by:
- Centralizing interactions across all ecommerce channels through powerful integrations to reduce tedious tab switching
- Automating answers to common requests to skip mind-numbing questions and reduce overall ticket volume to manageable levels
- Empowering agents to engage in meaningful customer interactions by automating repetitive tasks like ticket triage and tagging and updating orders
- Boosting sales with pre-sales support, proactive chat campaigns, product quizzes, and more features that power upsells and cross-sells
- Providing the data needed to continually optimize for the best agent and customer experience
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