CX Design
Meet Auto QA: Quality Checks Are Here to Stay
TL;DR:
- Manual QA is time-consuming—Auto QA does the heavy lifting. It frees up team leads by automatically reviewing conversations with accuracy and consistency, so they can focus on improving support.
- Auto QA scores 100% of private text conversations, whether handled by a human or AI Agent. It evaluates support quality based on Resolution Completeness, Communication, and Language Proficiency.
- Auto QA supports multiple languages but provides feedback in English. It can assess tickets in any language supported by OpenAI’s GPT-4, ensuring global teams can benefit from automated QA.
- Start with individual meetings before a team-wide rollout of Auto QA. One-on-one conversations help address specific agent concerns and ensure a smooth transition.
Customer satisfaction scores (CSAT) have long been the go-to metric for measuring support quality, with 53% of customer experience leads relying on them. However, CSAT only tells you part of the story.
When customers rate their experience 3 out of 5, what does it really mean? Did they rate the agent’s actions or the company’s policies? Was an agent helpful or inefficient? Did they take unnecessary steps to get to the answer?
Quality assurance checks can fill these gaps, but manual QA is a heavy lift. Team leads often struggle to review more than a small sample of conversations, leaving many issues unchecked.
Auto QA redefines quality assurance for today’s support teams. It transforms QA from a manual task into an automated feedback engine that helps your team deliver excellent support, every single time.
Let's dive into how Auto QA works, how accurate its scoring is, and how you can add it to your support workflow to start improving customer conversations today.
What is Auto QA?
Gorgias Auto QA upgrades the customer service QA process by automatically evaluating 100% of private text conversations, whether handled by a human or AI Agent.
Each message is scored on metrics like Resolution Completeness, Brand Voice, and Accuracy, helping teams fix and address areas of improvement.
With an automated QA process, brands can:
- Save time: Automated quality checks help team leads focus on the most critical tickets.
- Ensure consistency: Both human agents and AI agents are evaluated with a unified, comprehensive quality score.
- Boost performance: Agents can receive targeted coaching to provide more consistent customer experiences.
- Meet customer expectations: Customers benefit from higher-quality support with quicker resolutions and accurate responses.
How Auto QA works
Let's explore a real-life scenario: A customer reaches out about a product issue, seeking troubleshooting help. Here’s how the interaction unfolds:
Customer: "Hi, my device broke, and I bought it less than a month ago. -Kelly"
Support Agent: "Hi Kelly, please send us a photo or a video so we can determine the issue with your device. -Michael"
The ticket is eventually closed, but the customer doesn't leave a CSAT score.
In this case, Auto QA would provide the following insights:
- Communication Score: 3/5. Reason: The agent's wording could benefit from more empathy.
- Resolution Score: "Complete". Reason: The agent effectively addressed the customer's concerns.
How accurate is Auto QA’s scoring?
Auto QA uses a comprehensive scoring system that evaluates conversations on communication proficiency and knowledge accuracy.
To ensure accuracy, Auto QA only scores interactions with at least 250 characters and messages from both agents and customers. It's also smart enough to filter out automated responses, spam, and bot messages.
Auto QA automatically scores three main aspects:
- Resolution Completeness: Did the agent solve everything the customer asked about? This area is scored with a "Complete" or "Incomplete.” For instance, it correctly marks a ticket as "Complete" when a customer resolves their issue or when there's no clear question to address.
- Communication Quality: How well did the agent listen and show empathy? Uses a 1-5 scale, looking at how well your agents acknowledged a customer’s concerns and communicated the solution.
- Language Proficiency: Did the agent communicate properly? Uses a 1-5 scale to check spelling, grammar, and syntax.
For deeper feedback, certain criteria require manual scoring from team leads:
- Accuracy: How accurate was the information provided by the agent?
- Efficiency: How quickly did the agent handle the ticket? How well did they minimize the number of follow-ups?
- Internal Compliance: How closely did the agent follow your team’s internal processes and brand guidelines?
- Brand Voice: How well did the agent use brand vocabulary, greetings, sign-offs, and tone of voice?
How to integrate Auto QA into your workflow
Whether you're just starting with quality checks or transitioning from manual QA, Auto QA can seamlessly fit into your existing processes. Here's how to get started.
1. Set your standards
What does “good” look like for your team? Review Auto QA's scoring system and decide which metrics matter most for your brand, from Resolution Completeness to Brand Voice. This will help you set realistic targets for your team to work toward.
Tip: Start by prioritizing a couple of areas. This could look like prioritizing a 5/5 Resolution Completeness score while deprioritizing Brand Voice. As your team gets comfortable with Auto QA, you can ramp up to improving Brand Voice.
2. Agree on a scoring system
Since some criteria—Accuracy, Efficiency, Internal Compliance, and Brand Voice—require manual scoring, it’s best to agree on how your team will use the scoring scale.
For example, each score from 1 to 5 receives a distinct piece of feedback. Here’s what that would look for the Efficiency criteria:
- 1/5 stars: Excessive back-and-forth that could have been avoided
- 2/5 stars: Resolution took longer than necessary due to poor process
- 3/5 stars: Average handling time with some unnecessary steps
- 4/5 stars: Quick resolution with minimal back-and-forth
- 5/5 stars: One-touch resolution
3. Prepare your agents
Start rolling out Auto QA through individual meetings with agents rather than overwhelming your team with a general training session. One-on-one conversations allow you to better address each agent's specific questions and concerns. Make sure to cover the following:
- Explain that Auto QA is meant to help make conversations consistent, not police agents
- Explain the scoring criteria and what each score means
- Highlight which criteria agents should prioritize
If regular one-on-one meetings aren't part of your routine, consider introducing Auto QA during your weekly team meetings or through a dedicated training session. Just remember to leave plenty of time for questions and walk through multiple examples to ensure everyone is comfortable with the system.
4. Establish a review schedule
To solidify QA checks, create a simple routine for reviewing Auto QA insights with the Auto QA Report (navigate to Statistics > Auto QA).
- Weekly: Do a quick check of automated scores.
- Monthly: Analyze trends and patterns across conversations.
- Quarterly: Review and adjust quality benchmarks.
5. Act on insights
Once you’ve collected a substantial amount of Auto QA data, there are a few follow-up actions you can take to continue having high-quality conversations:
- Set the example by sharing high-scoring conversations in your team meetings.
- Coach agents individually by reviewing their tickets together. Celebrate high-scoring conversations and provide targeted feedback on areas for improvement. This immediate, personalized approach helps agents grow faster than general training sessions.
- Increase product and policy knowledge by refining internal guidelines on brand voice, escalation processes, and more.
Remember, Auto QA works alongside your existing processes—it doesn't replace them. Start small, focus on the metrics that matter most to your team, and scale up as you get comfortable with Auto QA.
Brands are excited about the power of Auto QA
We invited leading ecommerce brands to beta test Auto QA, and their feedback highlights how it's transforming quality assurance across support teams of all sizes.
amika's support team values the complete visibility beyond CSAT: "Auto QA dramatically widens the volume of tickets we can review," they share. "A 5-point scale only tells you so much, and relying on consumers providing feedback limits what you're able to learn from."
Peachybbies' CX team enjoys real-time improvement: "Being able to give real-time feedback is pivotal, especially during peak times," their team explains. "Auto QA catches pretty much everything I'd want a human QA agent to catch."
OSEA Malibu's managers discovered operational insights: "It helps managers understand when a macro or process is leading to incomplete conversations versus when an agent made a mistake," their support lead shares.
Bring quality into every conversation with Auto QA
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 focusing on QA can gain a competitive edge. Book a demo now to see what Auto QA can do for you.
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There are tons of CX metrics you could be tracking. But where you spend your time is crucial as a customer experience leader.
According to recent data, these are the top five CX metrics for you to prioritize and improve on in 2025.
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Why CX metrics are essential for success
Not tracking CX metrics is like putting a loaf of bread in the oven but leaving baking time to chance. Without a set timer, you could end up with an underbaked bowl of dough or a burnt mess. Unless you have a sixth sense, it’s going to be really challenging to end up with something good.
In the same vein, metrics provide clear parameters for success. Meet or exceed them and your team is doing well; fall short and you’ll be better equipped to identify pain points and solve them.
Here are a few additional reasons why setting customer support metrics is key to success.
- Measure success and ROI. By tracking KPIs like resolution time, first response time, and CSAT, you can gauge the health of your customer support program and potentially justify investments in CX initiatives in the future.
- Identify customer and team pain points. Metrics help uncover areas where customers or your team is struggling. For example, high resolution times or low CSAT scores signal friction in the experience that you can address.
- Create accountability within your team. When everyone on your team understands what success looks like, it aligns efforts and keeps everyone focused on shared goals.
- Prioritize resources. Metrics guide CX leaders on where to allocate resources—for example, leveraging AI and automation to tackle repetitive tickets when ticket volume adds up or resolution times are getting high.
- Get proactive. Metrics reveal trends in customer behavior which can help you predict customer needs and make proactive adjustments in your CX strategy. By monitoring customer sentiment and acting on feedback, CX leaders can create more personalized and positive experiences.
Tip 💡: AI and automation can be valuable sidekicks as you look to optimize and improve on metrics. That’s especially true for busy periods: in 2024, 70% of CX leaders relied on AI and automation during peak seasons.
Resolution time should be your main focus for 2025
Customers are done with being patient. One study found that two thirds of respondents valued speed to reply just as much as product price.
A recent survey we ran found the same thing.
In our 2024 customer expectations survey, we asked CX leads and agents which metric they used to track success. Here’s what they said:
- Resolution Time (71%)
- First Response Time (59%)
- CSAT (53%)
- Revenue or Sales Impact (41%)
- Ticket Volume (41%)
Resolution time is going to be a key differentiator for your team this year. It should be your primary focus when it comes to optimizing different facets of your customer service strategy.
Top 5 CX metrics for 2025 & how to improve them with AI
1) Resolution time
Resolution time is the average time it takes to resolve a customer request from start to finish.
How do you calculate resolution time?
To calculate resolution time, you’ll take the total resolution time within a set period and divide it by the total number of customer interactions your team tackled within that same time frame.
Average resolution time = Total resolution time in a defined period / Total number of customer interactions resolved in that period
How to use AI & automation to improve it
According to a 2023 study from Statista, 70% of support leaders noted that the customer support metrics that AI had the greatest positive effect on was resolution time.
You can use automation tools to send Macros to answer common questions, or leverage AI to interact as an agent via email or chat. The instant nature of these tools means that customers won’t have to wait in a queue for your team to get to them.
For example, Wildride implemented Gorgias's AI Agent to manage an influx of 1,000 tickets per week. After AI Agent took over 33% of email inquiries, the team saw a 24% decrease in resolution time. That allowed the team to focus on more complex issues, streamline their support process, and make their customers happier.
2) First Response Time (FRT)
First response time is the length of time it takes for a customer service team to send the initial reply to a customer inquiry.
How do you calculate first response time?
To calculate average first response time, take the total amount of time it took for your team to respond to initial customer requests and divide by the total number of tickets within a set time frame.
How to use AI & automation to improve it
Your team is busy––when they’re not tackling repetitive questions, they’re helping customers with complicated or high-effort requests. All of that work is going to bog down your FRT, especially during more buzzy periods like sales, new releases, or over the holidays.
By using AI to jump in to handle those more routine requests, you can significantly reduce your FRT and give your team time back to tackle more heavy-lift needs.
For example, AI Agent helped Glamnetic achieve a 91% improvement in first response time during Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) 2024. They got FRT down from their pre-AI Agent time of eight minutes to 40 seconds.
Here’s what that looked like in practice:
3) Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
CSAT scores show how satisfied customers are with a product, service, or interaction, typically gathered through surveys.
How is CSAT calculated?
CSAT is calculated via a five-point rating scale survey sent to customers after a support interaction, where one is the worst experience and five is the best. While it can be calculated in different ways, at Gorgias the average of all survey responses is your CSAT score.
How to use AI & automation to improve it
When customers reach out for support, they’re expecting a fast response––regardless if they have an issue or are contemplating their next purchase.
That’s why using automation or AI tools to provide that lightning quick response, even if it directs shoppers to a self-service resource, can be extremely effective in raising CSAT scores. These responses could be sent by an AI agent that responds like a human agent would or an automated Macro built to fire off pre-crafted templates to common questions.
In luxury golf brand VESSEL’s case, customers felt that the AI responses were helpful and seemed on-par with the level of support they’d expect from a human agent.
“Our customers expect almost immediate responses, and so being able to automate that, even if it's not necessarily the exact answer that they're looking for, but being able to send over information to give them the reassurance that we're looking into it or trying to find an answer, whatever it may be, that's been a huge help to our team,” says Lauren Reams, the Customer Experience Manager at VESSEL.
4) Revenue or sales impact
The direct or indirect effect of customer service or business activities on generating sales or revenue.
How do you calculate it?
There are different ways to calculate revenue generated and the sales impact of customer support, and quantifying the indirect impact can be difficult. But generally, the formula looks like this:
ROI = [ (Money earned - Money spent) / Money spent ] x 100
Resource: How to measure & improve customer service ROI
How to use AI & automation to improve it
Leveraging AI and automation can provide significant cost savings because it acts as an additional agent who can tackle repetitive questions, translating to money saved on the time it would take for human agents to manually answer those questions.
The results are tangible: by automating 48% of inquiries, Dr. Bronner's saved $5,248 in the first month, and $100K in the first year.
Jonas Paul Eyewear saw revenue influenced by AI Agent as well: the team tracked $600 of sales revenue directly to the tool after it effectively answered pre-sales support questions from shoppers.
5) Ticket volume
Ticket volume is the total number of customer service inquiries that a team receives over a specific period of time.
How do you calculate it?
The customer support tool you use will be able to calculate ticket volume for you, as it’s the total number of tickets that have come in within a set amount of time. If you don’t use a CX platform yet and are still using something like Gmail or Excel, you’ll perform this count manually.
How to use AI & automation to improve it
Set rules to trigger automated responses to common questions, or ask an AI agent to completely take them off your team’s plate.
Arcade Belts, for example, saw a 50% reduction in ticket volume by using Gorgias’s AI Agent.
How to get buy in to improve your CX program
Tracking CX metrics is valuable for more than just gauging your program's effectiveness. The more you improve upon your CX metrics, the more you can leverage them to prove your support function’s value within your company.
- Tie CX to revenue. Show how improvements in customer satisfaction or repeat purchase rates directly impact revenue growth.
- Show industry benchmarks. Compare your team’s stats to competitors or industry averages to demonstrate how well your support strategy is working.
- Demonstrate your team’s impact on sales and retention. Use the metrics you’ve collected to show support’s impact on converting customers asking pre-sales questions and getting repeat customers.
- Ask to expand your team’s budget. Pitch acquiring additional buy in and resources by presenting revenue generated, costs saved through tools like AI and automation, and happy customers created.
How to use metrics to evaluate AI performanceIf you want to transform customer experience for the long term, the AI tools you use should never be “set it and forget it” solutions. Just as you do with your human agents, you can use metrics to evaluate your AI agent to make sure it’s performing well. If you use Gorgias, you’ll find these metrics under the AI Agent dashboard.
To review AI Agent’s performance:
It’s also easy to retrain your AI's performance by adjusting settings like Guidance, refining the internal documents it draws from, setting up brand voice, or creating a Handover topic list to escalate certain types of tickets to human agents.
Start tracking top CX metrics
Whether you’re new to being a CX leader or you’re a seasoned pro, tracking and improving on your CX metrics will help your team stand out among the rest. A key way to improve them is to leverage AI and Automation tools, and Gorgias is here to help you do it.
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TL;DR:
- AI Agent on Chat automates up to 50% of chat conversations. It ensures customers get fast, context-aware answers, product recommendations, and seamless handovers to human agents when needed.
- AI Agent goes beyond automated tools like Flows and article recommendations. Unlike pre-set FAQ flows or suggested Help Center articles, AI Agent can handle complex inquiries like modifying orders and providing personalized product recommendations.
- Setting up AI Agent on Chat is quick. Brands can activate AI Agent with a few clicks, improving efficiency during peak seasons and reducing the need for follow-ups.
- Updating AI Agent’s knowledge and behavior ensures the best customer experience. Businesses should refine their Help Center, set Guidance instructions, personalize AI Agent’s tone, and test responses before going live.
It’s clear that shoppers want answers fast—chat accounts for 20% of all customer support tickets.
The appeal is obvious: Chat is an easy-to-access customer service channel for quick questions and a convenient and subtle way to cross-sell complementary products.
But without the right chat tool, brands risk losing these valuable opportunities.
Introducing AI Agent on Chat, a conversational AI assistant that can automate up to 50% of chat conversations. This new feature upgrades chat by combining agent knowledge with superhuman efficiency and response times.
Now, customers can guarantee personalized interactions at any point of the shopping journey—whether they’re looking for a quick answer or a tailored recommendation.
With AI powering every interaction, one-to-one conversations become a seamless part of every customer experience.
Why Chat is better with AI Agent
Before AI Agent, customers reaching out through chat outside business hours had two options: following pre-set Flows (automated FAQ conversations) or browsing through suggested Help Center articles.
These features are great for quick answers to basic questions, but AI Agent takes support to the next level by handling more complex needs like modifying orders or offering personalized product recommendations.
With AI Agent in Chat, customers enjoy dynamic, real-time conversations available on multiple channels. AI Agent generates personalized responses that match exactly what customers ask for, automating 50% of chat interactions so agents get time back to upsell, create stronger relationships, and craft better experiences.
Related: How to optimize your Help Center for AI Agent
The key features of AI Agent on Chat
Upgrade your chat support from a basic Q&A tool into an intelligent assistant that handles customer inquiries 24/7. Here's how AI Agent makes that possible:
Real-time conversations
AI Agent responds within 15 seconds or less, offering fast responses that result in frictionless conversations. Unlike traditional chatbots, AI Agent also adapts to your brand’s unique tone of voice to enhance the customer experience and assure shoppers their questions will be taken care of.
24/7 availability
Today’s shoppers expect instant responses regardless of time zone or business hours. AI Agent on Chat means customers get the help they need, when they need it. This availability leads to higher customer satisfaction and fewer abandoned carts.
Instant product recommendations
AI Agent understands context and customer intent. Whether a shopper needs help finding the right product size or changes their mind and wants to compare features, AI Agent customizes its recommendations for each person.
Intelligent handovers
Some conversations, like technical issues or complaints, need a human touch. AI Agent recognizes these situations and smoothly transfers them to the right agent.
Using Handover topics, you can choose which types of inquiries should go straight to human agents. Then, if AI Agent lacks the confidence to provide an answer or can’t locate relevant knowledge in its database, it automatically escalates the conversation.
Read more: Handover rules
Why enable AI Agent in Chat now?
Based on Hiver’s 2024 study, 62% of customers prefer live chat to other support channels. With AI Agent in Chat, agents can cut down average response times while customers get the answers they need in one conversation with zero wait times or follow-ups.
Easy setup
AI Agent on Chat is ready to use in a few clicks. Simply connect your Shopify store and Chat widget to AI Agent, and you’re ready to resolve questions asked by visitors and loyal customers faster than you ever have.
Capture the growing demand for live support
Chat is often a customer’s first touchpoint with your brand, whether they’ve just discovered your brand or are on their third order. Meet customer expectations by being available with AI Agent on Chat. The faster you can ease their concerns, the faster they can head to checkout.
Maximize team efficiency
AI Agent makes scaling support effortless, especially during peak seasons like Black Friday. While it handles repetitive support tickets like order status and shipping questions, your team can focus on high-priority tasks like requests from VIP customers.
Eliminate the need for follow-ups
Drawing from knowledge sources like your Help Center and policy pages means AI Agent can often resolve inquiries within one conversation. No more unnecessary back-and-forths. Quick resolutions = happier and more loyal customers.
How to activate AI Agent on Chat
Ready to get started? Here’s how to activate AI Agent on Chat:
- Click Automate in the top left menu.
- Select your store from the sidebar, then click on AI Agent.
- In the Settings tab, under Chat Settings, select one or more Chat from the dropdown menu.
- Toggle Enable AI Agent on Chat on.
- Select Save Changes at the bottom of the page.
Already use AI Agent for email? No need to set up Guidance and Handover topics all over again—AI Agent will behave the same way in Chat.
Best practices for setting up AI Agent on Chat
Get the most out of AI Agent on Chat by following these best practices.
1. Prepare and optimize your knowledge base
The Help Center is AI Agent’s brain. This customer knowledge database is the key to AI Agent’s accurate and on-brand responses. To ensure your AI Agent is as trained as your human agents, include important topics in your Help Center like shipping, returns, cancellations, and account management.
No articles yet? No problem! Gorgias has 20+ article templates for you to use and modify. Or, even better, check out the AI Library for AI-generated articles based on your customer tickets.
2. Set restrictions with Guidance
AI tools perform best when you set limitations. A Guidance is the main way to control AI Agent’s behavior. It is a set of written instructions that outline how AI Agent should interact with customers, handle certain requests, and more.
We recommend publishing a Guidance on the top five questions you receive from customers.
Tip: AI Agent prioritizes Guidance above Help Center articles. Unlike Help Center articles, the content in your Guidance will not be customer-facing.
3. Personalize AI Agent's voice
The beauty of AI Agent is its ability to speak like one of your agents. Select from Friendly, Professional, or Sophisticated presets—or create a custom tone that aligns with your brand.
Need help finding your brand voice? Here are seven brand voice examples.
4. Test AI Agent’s responses before going live
Use test scenarios to see how AI Agent responds to common customer questions, such as order status, shipping questions, and return policies. To cover all your bases, test AI Agent as both a new and returning customer to make sure it delivers accurate responses no matter the customer's need.
5. Improve AI Agent’s behavior
AI Agent becomes smarter as it learns from you. Like a human agent, give your AI Agent feedback on its responses, from how it speaks, which topics it escalates, and what actions it takes in certain scenarios.
There are multiple ways to give AI Agent feedback on a ticket:
- Mark AI Agent’s message or any of the resources it used as correct or incorrect.
- Suggest that AI Agent use a different resource if a better or more correct piece of knowledge exists.
- Report an issue to the Gorgias Product team.
Coming soon: Actions on Chat
Soon, AI Agent will be able to perform actions like accessing Shopify order details and executing third-party app actions, such as updating shipping addresses and order cancellations, directly in Chat.
Excited to deliver an elevated chat experience? Book a demo now to experience the power of AI Agent on Chat.
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Featured articles
The Gorgias & Shopify Integration: 8 Features Your Support Team Will Love
Managing customer support as a Shopify store owner can feel like juggling too many tools at once.
Constantly switching tabs to look up orders, update customer information, or track returns wastes valuable time. Plus, it prevents your team from focusing on what really matters––delivering quick, personalized customer service.
Gorgias’s Shopify integration solves this. It keeps all your Shopify data in one place, so your team spends less time toggling tabs and more time helping customers. The result? Faster responses, better service, and more revenue.
Below, we break down the eight key capabilities of this integration, each paired with practical use cases to showcase its real-world value.
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1. View Shopify data in tickets
What it does: Shopify order data is displayed directly within support tickets, allowing agents to view essential details like order status, customer information, and transaction history without leaving the helpdesk.
Use case: An agent handling a “Where’s my order?” request can instantly check tracking information and update the customer.
The fashion retailer Princess Polly improved their customer experience team’s efficiency by using Gorgias's deep integration with Shopify. Agents can view and update customer and order data directly within Gorgias, eliminating the need to switch between multiple tabs.
Taking a streamlined approach led to a 40% increase in efficiency, an 80% decrease in resolution time, and a 95% decrease in first response time.
2. Perform Shopify Actions
What it does: Agents can update Shopify order and customer data with Shopify Actions right in Gorgias.
Key features:
- Create a new order: Add existing products or custom items, apply discounts, modify quantities, add notes and tags, and choose to charge taxes. Then set the order as Paid or Pending and email the invoice to the customer.
- Duplicate an order: Replicate an existing order and make adjustments as needed.
- Cancel/refund an order: Cancel or refund orders by setting quantities to refund, specifying shipping amounts to refund, providing reasons for cancellation, restocking items, and notifying the customer.
- Edit shipping address: Update the shipping address for an order.
- Insert product links: Add product links or product cards from tickets so customers can add the product to their cart quickly.
- Display the customer’s cart: View the exact items the customer has in their cart at the moment they reach out via Chat.
Use case: Agents can perform Shopify actions directly from Gorgias, such as adding products, applying discounts, updating quantities, or issuing refunds.
3. Embed customer-specific Shopify data in Macros
What it does: Create templated responses called Macros with dynamic Shopify variables to automatically incorporate customer-specific information.
Key features:
- Dynamic variables: Macros can include variables that pull real-time data from Shopify, such as order status, tracking numbers, and customer details.
- Automated actions: Beyond inserting dynamic content, Macros can perform actions like tagging tickets, setting statuses, or assigning conversations to specific agents. The automation streamlines workflows and ensures consistent handling of similar inquiries.
Use case: A customer inquires about their order. With one click, the agent uses a Macro that pulls in the order status and expected delivery date, creating a faster and more personalized response.
Take Try The World, a gourmet subscription service, needed a robust Shopify integration to handle an increasing volume of customer inquiries. By switching to Gorgias, they gained the ability to unify conversations and embed Shopify data directly into Macros. Now, agents could quickly generate personalized responses that included order details, tracking links, and customer-specific information.
Try the World’s support team’s efficiency skyrocketed, enabling them to handle 120 tickets per day, up from 80, and reduce response times to just one business day.
4. Provide product information with Macros
What it does: Macros with embedded Shopify data let agents quickly and accurately share pre-sale information like product links, stock availability, and discount codes, helping to convert prospective customers into buyers.
Key features:
- Dynamic Shopify variables in Macros: Agents can use dynamic variables to pull real-time product information.
- Pre-built responses for common questions: Macros can include templated responses tailored for pre-sale inquiries, such as providing direct links to products or applying discount codes.
Use case: A customer asks if a specific product is available in their size and color. The agent can apply a Macro that automatically pulls the product's inventory details and includes a discount code, sending a response like this:
“Hi {{ticket.customer.firstname}},
Great news! The product {{ticket.customer.integrations.shopify.products[0].title}} is currently in stock in the size and color you’re looking for. You can check it out here: [Product Link]. Use the code WELCOME10 at checkout for 10% off your first order! Let me know if you have any other questions!”
How it helps:
- Eliminates manual search and typing for agents.
- Ensures accurate, real-time product information for customers.
- Improves the likelihood of converting inquiries into sales.
5. Enable self-serve order management in Chat
What it does: Using Gorgias’s chat widget, customers can track orders or manage their purchases on their own with no agent assistance needed.
Key feature:
- Order management automation: Customers can access real-time order information, including status updates and tracking details, through the chat interface. This automation reduces the volume of live chat inquiries by up to 30%.
Use case: A customer wants to check the status of their recent purchase. By accessing the Chat widget on your website, they can enter their email and order number and receive instant updates on their order's progress, including shipping and delivery information, without waiting for an agent's response.
How it helps:
- Automates routine inquiries and frees up your support team to handle more complex issues.
- Enhances customer satisfaction thanks to immediate responses.
- Reduces the need for multiple communication channels, consolidating support interactions in one place.
6. Use Shopify variables in Rules
What it does: Rules paired with Shopify variables can automate various support tasks, such as identifying specific customer segments or tagging tickets, to boost efficiency and consistency.
Key features:
- Automated tagging: Rules can automatically tag tickets based on specific Shopify data. For instance, you can set up a Rule to tag tickets from customers with high order counts or significant total spending as "VIP."
- Prioritization of tickets: Rules can prioritize tickets that meet certain criteria, such as high-value orders or repeat customers.
Use case: A customer with a history of substantial purchases contacts support. A rule detects that the customer's total spending exceeds a predefined threshold and automatically tags the ticket as "VIP."
This tag can then trigger other workflows, such as assigning the ticket to a senior support agent or escalating its priority.
How it helps:
- Improves customer experience by prioritizing high-value customers.
- Maintains consistent service quality.
7. Track revenue with reporting
What it does: Gorgias offers comprehensive reporting that allows you to measure how your support interactions influence sales.
Key features:
- Tickets converted: Tracks the number of support tickets that led to a sale within five days of the ticket's creation.
- Conversion rate: Calculates the percentage of created tickets that resulted in sales, helping you assess the effectiveness of your support team's interactions.
- Total sales from support: Sums the revenue generated from orders associated with converted tickets, accounting for refunds and order adjustments to provide accurate figures.
These metrics are accessible under Statistics → Support Performance → Revenue in your Gorgias dashboard. You can filter the data by integration, ticket channel, tags, or specific time periods to gain detailed insights.
Use case: By analyzing Revenue Statistics, you can identify which support channels or agents are most effective in driving sales. For example, if live chat interactions have a higher conversion rate, you might allocate more resources to that channel.
Additionally, recognizing top-performing agents can inform training programs to elevate overall team performance.
For example, One Block Down, a Milan-based streetwear brand, struggled to manage a growing volume of customer inquiries across multiple platforms. By integrating Gorgias with Shopify, they centralized all customer interactions into a single platform, giving agents instant access to crucial information like order history and returns directly within tickets.
The setup allowed the team to measure the direct impact of their support efforts on revenue.
The result? An impressive 1,000% increase in support-generated revenue and a 1-hour average first response time. By connecting the dots between customer service and sales performance, One Block Down demonstrated how proactive, data-driven support can directly influence the bottom line.
How it helps:
- Quantifies the revenue generated from support interactions.
- Faster team optimization with data-driven insights.
- Understanding the correlation between support interactions and sales can help refine customer service strategies.
8. AI Agent integration
What it does: AI Agent automates Shopify actions like canceling orders, editing order details, and reshipping items.
Key features:
- Cancel Shopify order: AI Agent can automatically cancel unfulfilled orders upon customer request, restocking the items and issuing a full refund. A confirmation email is sent to the customer once the cancellation is complete.
- Edit order shipping address: When a customer needs to update their shipping address, AI Agent verifies if the order is unfulfilled, confirms the new address with the customer, and updates it in Shopify accordingly.
- Replace order item: AI Agent facilitates item replacements in orders by confirming the item to be removed and the new item to be added, checking stock availability, adjusting payments if necessary, and sending an updated order confirmation to the customer.
- Reship order for free: In cases where an order is lost in transit or arrives damaged, AI Agent can duplicate and resend the order at no additional charge.
- Remove order item: If a customer decides to remove an item from their order, AI Agent can handle the removal, restock the item in Shopify, process the refund for the removed item, and notify the customer of the updated order details.
Use case: A customer realizes they've entered an incorrect shipping address shortly after placing an order. They contact support, and AI Agent promptly verifies that the order is unfulfilled, confirms the correct address with the customer, updates the shipping information in Shopify, and sends a confirmation email—all without human intervention.
How it helps:
- Automating routine order management tasks reduces the workload on human agents.
- Quick and accurate responses to order modification requests lead to a better customer experience.
- Automated processes ensure consistency and accuracy in handling order changes, reducing the likelihood of human error.
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Introducing Conversational AI: The Smartest Way to Handle Chat, Actions, QA, and Insights
Today, we’re announcing our deeper investment in conversational AI for ecommerce.
"Since day one, Gorgias has been dedicated to helping ecommerce brands deliver exceptional customer experiences. We started with a helpdesk to centralize support, then introduced AI Agent to instantly resolve support questions,” says Romain Lapeyre, CEO of Gorgias.
“Now, we're taking the next leap forward with an AI Agent that powers the entire customer journey—anticipating buyer needs, boosting sales, and automating high-quality support. Today, I'm happy to announce Gorgias as the Conversational AI platform for ecommerce.”
Gorgias’s Conversational AI platform will let teams provide fast, scalable, and cost-effective support while helping them drive revenue growth. From automatic order changes and refunds to product recommendations and cross-sells, brands will be able to flawlessly combine their support and sales efforts.
The end result is an AI-powered customer journey where every customer interaction feels complete, personal, and connected, both before and after purchase.
Questions in Chat, resolved in seconds
Last year, we introduced AI Agent for email.
Some brands call their AI Agent Lisa, some call it Wally, and most treat it like a real member of the team. But this reliable support sidekick was only available to answer customers on email—until now.
Get ready for instant responses that tackle support inquiries of all sizes. Now, your customers can enjoy fast responses that keep their shopping experience as smooth as possible.
On top of improving first response times, AI Agent can play an even more critical role in unblocking sales, suggesting products, and driving upsells and cross-sells.
With responses sent in 15 seconds or less, brands can delight customers with near-instant resolutions.
Let your AI Agent take action
Actions let AI Agent perform customer requests on behalf of your support team. This includes changing shipping addresses, fetching fulfillment status, canceling orders, adding discounts, and more.
You can use a library of pre-configured Actions for popular apps like Shopify, Rebuy, Loop, and more. And you don’t need any technical skills to set them up.
With almost half of queries requiring some kind of update, Actions is your go-to for complete resolutions so you can get more accomplished.
Quality built into every support ticket
Quality checks have traditionally been manual, time-consuming, and inconsistent. Our brand new Auto QA feature changes that by automatically scoring 100% of conversations on resolution completeness and communication quality—whether from a human or AI agent.
With Auto QA, team leads can:
- Scale quality consistently and easily. Both human and AI agents follow the same quality standards, allowing for consistent, high-quality customer experiences.
- Coach smarter. Use real-time QA ratings in tickets to give agents targeted feedback.
- Track team performance. The dashboard highlights metrics by agent, showing what’s working and where to improve.
Gain clarity on your AI Agent’s impact
Support teams should be in complete control of their AI. That’s why the AI Agent Report and AI Agent Insights were created—to help you know exactly how your AI Agent is performing and contributing to your customer service operations.
The AI Agent Report provides full visibility into AI Agent’s performance, covering metrics like First Response Time, CSAT, and one-touch ticket resolutions. Fully integrated into your Support Performance Statistics dashboard, the report includes:
- The percentage of tickets automated by AI Agent
- The number of tickets closed by AI Agent
- Success rates for one-touch resolutions
- How satisfied customers are with AI Agent’s responses
AI Agent Insights takes it a step further. It analyzes AI Agent’s performance data and provides you with a dashboard of recommendations, including potential automation opportunities, popular ticket intents to optimize, and knowledge base improvements.
Meet your new AI sales assistant
Soon, we’ll be expanding our AI capabilities with the launch of AI Agent for Sales, a tool designed to assist customers on their shopping journey.
AI Agent for Sales helps brands boost their sales capabilities through smart product recommendations, on-page checkout assistance, and personalized conversations. Now it's easier to reduce cart abandonment, suggest complementary products to boost average order value, and overcome pre-sale objections.
This new tool will bridge the gap between marketing and CX, ensuring brands can scale personalized interactions 24/7 without increasing headcount.
Looking ahead with conversational AI
As we continue to innovate with conversational AI, our focus remains on helping you succeed.
By combining smarter tools with valuable insights, we’re creating opportunities for you to put your customers first and build deeper connections at every touchpoint.
Join us as we pave a new way for the future of ecommerce.
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AI Quality Assurance: The New Standard for Customer Support QA
TL;DR:
- The landscape of QA is moving from manual to AI-powered, where AI can analyze every customer interaction, uncover patterns, and suggest data-driven changes at scale.
- Automating QA allows ticket reviews to be routine. This means customers will always receive high-quality support.
- Every customer interaction is reviewed with AI QA — not just a sample. This gives support leaders full visibility into performance and service quality.
- AI QA saves time and improves agent and AI Agent feedback. By automating ticket reviews, agents receive instant, unbiased feedback, and leaders can focus on big-picture CX improvements.
This year, 71% of customer experience (CX) leaders are using AI and automation to handle the holiday shopping season. These tools, including AI agents and email autoresponders, speed up tasks like responding to customers and updating orders.
But answering tickets isn't enough. Responses must also be high-quality, whether from humans or AI. And while customer satisfaction (CSAT) is the standard measure of how successful these interactions are, they have major limits.
CSAT scores don’t tell the full story about whether agents were helpful or if they used on-brand language. These gray areas in quality lead to missed sales, higher return rates, and frustrated customers during peak periods.
AI quality assurance (QA) is changing that. In this article, we’ll see what QA looks like today, how AI can simplify the process, and how CX teams can use tools like Auto QA to improve quality across all conversations.
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Traditional customer support QA is falling by the wayside
Today, QA in customer support is a largely manual responsibility. Customer conversations are reviewed by CX team leads to ensure customer satisfaction and identify areas for agent coaching. Team leads evaluate agent responses against a checklist of best practices, including the proper use of language, product knowledge, consistency, and helpfulness.
However, reviewing tickets takes a long time.
QA is important, but it's hard to prioritize when customers are actively waiting for help with refunds, urgent order edits, or negative reviews. And when CX teams are under-resourced and short-staffed, it’s easy to put QA on the back burner.
What’s more, as AI plays a bigger role in responding to customers, quality assurance must evolve to ensure the quality of AI-generated responses, not just human responses.
Over time, the lack of QA in CX can hold back support teams for three reasons:
- Delayed feedback makes it harder for agents and AI tools to improve.
- Leaders have less time to train agents and refine workflows.
- Inconsistent service risks losing customer trust and loyalty.
What is AI-powered QA in CX?
AI-powered quality assurance (QA) uses AI to automate the process of reviewing customer interactions for resolution completeness, communication, language proficiency, and more.
Instead of team leads spending hours manually sifting through tickets, AI takes over and evaluates how well tickets were resolved by agents.
Shifting this traditionally manual work to an automated process pulls teams out of the weeds and into more beneficial work like speaking to customers and upselling.
With AI QA, routine ticket reviews are not just an optional part of your customer service strategy, they become a permanent part of it. The road to greater customer trust, resolution times, and stronger product knowledge becomes easier.
Read more: Why your strategy needs customer service quality assurance
Why choose AI-powered QA over manual QA?
Manual QA is like trying to review a handful of tickets during a flood of new customer requests. Team leads can only focus on a small sample, leaving most interactions unchecked. Without complete visibility, creating a standard across all interactions is challenging.
Now, switch over to AI QA. You don’t have to choose between QA duty or answering tickets — QA checks are automatically done. You’ll still need to monitor AI’s performance, but now there’s more time to focus on creating strategies that improve the customer experience.
Here’s how AI QA and manual QA measure up to each other:
7 benefits of using AI quality assurance in CX
AI quality assurance helps CX leaders move beyond manual reviews by offering fast, thorough insights into performance and customer needs. Here are seven key benefits it brings to your team.
1. Improved visibility into customer interactions
AI QA reviews every ticket, giving CX leaders a complete view of agent performance and customer trends. Nothing slips through the cracks, so you can act on real data each and every single time.
What the team wins: Key areas to focus on to improve the customer experience.
What the customer wins: A consistent support experience where their concerns are fully addressed.
2. Instantly identify major customer pain points
Only a third of customers highly trust businesses, and without QA checks in place, that trust only deteriorates.
AI QA feedback can highlight confusing policies or common product issues that lead to unhappy customers. With instant feedback, teams can quickly make changes and create better, consistent customer experiences.
What the team wins: Faster fixes for recurring issues.
What the customer wins: A smoother, frustration-free experience.
3. Faster identification of process gaps
Agents can receive feedback that instantly highlights gaps in workflows or unclear escalation steps. This is an efficient way to resolve issues within the wider team before they become more significant problems.
What the team wins: Process issues are solved quickly.
What the customer wins: Faster resolutions with little to no delays.
4. Standardized scoring for AI and human agents
AI QA evaluates both AI Agent and human agent interactions using the same criteria. This creates a level playing field and ensures all customer interactions meet the same quality standards.
What the team wins: Fair evaluations for both AI and human responses.
What the customer wins: High-quality support, no matter who handles the ticket.
5. More time for coaching and training
With less time spent on manual reviews, leaders can dedicate more energy to team development. Training sessions guided by AI insights help agents improve quickly and ensure the team delivers support that aligns with protocols.
What the team wins: More focused skill-building based on data.
What the customer wins: Clearer and more accurate support.
6. Drives continuous knowledge for the entire team
AI QA is helpful for showing agents which areas they need more training on, whether it's being better about using brand voice or polishing up on product knowledge. This leads to better support processes and stronger product understanding across the team.
What the team wins: Better support tactics and product expertise.
What the customer wins: Faster resolutions due to knowledgeable agents.
7. Enhanced customer experience through consistently high-quality support
Since all tickets are reviewed, teams can feel confident they’re delivering high-quality support on a regular basis. Customers get clear, helpful answers, while agents gain insights from every ticket with AI feedback.
What the team wins: Consistent support performance.
What the customer wins: Reliable support they can trust.
How accurate is AI QA?
AI QA analyzes tickets using predefined categories to evaluate how complete and helpful agent responses are. Let’s take a closer look at how it maintains accurate ticket reviews with an AI QA tool like Gorgias’s Auto QA.
It measures multiple metrics
Auto QA evaluates tickets based on three key areas: Resolution Completeness, Communication, and Language Proficiency.
For Resolution Completeness, it checks if all customer concerns were fully addressed. For example, if an agent resolves only one of two issues raised, the ticket is marked incomplete. Tickets where customers resolve issues on their own or don’t respond to follow-ups can still be graded as complete if handled appropriately.
Communication quality is scored on a scale of 1 to 5, assessing clarity, professionalism, and tone. Agents earn higher scores when they provide clear solutions and remain positive throughout the interaction.
Finally, Language Proficiency evaluates whether an agent displayed high proficiency in the language of the conversation. The score considers how well spelling, grammar, and syntax were employed.
Teams can improve AI with their own feedback
Auto QA isn’t set in stone. Team leads can expand on AI-generated feedback by adding their comments. For example, if a resolution is graded as ‘Incomplete,’ a team lead can explain why and provide additional context. This helps clarify the evaluation for the agent and also helps the AI model improve over time.
How to get started with AI quality assurance using Auto QA
Ready to bring the benefits of AI QA to your team? Here’s how to get started with Auto QA:
- Audit your current QA process to identify gaps. How do you currently review tickets? Pinpoint areas where manual QA falls short, such as inconsistent feedback or missed interactions.
- Pilot Auto QA with a small team. Introduce Auto QA to a small group of agents to test its impact. This allows you to find out how the new QA process fits into your workflow and how it affects agent performance.
- Use AI insights to refine processes. Analyze the feedback Auto QA provides to identify process gaps or recurring issues. Use these insights to update your workflow, improve training, and address root causes of customer pain points.
- Gradually scale adoption across the team. Once the pilot is successful, roll out Auto QA to more agents. Make sure everyone is trained on how to use its insights and integrate the tool into daily operations.
- Monitor and provide feedback to improve AI accuracy. Review Auto QA’s evaluations to ensure accuracy. Add manual feedback as needed to fine-tune its scoring on future tickets.
- Measure the impact on performance and satisfaction. Track key metrics like ticket close rates, resolution times, and customer satisfaction scores. Use this data to understand how Auto QA transforms your QA process and drives better results.
Make high-quality responses a standard with Auto QA
AI QA isn’t just about automating ticket reviews — it empowers CX leaders to focus on what truly matters: training and improving processes.
Leave spot-checking and inconsistent application of policies and brand voice in the past. As a built-in feature of Gorgias Automate, Auto QA makes high-quality customer interactions your brand’s standard.
Book a demo now.
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Further reading
7 new apps that integrate with Gorgias
Gorgias connects to over 70 leading ecommerce applications, giving you the power to centralize customer data in your helpdesk, perform support actions from a single place, and streamline your store’s toolkit.
This month, we launched 7 new integrations:
- LoyaltyLion
- Twitter (No longer supported in 2023)
- Call Hippo
- Shipup
- Tolstoy
- Autopilot
- Sentisum
- Yotpo (updates to our existing integration)
Read on to learn how you can use these tools to help manage your store, and visit the Gorgias App Store to activate them today!
1. LoyaltyLion
LoyaltyLion is a digital loyalty framework that gives ecommerce stores innovative ways to engage and retain customers. If you're using LoyaltyLion for your loyalty program, you can connect it to Gorgias to display information next to support tickets, and reward loyalty points using Macros.
2. Twitter
Note: Gorgias no longer supports Twitter. You can still use Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp in Gorgias.
Give your support team the power to provide customer service to shoppers on Twitter, without having to log into another platform or share credentials with your social media manager. View past Twitter conversations, gain cross-channel message context, and customize your replies to provide exceptional customer support.
Note: This integration is currently only available for Enterprise plans. View pricing here.
3. Call Hippo
CallHippo allows startups and businesses to buy instant local support numbers from over 50+ countries around the world. With this integration, you can create tickets in Gorgias for phone calls and SMS conversations via Call Hippo.
4. ShipUp
Shipup follows your packages in real-time to create a seamless, transparent, and branded delivery experience. With the Gorgias integration, you can easily share shipping information with your support team, immediately notify them with a ticket in Gorgias when an incident occurs, and find customer information right next to conversations.
5. Tolstoy
Tolstoy is an interactive video platform, helping users create meaningful and personal conversations at scale. With this integration, Gorgias users can sync their Tolstoy videos and monitor every viewer interaction as a ticket, empowering support agents to engage without ever leaving the help desk.
6. Autopilot
Autopilot is a data and customer journey marketing platform designed for businesses who sell online. With this integration, you can now combine your Shopify and Gorgias data together seamlessly in Autopilot. You’ll not only have a single view of your customer, but you’ll be able to deliver a more personalized marketing experience and get glowing reviews from satisfied customers.
7. SentiSum
SentiSum is an automated ticket tagging engine powered by natural language processing technology. With this integration, SentiSum tags can auto-fill form fields directly in Gorgias. From there, you can implement additional automation that saves agent time and improves customer outcomes.
8. Yotpo
You can now receive Yotpo product reviews right in Gorgias and reply to them as tickets! This gives your agents visibility into how shoppers feel about your product and allows them to address concerns without ever leaving the helpdesk. Each ticket will include the review details (like score and product) and allow you to either reply publicly or privately, so you can customize the support experience.
To add these integrations and discover more, go to the Gorgias App Store.
Top 10 Integrations Used by Gorgias Ecommerce Merchants
Have you ever wondered how other leading ecommerce stores manage customer support, especially when they are using Gorgias? We love identifying these trends and wanted to see what integrations have been the most useful in our customers' ecommerce tech stacks so far.
In order to help you bring all your customer data in one place and offer truly exceptional, personalized support, here are the top 10 integrations being used by Gorgias customers:
- Email, specifically Gmail
- Gorgias Chat
- Facebook and Instagram
- SMS apps
- Klaviyo
- Recharge
- Phone, either our native solution or Aircall
- Yotpo
- Smile
- ChannelReply
1. Email, specifically Gmail
If you've been worried that email is becoming obsolete in the age of chat boxes and SMS support, don't be. Email is the leading support channel on Gorgias, used by 67% of customers.
This make sense. While faster, more instantaneous methods of communications are becoming common, email is still the primary channel to answer complicated support questions and send transactional messages like shipping updates, return logistics, and order/cancellation confirmations.
Of email integrations, Gmail is the leading provider with 59% of Gorgias customers having it active.
To learn more about our Gmail integration, click here.
2. Gorgias chat
Chat support is the second most common channel we see our merchants using, in order to offer real-time communication in addition to traditional emails or tickets. And thanks to our native chat integrations, it's easier than ever to launch a chat widget on your website.
57% of Gorgias merchants use our native chat integrations to offer real-time support.
This allows your shoppers to talk to an agent faster, but also presents a great opportunity to implement self-service options so they can help themselves. (Our Self-Service Chat Portal can help with that!)
3. Facebook and Instagram
Managing inquiries on social media and gaining insights into the conversations happening in those communities is te next priority for our merchants.
Over 50% of Gorgias brands are integrated with Facebook and/or Instagram.
Our Facebook integrations (which also includes Instagram) allows you to manage messages, comments, ad comments, and mentions as tickets in Gorgias. This gives your agents visibility into every conversation no matter where it happens, and empowers them to reply directly to shoppers without having to log into separate platforms or coordinate with your brand's social media team.
"The Gorgias-Facebook-Shopify integration is amazing. We've stopped hunting and matching Facebook users to customer accounts on Shopify. The information we need is surfaced so we can respond better and faster. Gorgias allows us to operate both ecommerce and social commerce business seamlessly." - Guita Gopalan, Chief Revenue Officer at Ellana
Nervous about the quantity of tickets that would be created from integrating social channels with Gorgias? Don't be. You can use Rules to filter out comments your team doesn't need to worry about (like comments that only consist of emojis), or even auto-assign tickets to specify agents/teams so no one has to triage the requests.
4. SMS apps
Text message marketing has become an incredible revenue generator for ecommerce brands, but it also opens another new communication channel with your customers: SMS.
In order to make the most of SMS as a marketing tool, you also need to be ready to support it when customers reply back with questions. That's where Gorgias comes in; we integrate with SMS apps to help you connect your agents with shoppers sooner and collect all customer conversations in one place.
Over 23% of Gorgias customers are integrated with an SMS tool.
The top SMS apps connected to Gorgias are:
- Attentive, used by 10% of merchants
- Postscript, used by 8% of merchants
- SMS Bump, used by 5% of merchants
"Working with Postscript and Gorgias gave us the leverage to keep customers close to deliver the best possible customer experience. It is super helpful to have a full view of the customer, all in one-spot." -Eli Weiss, Director of CX at OLIPOP
5. Klaviyo
The next app on our list will help you collaborate with your marketing team to create a best-in-class shopper experience, whether they are interacting with the support team or receiving the latest promotion.
Klaviyo is an email and SMS marketing app for businesses that sell online. Our integration connects the two platforms, allowing you to use the data to create better campaigns.
17% of Gorgias merchants are integrated with Klaviyo.
With this integration, you can push Gorgias events into Klaviyo for advances and customer-centric email segmenting.
For example, here are some of the ways we've seen customers use the two tools together:
- Promoting sales or new products to customers who had positive support experiences to drive upsell and revenue generation from support.
- Excluding customers with open support tickets from promotional messaging campaigns.
- Sending target coupons or discounts to win back customers who reported poor support experiences.
You can learn more about our Klaviyo integration or activate it here.
6. Recharge
The most common integration will help with subscription management, which is probably no surprise: Even with a great payment platform, subscription questions and transactions tend to result in a lot of support requests.
Recharge us a subscription and recurring payment platform for ecommerce sites, and helps you turn transactions into relationships.
15% of Gorgias merchants are integrated with Recharge.
Connect Gorgias and ReCharge for a simple way to manage customer subscriptions and customer service from one convenient location.
When you integrate Gorgias and Recharge, you can:
- Display ReCharge subscriptions next to support tickets in Gorgias, to gather full customer context before replying to questions.
- Cancel subscriptions, re-activate subscriptions, or refund a charge (either partially or totally) right from the Gorgias helpdesk.
- Embed ReCharge data in your Macro replies to automate the most common support questions.
Click here to learn more about our Recharge integration.
7. Phone, either our native solution or Aircall
It's clear that digital support is the first priority for most of our merchants, as seen by email, chat, and social media being the top three integrations on our list.
Sometimes it's nice to have a real conversation with your customers, however, which is why phone integrations are next.
12% of merchants offer phone support.
Many use our Aircall integration, which is great if you need the advanced feature a dedicated tool like Aircall provides. If you're just adding phones for the first time, we released a native phone integration this year that's helping merchants begin to offer voice support.
8. Yotpo
Beyond answering customer questions, your support team may want to engage with reviews from shoppers in order to address issues, win back unhappy customers, and interact with your biggest fans!
Yotpo, a platform for ecommerce marketing and reviews, is great for this.
Over 8% of Gorgias merchants have activated our Yotpo integration.
The integration allows you to:
- Display customer's Yotpo data un Gorgias customer Activity Sidebar such as loyalty points, provided ratings, latest reviews, etc.
- Manage customer loyalty plans (change point balance, assign VIP tier, honor redemptions, and send rewards) from the Gorgias sidebar.
- Respond to a question with an answer either publicly or privately as new tickets.
- Moderate customer reviews (product and site) and questions from within Gorgias as new tickets.
- Request reviews from a customer.
Click here to learn more about our Yotpo integration and activate it.
9. Smile
No one knows your shoppers quite like your support team, which makes an integration with a loyalty app a natural fit! Smile.io is a favorite of Gorgias merchants, which helps you manage a reward program and build strong relationships with your newest and most loyal customers.
6% of Gorgias merchants integrate with Smile.io.
With this integration, you'll be able to see customer loyalty information right next to tickets in Gorgias, so every agent knows when they are talking to a new customer or one of your VIPs! You can also use this information to help triage tickets or separate ticket views by loyalty status (which is great for managing different levels of support SLAs).
To learn more about our integration with Smile.io and activate it for your account, click here.
10. ChannelReply
If your shop sells on public marketplaces beyond your own Shopify store, the final app on our list is a must. ChannelReply helps you manage messages from Amazon, eBay, and Walmart.
With our integration, you can then manage all those messages right from your helpdesk, eliminating the need for your agents to open different browser tabs for each platform.
Over 5% of Gorgias merchants use the ChannelReply integrations.
To learn more about ChannelReply and activate the integration for your account, click here.
And there you have it: The top 10 integrations with Gorgias in 2021! We hope this helps inspire you how you can use your helpdesk to offer exceptional, conceptual support and how to streamline the tools your store uses everyday to grow your business.
To get more ecommerce tool suggestions, check out our list of 150+ great tools. And to view all integrations with our platform, visit the Gorgias App Store.
12 New Apps That Integrates With Gorgias
Gorgias connects to over 65 leading ecommerce applications, giving you the power to centralize customer data in your helpdesk, perform support actions from a single place, and streamline your store’s toolkit.
This month, we launched 12 new integrations:
- SMS Live
- Checkout Champ
- CallHippo
- Konnektive
- TXTFi
- Shopney
- ReturnLogic
- Stateset
- Gatsby
- Trustpilot
- ShipBob
- AfterShip
Read on to learn how you can use these tools to help manage your store, and visit the Gorgias App Store to activate them today!
1. SMS Live
SMS Live is an SMS texting app for Shopify and Shopify Plus. When you add this integration, you’ll see customer information from SMS Live in the Gorgias sidebar, so your agents don’t have to switch between the two applications. You’ll also be able to respond to SMS messages within the Gorgias helpdesk or switch those conversations to a different channel, such as email or phone.
2. Checkout Champ
Checkout Champ simplifies the checkout process and makes it easy to charge for subscription services or one-click upsells. With the Gorgias integration, you can manage all of your customer interactions to include refunds, fulfillment tracking, purchase alterations, and all messaging and tickets.
3. Konnektive
Konnektive is a cloud-based CRM and order management solution that helps optimize, centralize, and automate ecommerce business processes. With this integration, you can display order information right next to tickets in Gorgias and update customer information between the two platforms. It automatically comes with 10 pre-built Macros, to help you get started right away!
4. TXTFi
TXTFi allows brands to leverage purchasing through SMS and ensures side-by-side customer support to communicate with customers in real time. With this integration, you can manage SMS conversations from TXTFi as tickets in Gorgias in order to quickly connect your shoppers with a live agent.
5. Shopney
Shopney is a mobile app builder for Shopify and Shopify Plus that lets you build an app for your store in just one day. With this integration, the conversations that happen through Shopney’s in-app live chat can be managed in the Gorgias helpdesk for a streamlined experience for your agents.
6. ReturnLogic
ReturnLogic helps D2C brands give their customers an easy returns process while automating workflows for their customer service and warehouse teams. With the Gorgias integration, you can embed the Gorgias Chat Box right on the ReturnLogic portal, giving shoppers another opportunity to make their return, exchange, or warranty process as smooth as possible. You can also manage these chat conversations in Gorgias and populate ReturnLogic data into Gorgias tickets.
7. Stateset
Stateset is your single source of truth for managing your online business and automating your commerce operations. The Stateset AI Responder app uses state-of-the-art artificial intelligence and robotic process automation to quickly and accurately build data-driven responses ready for your customer service team to approve. When you connect the Gorgias integration, you can start generating intelligent and dynamic responses directly from Gorgias or from within Shopify.
8. Gatsby
See Instagram insights when responding to tickets, track Instagram mentions and engagement for your brand, and automate valuable influencer workflows all in Gorgias.
With the Gorgias and Gatsby integration, you can now identify when influential customers are reaching out for support and take that into account when prioritizing tickets, asking them to share positive support experiences and more.
9. Trustpilot Reviews
Trustpilot Reviews is a customer review platform. With the Gorgias integration, you can streamline review responses with machine learning and AI. Trustpilot Review data is displayed in the Gorgias Customer Sidebar, ready to be leveraged by agents to reward happy customers and help recover customers at risk of churn.
10. ShipBob
ShipBob is an ecommerce fulfillment solution for online brands. With the Gorgias integration, you can sync customer and order information associated with a specific ShipBob account into the corresponding Gorgias account. You can also display data from ShipBob in the Customer Sidebar, and use that data in Gorgias Macros to automate responses to common claims.
11. AfterShip
AfterShip is an automated shipment tracking platform for e-commerce businesses. With the Gorgias integration, you can sync and display all customer shipment tracking data in the Customer Sidebar, allowing your agents to quickly answer questions without switching applications.
To add these integrations and discover more, go to the Gorgias App Store.
10 Rules to Help You Efficiently Manage Instagram Interactions on Gorgias
Instagram is really the perfect social channel for Ecommerce brands. You can show off your products, share user-generated content, and engage with your community to build brand loyalty.
All that engagement is great, except it adds a task to your plate that quickly multiplies as your brand grows: You have to interact back. Or at least you should, if you want to capitalize on all that engagement!
Sometimes your marketing team or social media manager will handle Instagram replies, but sooner or later you’ll start to get the “Where is my order?” (or “WISMO”) question from shoppers, regardless of the content being shared. This can result in an inefficient workflow between social and support teams to communicate the question, track down an order status, and get a reply back to the customer.
That’s why Gorgias integrates directly with Instagram (and other social media platforms), to streamline the management and interaction with top-level comments, ad comments, private messages, and replies. Instead of going back and forth between your Ecommerce platform, the social team, and the support team, you can empower your agents to reply quickly and accurately to any question that comes in, thanks to over 50+ integrations with the leading Ecommerce apps. (So all the context they need will be in one single browser tab!)
You could even have your marketing team or social media manager help create Macros, so your support agents can use templated (and on brand) messages that speed up their replies. Getting everything centralized in a single place is the first step to providing excellent social support for your store. The next is to start automating replies to common engagements, so you can free up your agents to focus on more important conversations instead of saying “Thanks for the mention!” for the hundredth time.
To help your store start managing Instagram support more efficiently, I’ve collected a list of Rules that Gorgias customers are using to engage with their shoppers, resolve questions faster, and keep their agents focused on the most important conversations.
Here are 10 Rule ideas for more efficient Instagram support:
- Auto-close tickets from giveaway posts
- Auto-close all Instagram tickets
- Auto-tag all Instagram interactions
- Auto-tag likely buyers & create a specialized view
- Auto-tag interactions from influencers for VIP support
- Auto-tag public comments vs private messages
- Auto-tag Instagram tickets with questions
- Auto-close Instagram tickets the don’t mention support or order status
- Auto-tag negative comments
- Auto-assign Instagram tickets to an agent or team
1. Auto-close tickets from giveaway posts
Giveaway posts are great for brand awareness, but can also result in a large increase in tickets in your help desk. To stop this from ever becoming a problem, you can set up a Rule to auto-close tickets generated from giveaway posts, based on the message content.
In this example, we’re auto-closing tickets without the words “who,” “what,” “when,” “where,” “why,” and “how,” in order to avoid accidentally closing an actual question that your team might want to respond to. You could also customize this to close tickets that include a specific word or phrase, based on the criteria of the giveaway. I recommend working closely with your social media manager whenever a new promotion starts, to make sure your helpdesk is set up to triage tickets accordingly.
2. Auto-close all Instagram tickets
If you want to see Instagram engagements in a contact’s message history, but not necessarily respond to them from Gorgias yet, you can auto-close any ticket generated from Instagram, that way it doesn’t fill up the open queue.
By doing this, your agents will have the full cross-channel message history when interacting with a shopper, so they can customize the conversation and know exactly what they’ve asked in the past.
3. Auto-tag all Instagram interactions
Tagging tickets in Gorgias is a great way to measure channel statistics and create customized Views. While your agents will always have the option to manually add tags, you can create a Rule to do the tagging automatically, that way it’s one less step in their workflow.
Then when you go to Statistics > Tags, you’ll be able to see how many tickets are generated from Instagram during a given period, and what percentage that is of all the tickets you receive.
Pro-tip: If you haven’t started managing Instagram tickets in Gorgias yet because you’re not sure what exactly the ticket volume would be, you can Auto-tag and Auto-close tickets in order to see the stats without conversations counting toward your plan’s ticket count yet.
4. Auto-tag potential shoppers & create a specialized view
Prioritize the messages and comments from those most likely to purchase. By detecting message sentiment and filtering by common phrases, you can automatically tag tickets with a high purchase intent, allowing your agents to answer questions quickly or send along a discount code to speed up the purchase.
Once you’ve set up the Rule, you can create a View to filter tickets that only contain this tag, that way your agents can easily see right in the left-hand sidebar whenever there’s a ticket from Instagram from a likely lead!
5. Auto-tag interactions from influencers for VIP support
If you work with influencers, it’s critical to reply to them right away to maximize the impact of their community. To make sure your team never misses an opportunity, you can auto-tag tickets created from the partners you’re working with based on their email address.
Once the Rule is auto-tagging these tickets, you can also create a view to segment these messages from the others. Depending on how many partners and influencers your brand manages at a time, it may be helpful to set up one View per influencer (in which case you’d want to use separate tags), or group them all together in an “Influencers” section.
6. Auto-tag public comments vs private messages
Whenever you reply to a ticket in Gorgias, you’ll see a small icon next to the customer’s name that signals what channel you’re replying on. If you want some extra assurance that your reps are only replying with personal details in private channels however (such as Instagram messages) you can automatically add tags to designate “public” vs “private,” so everyone can see right at the top of the ticket which type of communication it is.
7. Auto-tag Instagram tickets with questions
Prioritize interactions that are asking your brand something, instead of just commenting with emojis. If your brand receives a lot of engagement, this can help you filter out what needs to be addressed and what can likely just be closed out (or handled by the social team).
8. Auto-close Instagram tickets the don’t mention support or order status
If your support team is only interested in responding to the Instagram tickets that specifically mention customer service, you can auto-close everything else (and assume the brand team will take care of it). To do this, create a rule that closes tickets that do not include phrases like “order” “status” “support” or “customer service.”
9. Auto-tag negative interactions
Escalate the tickets that have negative intent to get them a response faster. You can add keywords (or emojis) and use our sentiment detection to auto-tag negative comments, so your agents see right away what kind of ticket they’re opening.
10. Auto-assign Instagram tickets to an agent or team
If you have a specific person who handles social media, whether that’s an agent or the social media manager, you can automatically assign tickets created via that channel to them, so those tickets never get routed to the rest of your team.
I hope these 10 Rules help you engage with your shoppers, resolve questions faster, and keep your agents focused on the most important conversations. If you haven’t connected your Gorgias account to Instagram yet, follow this guide to get started.
Alternatively, keep reading about social media for customer service, or check out our list of the best social media integrations for your Shopify store.
New integration: Manage Instagram messages from Gorgias
If your store leverages Instagram to drive sales, you know it’s important to engage with every member of your community whether they’re commenting on your posts, engaging with your Story, or sending you a message.
Over 4,000 teams on Gorgias have been using our Instagram integration to respond to (or automate responses to) mentions, comments, and ad comments. Earlier this summer, some customers were able to also start receiving and responding to Instagram messages (but it was limited to accounts with between 1,000-100,000 followers).
Today, we’re excited to share that there’s no longer a follower requirement to use Instagram messaging!
Every Gorgias customer (with a non-legacy plan) can manage Instagram messages (including Story mentions) directly from your helpdesk, allowing you to engage with your shoppers quickly and efficiently so you never miss a conversation.
Plus you’ll also be able to reply to comments with a message, giving your team the option to turn a public conversation into a 1-1 chat.
Customers who were able to start using this feature early have already replied to over 300,000 messages and Story mentions. In fact, about 2% of tickets in Gorgias are Instagram messages!
It’s clear our customers love using Instagram to engage with their communities and drive sales, which is why we’re so excited to open this channel up for all of our merchants regardless of their follower count.
Related: Our list of the best social media apps for Shopify.
To get started, you’ll need to make sure you have the "Allow Access to Messages" setting active in Instagram.
You can do this In Instagram Business Messenger by going to Settings → Privacy → Messages and setting the toggle to active.
Once that’s done, go to the Integrations tab in your Gorgias helpdesk and select “Facebook, Messenger & Instagram.”
Click the green “Reconnect” button to refresh your settings, and then you’ll be able to enable “Instagram Direct Messages” in the checkboxes.
This will connect Messages and Story mentions to Gorgias, allowing you to reply directly from the helpdesk and see previous conversation history (so your agents have all the information they need right in one place).
The following video will show you how to get started, along with some common troubleshooting tips.
If you’re managing a lot of customer support conversations on Instagram, it may be helpful to set up views for each type of interaction. For example, you could have a view for Instagram comments, another for Instagram Messages, and a third for Instagram ad comments.
You can also use Rules and Macros in Gorgias to reply even faster (or automate conversations entirely!) in order to free up your agents to focus on more important conversations.
Here are a few ideas to get you started!
1. Create a Macro sending a message to say “Thanks for the mention!”
If you have customers that love to tag your brand or products in their own posts, an easy way to continue building brand loyalty is to send a quick “thank you.” To save your agents time, you can create a Macro they can re-use anytime you get a Message that you’ve been mentioned in someone’s story or post.
2. Adding tags to track Instagram Story mentions
If you want to track how often your brand is mentioned in Instagram Stories, you can tag tickets that come in from the Messages channel with “Mentioned you” in the message body.
By creating a Rule to do this, you can automate this process so it doesn’t add any extra time or steps into your agents workflow, but gives you powerful insights.
3. Creating a Rule to auto-reply to Instagram messages outside of business hours
If you don’t want to reply to messages 24/7, it may be helpful to create an auto-response to set some expectations outside of your business hours.
You can easily do this with a Rule, and even encourage your followers to go somewhere else in the meantime, such as your website, a specific landing page, or even a partner account!
Hopefully this gives you some inspiration on how you can start using Gorgias to engage with your Instagram community without increasing the workload on your support agents. And if you're interested in messaging customers directly, check out our social media and SMS features. With social media for customer service, you can interact with customers on platforms like Instagram or Facebook. And with SMS for customer service, you can enable texting for your most on-the-go customers.
Related: Lean how Gorgias customer Berkey Filters launched SMS and drove incredible customer adoption to this new, faster channel.
To start simplifying management of your messages, comments, and mentions, get started with Gorgias and add the Instagram integration today!
It’s Official: Gorgias is Now SOC 2 Type II Certified
When you use Gorgias, we know that you’re putting your trust in us. That’s why we hold our commitment to your security as our highest priority and safeguard your data with full transparency. Our security policy contains penetration testing, incident response plan, data lifecycle, comprehensive system status live report, and more.
We're thrilled to share that Gorgias is Service Organization Control (SOC) 2 compliant for Type 2. This achievement follows our numerous investments in platform security over the years as part of our goals to secure customer data.
An independent auditor conducted a thorough audit of our servers, systems, and products over six months. They verified that our information security practices, policies, procedures, and operations meet the thorough SOC 2 standards for security.
2022 update: We're happy to share that we renewed our SOC 2 Type 2 certification to continue protecting our customer data.
This industry-wide recognition serves as our reassurance that your data is managed in a controlled and audited environment.
What is SOC 2 Type II Compliance?
Developed by the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA), SOC 2 defines criteria for evaluating how well a company manages customer data and ensuring a set of security controls are in place. A SOC 2 report is unique to each organization because it’s in line with specific business practices.
There are two types of SOC 2 reports: Type I and Type II. Type I checks if a system can handle issues like data breaches. Meanwhile, Type II examines how the system works and how effective it is to protect data against security threats.
What Does Our SOC 2 Type 2 Compliance Mean for You?
Our completion of the SOC 2 Type II audit is our testament to the fact that we always prioritize your data security and privacy. We appreciate your trust in us and strive to strengthen this trust in the long term.
You can be sure that:
- The data you share with Gorgias meets the AICPA standards for security. That goes for your personal information, ticket inquiries, customer data, and the like.
- Your data is protected with procedures and controls to assess, minimize, and eliminate risks and vulnerabilities.
- We always conduct ongoing monitoring of features and processes across our platform to maintain security.
What’s Next?
We hope our successful SOC 2 Type 2 helps you rest easy knowing that your data in Gorgias is secure. But this update is only the latest milestone in delivering our commitment. We’re continuing to improve our security control and data privacy practices for all merchants. To learn more about our security policies, visit our security page or contact us at support@gorgias.com.
Increase Retention and Reward Your Super Fans with Yotpo + Gorgias
With visibility into product reviews right in the Yotpo widget in Gorgias, your support agents will know right away if they're talking to someone who didn't love their last product, or someone who is a big fan of your brand. This knowledge will help you customize the conversation for the best experience possible.
"At OLIPOP, we’re always looking to have a holistic view of the customer to be able to offer the best possible experience. Having the ability to see their most recent reviews within the Gorgias platform is a total game-changer. " - OLIPOP, Director of Customer Experience, Eli Weiss
How to make the most of this integration
You can use Gorgias macros to quickly respond to customers that leave 5-star reviews to build brand loyalty. You can also create macros for customers who leave negative reviews to ensure their concerns are properly addressed, and send them a discount code to help rebuild trust!
By looking at the shopper's review history, your support agents can also quickly shift from just offering customer service to acting as members of the sales team. They can recommend products that are either similar to something the customer previously loved, or different than something they had a bad experience with.
"Gorgias clearly understands the needs of customer service agents, and with this new feature is working towards making all the day-to-day tools accessible from one tab, making work even more agile and with less distractions. We're particularly excited about the ability to understand customer sentiment from the get go, and how we can better approach our users based on the feelings they have shared about their past TUSHY purchases. If we see they are a super fan, we can go heavy on the butt puns, but if they've had a less than stellar experience we will aim to make up for it in our subsequent conversations, and even address things they don't directly mention! We're excited to see how this feature will help us deepen our genuine human connections. " - TUSHY, Director of Customer Experience, Ren Fuller-Wasserman
How to Write the Perfect Answer to Social Comments
So, how can you write the perfect answer to social media comments?
An answer that addresses the customer’s issue while upholding your brand?
Ecommerce companies are tasked with maintaining this balance every day. (Particularly companies that spend a lot on social media ads.) These brands are inundated with comments on their promoted content from happy customers, unhappy customers, prospective customers, and social media trolls.
In this post, we explore the depths of using social media for customer service.
Read on for tips and plenty of examples.
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Spending a lot on Facebook ads? (You need great social media customer service)
If you spend a lot of money on Facebook and Instagram ads, you’ll undoubtedly get dozens of comments per day. You can’t afford to ignore them.
Why your responses to comments matter
Responding to social media comments on your ecommerce posts and ads is critical.
74% of consumers rely on social media to help them make purchasing decisions. 71% are more likely to make a purchase based on a social media referral.
While the design and copy of your posts and ads are important, the comment section has equal swaying power.
Potential customers scope out the comments in an ad from an ecommerce company. They’ll read the positive comments, the negative comments, and how your company replies to both.
An amazing customer endorsement can fall flat if your brand didn’t comment with a grateful reply and simply ignored your raving fan.
Meanwhile, a customer complaint can have a less disastrous impact on a shopper’s purchasing decision if you reply and seek resolution with the customer.
How to excel at social commerce
Social commerce is a booming trend. TikTok is building out Shopify shopping capabilities in the app. Meanwhile, Facebook is also adding a Shopify pay button, and the social media platform already allows small ecommerce businesses to run a shop directly from their business page.
These social commerce developments are designed to keep consumers in the social media app, to the benefit of both parties (the social platform and the ecommerce business).
Consumers can be converted to paying customers without having to leave the app. This reduces the required steps to making a purchase, and increases conversions.
By responding to social media comments like a pro, your ecommerce company can also capture this social commerce trend. You’ll reduce the need for customers to go and read reviews elsewhere. They can get answers to their questions right in the social media channel. They can read the answers that your team has already written to other commenters.
By reducing the review-hunting step, you can increase conversions. Customers that have read comment threads can feel comfortable making a purchase immediately.
Related: Our list of the best social media integrations for Shopify.
Top ways that customers engage with your posts and ads
31% of consumers say that they use social media like Twitter and Instagram primarily to browse products. Consumers are accustomed to being shown products through organic posts and paid media.
They feel comfortable giving their opinion and speaking directly with a brand.
The top ways that customers engage with posts and ads are product endorsements, negative reviews, customer support complaints, and product questions.
Here’s an example of a customer commenting on a social media ad with a favorable opinion of the product:
These sorts of comments can have a huge impact on your conversions. While it’s hard to measure the exact impact, you might find that ads with a lot of positive comments perform better than new ads or ads with fewer comments.
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Why customers reach out through social media platforms
Today, social media is one of the most important customer service channels.
But some ecommerce companies are hesitant to spend too much time providing social media customer service. The management of the company might feel frustrated by the expectation to respond there, rather than through their customer support software.
If someone at your company is advocating against allocating support time to social media comments, ask them to consider customers’ needs.
Ultimately, the most successful ecommerce businesses get as close to their customers as possible. They listen to feedback and open up lines of communication on customers’ terms.
Customers leave important comments on your social media posts and ads because:
- It fits with their user flow - Consumers don’t want to have to leave their favorite social media app to find where else to communicate with you.
- They have come to expect a response - Because so many ecommerce brands excel at social media customer service, consumers expect all brands to respond to their comments.
- They want to feel like they have direct access to your brand - This goes beyond just getting a response. Customers want to feel heard and seen by your brand. They want to know that you offer true customer care, not just basic service.
If after empathizing with customers, someone at your company still doesn’t see the need to invest in customer service on social media channels, the following statistic might help...
A whopping 83% of global consumers expect a response time of 24 hours or sooner.
That stat alone could be the ammunition you need to get your company on board with allocating time towards social media responses.
Related: Our guide to offering great customer service via Facebook Messenger.
Social media customer service strategy
What’s the strategy behind social media customer service?
It comes down to two key things:
- Increasing customer satisfaction
- Converting new customers
Let’s take a look at how to excel at both:
How to increase customer satisfaction
The comments section of your social media posts and ads offers an amazing opportunity to strengthen customer retention.
You might be able to discover:
- Ways to improve your products
- Ways to bundle your products, update your pricing model, offer subscriptions, etc.
- Potential brand ambassadors
- Potential user generated content creators
- Widespread product issues warranting refunds or recalls
- Copy or design ideas to attract more customers with new ads
- Product testimonials to include in ads or landing pages
- Ways to increase clarity in your website pages regarding what’s included with a product, where to locate information, etc.
There are so many incredibly valuable things you can get out of reading and responding to your social media comments, so don’t think of this as just a burden.
For example, in this comment thread, a customer points out the difficulty of finding information for an art subscription box. The social media manager politely accepts the feedback and promises to talk to the team about fixing the issue.
The company not only assists the customer hunting for the information, but also proactively fixes the issue so that other customers don’t experience the same confusion.
You can also drive brand loyalty by engaging with your biggest fans. For example, if a customer often posts positive review comments on your ads, you might thank them with a free gift.
Use social media to drive deeper relationships with your existing customers. Listen to them, heed their guidance, and find ways to thank those who go out of their way to support your business.
How to drive new customers
Use social media comments to convert new customers? Yes, it really is possible.
Here are the key ways to grow your customer base through social media comments:
- Respond to customer issues helpfully - It’s important that you reply politely and helpfully to your current customers. Prospective customers will be paying attention to how you resolve issues. If you don’t respond or respond in a rude or unhelpful way, prospective customers might not purchase from you.
- Respond to prospective customers’ questions - You also need to quickly respond to prospective customers questions. They might ask for help with purchasing the right product or they might have questions about what’s included with the product.
- Uplift positive comments - You should also respond to very positive comments about your products or company. This shows potential customers that you care about your current customers and that you appreciate the time and effort they put into saying something kind about your brand. For example, you might write something like “Thanks so much for letting us know. We’re so happy you love it.”
Here’s an example of a smart way to convert commenters into customers. The commenter is asking for help choosing the right foundation color, and the social media manager responds with the link to take their quiz.
The company has wisely signed up for Bitly’s paid plan to offer easy-to-remember short links in their responses on social networks.
The comment got 31 likes. So, not only did the original commenter get access to the link, but many others saw the response as well. You can use social media customer support to drive traffic to your important website pages.
The Bitly link redirects to a quiz. After submitting all of the quiz answers, the user needs to offer up their email address to get their results.
IL Makiage is wisely using social media comments as a way to grow their email list and offer exact product recommendations.
The most common social comments (with example answers from ecommerce companies)
How should your team members respond to social media comments? Across all of your social profiles, and especially where you run ads, you might run into the following types of comments.
Read on for example comments and effective customer service responses.
Shopper concerns and questions
One of the most common types of social media customer care required is simply answering questions and concerns. Potential customers will ask questions in social media comments about products of yours that they haven’t tried yet.
In this example, a customer asks about whether a foundation will be so heavy that it will cover her characteristic freckles. The social media manager offers an excellent response by sharing that the coverage is buildable.
In this example, a social media manager assures the potential customer that the product won’t exacerbate acne.
Note that the response quells concerns by sharing specific product details (oil-free and water-based).
Similarly, the customer service team member or social media manager handles a question with the opposite concern. One commenter worries about how the product will affect dry skin. The response features specific product details to address the issue (hyaluronic acid and vitamin E).
Details are the best way to address customer concerns. Just take a look at this example with features a very thorough response about the number guards included in a beard trimmer.
Customer questions
Your paying customers might ask questions as well. This is your chance to drum up excitement with current customers, engage with them on an emotional level, and show that you’re here to provide excellent customer service, even on social media.
In this example, a customer asks about whether or not the ad is featuring the next month’s art subscription box.
By answering with an upbeat tone, the social media manager gets the customer and other people reading the comment excited to receive the subscription box.
Customer endorsements
You’ll also receive customer endorsements and positive reviews in the comments section of your social media ads.
If you get an enthusiastic comment, don’t let it go unnoticed. You should reply to all of the detailed comment reviews you receive from customers.
Check out this example. The social media manager makes it clear that they are ready to offer excellent customer service if needed.
When reading this response, prospective customers can see that the company cares about their results and is available to happy to provide customer service solutions.
This can increase potential customers’ likelihood of purchasing from you.
Customer complaints
Of course, you’re likely to receive customer complaints as well.
You might get negative reviews about the delivery date, the cost of returns, or even the product itself.
Check out this example response, which deftly handles a negative review.
When customer support shouldn’t respond
Social media monitoring is critical. But that doesn’t mean you have to respond to every comment written across your entire social media presence.
If you respond to certain comments, it could come off as creepy.
For example, social media users will often tag each other in the comments sections of ads they find intriguing or humorous. They might recommend one of your products to a friend.
In this case, they are not expecting the social media manager or customer support team to respond to them. They are expecting a response from their friend.
If someone from your company responds and says something like “You should buy them!” or “You would love them!” it will appear too pushy and salesy. Worse, the social media users might feel like you are infringing on their private conversation. Although these comments are public, to the users they are more like private messages.
If customers tag other users, not you, don’t respond unless there are serious service issues, such as product malfunctions or delivery delays mentioned in the comments.
You also don’t need to respond to very short positive comments like “love this!” You can simply like the comment if it’s something positive but lacks depth and detail.
Crafting the perfect social media customer service response
Customer service agents and social media managers can’t prepare for everything. Sometimes, comments will catch you off guard.
To offer amazing social media customer service, follow these steps every time.
1. Take time to fully understand the context
While responding quickly is important, you don’t want to respond too quickly. If you rush your response, you might miss out an important element.
For example, if someone asks about the nutritional value of a product, you might quickly offer a canned response. But if you consider the context of the ad, which talks about weight loss rather than speed of cooking like your other ads, this might help you highlight more relevant product details.
2. Craft your response, following these guidelines
When you’re sure you’ve got all the contextual information required to respond, you can go ahead and craft your response.
Make sure you hit these important points:
Product questions:
- Answer the question clearly
- Backup your answer with real, specific product details and information
Positive reviews:
- Thank the customer in a way that matches your brand voice
- If it fits your product, ask them to keep you posted of further results
- Let them know you’re here for them if they have any questions
Negative reviews:
- Empathize with the customer
- Accept their feedback in a mature way (as opposed to disagreeing with them or attempting to silence them)
- Share the potential resolution
- Divert the customer towards your helpdesk, knowledge base, or customer service team (as appropriate)
In all interactions, the customer service experience should match your brand’s personality.
3. For contentious issues, get approval before responding
Companies can get themselves in hot water when they’re too quick to respond to controversial comments. You might need to run your answer by your PR or communications team, especially if the topic is about sustainability, equity, diversity and inclusion, or the founders’ political beliefs or actions.
Here’s an example response to a question about plastic use reduction:
Sometimes, you might need to get a second opinion from the head of customer support for simple questions. Contentious responses don’t always have to be about political hot-button issues.
Here’s a great example response to a customer being shocked that there isn’t a customer support hotline.
You don’t need to get every response reviewed. But when in doubt, play it safe and get a second opinion from the head of social media management or communications.
4. Respond to the comment, and create a ticket if needed
When you’ve got the right response, go ahead and comment. Don’t forget to tag the person you’re responding to.
If the social media commenter brought up an important customer support issue, you should create a ticket for the comment thread in your customer service software.
This way, you can track the resolution.
5. Make sure customer support sees the issue through to resolution
With a ticket open in your helpdesk, you won’t have to worry about remembering to check if the person wrote back. Instead, you’ll be able to see that open ticket, and you can then click through to the post or ad with the comment thread.
If it’s an important issue (the customer wants a return or hasn’t received their product in the mail), you should do one follow up comment and tag them to make sure they saw your response.
Follow these guidelines to social media customer service, and you’ll gain new fans while deepening your connection with your current customers.
Gorgias helps ecommerce companies grow through exceptional customer service. Learn more about Gorgias' social media features.
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