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TL;DR:

• AI Agent reduces workload and prevents burnout for CX teams. It handles routine queries and allows your human agents to focus on providing a higher level of service where it's needed most.
• AI Agent is secure and compliant with industry standards. Gorgias uses a zero data retention policy and follows strict security regulations, including SOC 2 Type II certification.
• AI Agent delivers personalized, on-brand responses. Custom Guidance and data from sources like Shopify allow AI Agent to maintain brand consistency while providing tailored customer interactions.
• Real-world success stories show tangible results with AI Agent. Brands like Psycho Bunny and Baby Gold have seen significant improvements in response times and resolution rates by implementing AI Agent.

AI changes the way CX teams operate. But we firmly believe that it’s a good thing. 

It will help you improve your team’s workload, say goodbye to burnout, and create a more consistent and speedy experience for your customers.  

Here’s the process we recommend for pitching Gorgias’s AI Agent to your boss, complete with an FAQ section for quick answers. 

Jump to a section:

• Start with the benefits
• Outline the data & security safeguards in place
• Highlight its brand accuracy and personalization
• Share success stories
• Set expectations

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Start with the benefits 

Gorgias views AI as an extension of CX teams, and that’s how many of our customers see AI Agent as well. Baby Gold calls theirs Michelle, Psycho Bunny calls theirs Lisa. 

These autonomous agents allow your human agents to focus on more complex and nuanced issues, providing a higher level of service where your customers need it most. 

Here are some other things that make AI Agent a great addition to your team: 

• ⏰ 24/7 availability: AI Agent operates around the clock, ensuring that customer inquiries are addressed promptly at any time, including weekends and holidays.
• 🏔️ Scalability: AI Agent can handle a high volume of inquiries simultaneously without any decrease in performance. This scalability is particularly valuable during peak times like BFCM. 
• 🚀 Efficiency and speed: AI Agent can process and respond to queries much faster than human agents, leading to quicker resolutions and improved customer satisfaction.
• 🦎Adaptability: AI Agent can quickly adapt to new information, products, or changes in policies immediately – all you have to do is add them to your knowledge docs and to the Guidance you set. 
• 🦾 Full control: You stay in full control of how AI Agent behaves in specific scenarios. Give AI Agent custom Guidance to ensure that each interaction with your customers reflects your brand’s values, policies and tone.

📚 Further reading: Our AI Approach: Onboard, Automate, Observe, and Coach

Outline the data & security safeguards in place 

Rest assured that AI Agent and Gorgias operate under a zero data retention (ZDR) policy. Once data is used, it isn’t stored. 

We’re SOC 2 Type II Certified and follow strict regulations in regards to data security.   

You can view the terms that cover the data we collect and how we use Artificial Intelligence by reading Our Master Service Agreement (MSA) and Data Processing Agreement (DPA). 

🎯 Resource: How AI Agent works & gathers data

Highlight its brand accuracy and personalization 

AI Agent provides consistent, accurate, and on-brand responses based on the information in your Help Center, Shopify order data, Macros, handover instructions, and the actual custom Guidance you set for it. 

It might just surprise you with just how specialized it can get. 

“Sometimes agents forget personal details to call out when communicating with our customers, like birthdays or weddings,” says Sindi Melgar, the Customer Service Manager at Baby Gold. 

“But I noticed on a few different occasions where AI Agent (ours is named Michelle) is highlighting these things and is saying, ‘Congratulations on your wedding!’ Just the tone of voice that Michelle is able to adopt is definitely on brand for us.” 

Ensure certain topics are handed over or excluded

When you set up AI Agent, you’ll also let it know the types of topics you’d like it not to answer. 

AI Agent automatically hands over tickets to your team whenever it lacks confidence in an answer or detects an angry customer. 

But you can also use handover rules to choose how AI Agent behaves when it passes tickets to your human team, and add specific topics that it should always hand over to your team.

🎯 Resource: Customize how AI Agent behaves

Provide feedback on responses

Don’t like something AI Agent said? Or, did you love an answer it gave? 

It’s easy to let AI Agent know by telling it you liked the response, saying it should have pulled from a different resource, or reporting an issue. 

🎯 Resource: How to coach AI Agent and give feedback

Prioritize your team’s docs

AI Agent uses your Shopify order data, Macros, your brand’s webpages, as well as your Help Center to give your customers accurate and on-brand responses. It also prioritizes any Guidance that you set.  

🎯 Resource: Why having a quality knowledge base is essential to using AI for CX

Share success stories 

We wouldn’t expect you to onboard a new tool without some actual statistics and reviews. Below, browse three success stories and the fantastic metrics that AI Agent helped their teams achieve.

After just one month of implementing AI Agent, the team at VESSEL not only increased the number of emails automated via AI Agent by 20%, but reduced first response time to 58 seconds and saw their resolution time decrease to one minute and six seconds.

When Baby Gold implemented AI Agent, they achieved a 49-second first response time, a one-minute and four-second resolution time, and answered 1,361 tickets. They also quadrupled their email automation rate. 

Psycho Bunny saw a 99.8% faster first response time, 99.4% faster resolution time, and 26% of tickets resolved by AI Agent. 

“Our customer support KPIs are already fantastic: we're already leading in the industry,” said Tosha Moyer, Senior Customer Experience Manager at Psycho Bunny.  

“To improve on that, we need AI — it’s not physically or financially possible with human agents alone.”  

Set expectations 

AI Agent isn’t going to find lost packages, pick up the phone, or fix damaged products. While this might seem obvious, it’s important to understand AI Agent’s core capabilities, as we want this to be an exciting and useful addition to your team. 

“AI Agent does a great job of efficiently handling returns and exchanges, and split shipment tracking info,” shares Tosha Moyer. “The overall tone is good and some of its responses are really excellent.”  

Below, find the top use cases for AI Agent, as well as the specific actions you can configure for it within Gorgias.  

AI Agent use cases

These are the top AI Agent use cases that we recommend: 

• Where is my order? (WISMO) inquiries
• Product-related questions
• Returns
• Order issues
• Cancellations
• Discounts (including BFCM)
• Customer feedback
• Account management
• Collaboration requests

The specific actions you currently can configure for AI Agent include: 

• Cancel an order in Shopify
• Edit a shipping address in Shopify
• Send Loop Returns portal deep link
• Send return shipping status from Loop Returns
• Cancel a subscription in Recharge

With more to come! And to quiet any worries, it’s worth mentioning that AI Agent will not perform any actions without you configuring or activating them first.

Enhance your brand reputation and build trust

Offering fast, accurate, and 24/7 support can significantly enhance your brand reputation and build customer trust, which can translate into higher customer loyalty and increased revenue.

Get started with AI Agent →

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Customer expectations continue to rise — around 82% of service pros say customers expect their requests to be resolved in less than three hours. Given the pressure to meet these climbing demands, more brands are turning to automation and AI. 

It’s not only about providing a fast, helpful, and efficient customer experience. Brands must also stay ahead of the competition and adopt the latest tech for long-term success. 

Luckily, brands like Shinesty are adopting tech like AI and automation to meet consumer demands. It’s worth it — since adopting automated CX in 2023, Shinesty’s resolution time has decreased by 50%, and their overall satisfaction rate is up.

In a recent workshop, Molly Wallace Kerrigan, the Marketing and CX Director at Shinesty, shared her team’s strategies for setting up automation, maintaining brand voice, and optimizing customer experience (CX).

You can also hear Molly share these insights herself by watching the workshop here:

How Shinesty automates more than half of their CX tasks

Before using Gorgias Automate, Shinesty hired about 20 seasonal employees, including CX agents, to help with the peak holiday season. In 2023, they only hired two, bringing their total to five agents. It was clear that Automate saved them money.

“When Automate came along, it changed everything... We only hired two agents, raising our team from three to five. That was our biggest game changer with Gorgias.”

Molly shared their impressive journey to automating 54% of their CX tasks — a feat transforming their customer service operations, especially during high-demand periods like the holiday season. Most importantly, they achieved this without losing their brand’s personality. 

Here’s how they did it:

Focus on key areas

First, Shinesty identified the most common customer inquiries that could be automated. They prioritized high-volume tasks such as WISMO (where is my order?), subscription cancellations, and account management. Automating these repetitive inquiries reduced the pressure on their human support agents.

Rebuild and clean up

Before rolling out automation, Shinesty cleaned up its helpdesk. The team re-evaluated existing workflows, removed outdated processes, and ensured their helpdesk was ready for automation. Laying the groundwork helped the team transition to automation more efficiently. 

Optimize self-service

A key part of Shinesty’s strategy was empowering customers to find answers on their own. Molly emphasized the importance of creating simple, humorous help articles that resonate with their brand. Regular audits of these resources meant customers could self-serve more easily, reducing the need for human intervention.

Lean into AI recommendations

AI-powered article recommendations help Shinesty identify ways to improve their use of automation. For example, AI suggested updating some existing help articles based on common customer questions, helping Shinesty address gaps proactively.

Gradual scale-up

Instead of overhauling everything at once, Shinesty rolled out automation gradually. The team focused on key areas and then expanded. Eventually, they automated 54% of their CX tasks without overwhelming their team or compromising service quality. 

Reinvest time into human agents

Automation doesn’t mean eliminating human agents. Instead of getting bogged down in repetitive tasks, their small team of agents now has the chance to focus on more valuable tasks and specialize. 

“With a smaller team, we could develop our agents more, giving them opportunities to specialize in different areas. Our satisfaction rate has increased, and our resolution time has decreased by 50%.”

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Why you should embrace AI and stay ahead of the competition 

Molly strongly encourages businesses not to hesitate when it comes to adopting AI tools. “Don't be afraid. Just do it. AI is here to stay, and it's not going anywhere,” she emphasized. 

Integrating AI into your CX strategy allows you to keep up with customer demands and position your brand ahead of the competition.

📚 Related reading: The hidden power and ROI of automated customer support

Take the leap with AI for a competitive edge

Molly’s advice is clear: AI is a game-changer for businesses looking to stay ahead. The tools are intuitive, easy to implement, and designed to enhance your team’s capabilities rather than replace them.

Gorgias’s AI Agent comes with pre-built templates that make it even easier to get started. These templates provide a solid foundation, allowing you to quickly set up automated responses and workflows that align with your brand’s tone and style. Molly pointed out, “The templates were a great starting point, and the guidance part was simple.”

By adopting AI, you can automate routine tasks and ensure consistent and empathetic customer interactions. Your team will also have more time to focus on more complex and valuable activities.

As Molly noted, AI allows your team “to develop beyond mindless tasks” and offers “empathetic responses without turning on the customer,” which can significantly improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Read more: How Shinesty automates 50%+ of tickets to offer great CX with a team of 5

Prepare for the future with upcoming AI enhancements

Looking ahead, Gorgias is rolling out exciting new features for the AI Agent that will level up CX automation. One of the most anticipated upgrades is the ability to perform actions like canceling orders or changing addresses automatically — tasks that currently require human intervention. 

Another upcoming feature is automated QA, which will enhance the quality assurance process by removing subjectivity and ensuring more consistent results.

Want to see how many routine tasks you could automate? Book a demo to see Gorgias’s AI Agent in action.

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According to our recent survey, 69.2% of respondents already use AI and automation in their roles, with support leaders and agents being the highest adopters.

However, in order to be successful, AI needs a robust knowledge base to learn from. The more knowledge and context, the smarter AI will be.

Below, find the tips you need to set up a great customer knowledge base in order to use AI most effectively.

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The role knowledge bases play for AI

Aside from acting as a self service resource for customers, knowledge bases now serve a dual purpose — they also act as a data source that provides AI with the training it needs to accurately answer questions from your customers. 

That’s the case for Gorgias’s AI Agent, an autonomous AI team member who can resolve customer inquiries without the involvement of humans. While teams also provide the AI with Guidance during the setup process, your knowledge base is the primary source for AI Agent to be onboarded, have a consistent source of truth, and provided faster and complete resolutions.

‎Helps your AI get up and running quickly 

The more information you provide your AI with, the faster it will be able to deliver accurate responses — and the sooner your customer support team can move onto more important things than answering another WISMO request.

Building a quality knowledge base is essentially the first onboarding step for using AI in your customer service operations. It’s the main data source for AI, sort of like a handbook or manual. The more thorough the Help Center is, the less agents will have to tweak and guide AI at the start.

Provides a consistent source of answers

The more up-to-date and accurate your knowledge base is, the more accurate your AI’s responses to your customers will be. Errors or inconsistencies in knowledge bases can lead to flawed AI behavior. 

The benefit of that is that AI will consistently intake any new information you add as long as your Help Center articles are updated. For example, brands who have new or different policies won't have to worry about setting aside time for AI to digest the new info –– it will automatically pull them from the Help Center.

📚Further reading: How your CX Team will evolve with AI

Allows it to better provide full resolutions 

An AI customer support rep can resolve tickets 99.4% faster than human agents –– and that’s full resolutions, not just first responses! But those full resolutions will only be as helpful as your knowledge base is.

Benefits of a high-quality knowledge base

• More accurate responses
• Improved learning and adaptation
• Increased trust and usability
• Effective self-service resource

More accurate responses 

Quality data improves AI accuracy and efficiency. For CX, that quality data comes from a robust knowledge base. 

For example, clothing brand Psycho Bunny was able to successfully implement AI Agent in part because of their thorough knowledge base. 

They have articles that cover: Shipping & Delivery, Order Status, Returns & Exchanges, Buy Online Pick Up in Store, products & FAQs, and Payment & Billing. 

“AI Agent helps immensely with data reporting and reducing human error, because it tags tickets accurately and follows processes consistently,” says Mary Mundy, Technical Support Specialist at Psycho Bunny.

Improved learning and adaptation

Knowledge bases also enable AI systems to learn and adapt over time, especially if they’re consistently edited and updated to reflect new or changing policies or product information.

Adaptability is crucial for a high-performing CX team, and your AI tool needs to be able to rise to that challenge. That was the case for premium sport and travel accessory brand Vessel. 

“I was a little bit hesitant about using AI Agent initially,” says Lauren Reams, their Customer Experience Manager. 

“We knew that we were interested in more automation because we have had more customers reaching out, but weren’t sure that it would be able to meet their growing needs.

“It’s been incredible to see how adaptable AI Agent is, and how it can quickly pick up on the small things — for example, if something is a hot topic for us, you can see AI Agent start talking about it, and knowing when it’s something that needs to be handed off to our team.”

Now, Vessel boasts a 20% automation rate and a resolution time of just 1.06 minutes. 

Increased trust and usability

A reliable knowledge base fosters trust in AI systems. It’s a cycle: the better the information in your knowledge base is, the better your AI Agent can speak on your behalf.

For example, fine jewelry brand Baby Gold has built trust with customers through a more personalized AI experience. 

“What I like about AI Agent is that the responses are so different, and it makes it sound like it's an actual agent,” says Sindi Melgar, Baby Gold’s Customer Service Manager. 

“We've gotten feedback from customers who say, Michelle, has been helping me, Michelle did this for me, Michelle did that for me — so that's awesome. We provide personalized items, so we should provide a personalized experience and journey for our customers.” 

Effective self-service resource

Aside from being AI’s most knowledgeable sidekick, your Help Center is a prime self-service hub for customers. 

They should be able to locate policies like shipping and returns and answers to product FAQs. If you want to go the extra mile like Baby Gold does, create a portal where shoppers can start a return, track or cancel an order, or report an issue. 

Best practices for developing a quality knowledge base

• Include your most important policies 
• Identify your FAQs
• Leverage pre-existing templates 
• Keep it consistent with your brand’s voice and tone
• Establish a regular cadence for maintenance 

Include your most important policies

This might go without saying, but customers won’t know your policies if you don’t clearly list them on your website. A policy section helps set expectations upfront and builds trust. 

Some common policies to include are: 

• Shipping times and costs
• Returns and exchanges 
• Defective or broken merchandise
• Support or in-store operating hours 
• Promotions 
• Warranty
• Order processing and fulfillment 

Identify your FAQs

🛑 Challenge: Identifying your frequently asked questions manually, especially if you have a ton of tickets that come in on the daily, a wide variety of questions, or topics that require super personalized responses. Yes, you can source your brand’s specific FAQs manually by speaking to your agents, but you might not cover everything. 

✅ Solution: Some frequently asked questions are pretty standard across ecommerce stores. Your shoppers will always need to know your shipping information, return and exchange policies, order cancellation windows, the status of their most recent order, and where they can reach out for 1:1 support. 

If you use a helpdesk, you’ll likely be able to see an aggregate of top questions. With Automate, it's easy —  customers' most asked questions are listed in your Overview dashboard with an option to automatically create a Help Center article for each, answer included.

📚Further reading: FAQ Pages: Examples, Benefits, and When to Add a Help Center

Leverage pre-existing templates 

🛑 Challenge: Scaling your knowledge base to answer all relevant questions can be a daunting task, especially at the beginning. 

✅ Solution: You don’t have to create your knowledge base from scratch! You can use an AI tool like ChatGPT to create it or, check out the 50 Help Center templates in this article to establish a solid foundation.

Keep it consistent with your brand’s voice and tone 

🛑 Challenge: If your knowledge base doesn’t accurately reflect how your brand engages with customers or how it shows up online, your AI won’t sound like you either.

✅ Solution: If your brand is all about personalization, for example, include that in a “Who we are” article in your Help Center like Baby Gold does. 

“Sometimes agents forget personal details to call out when communicating with our customers, like birthdays or weddings,” says Sindi Melgar, Baby Gold’s Customer Service Manager, “But I noticed on a few different occasions where the AI Agent is highlighting these things and is saying, congratulations on your wedding! Just the tone of voice that our AI Michelle is able to adopt is definitely on brand for us.”

Establish a regular cadence for maintenance

🛑 Challenge: Continuously updating the knowledge base to ensure it remains relevant can be time-consuming, especially the longer you wait to review it. 

✅ Solution: Because AI is such a huge time saver, your team should have more time available to edit and maintain your knowledge base, as well as coach any AI tools you use. For example, Psycho Bunny sees 26% of all tickets resolved by AI Agent. 

Schedule time each month or quarter, depending on how often your policies or products change to keep your knowledge base current and relevant. If your knowledge base has outdated information, your AI most certainly will, too. 

📚Further reading: The Gorgias AI Approach: Onboard, Automate, Observe, and Coach

How AI Agent can help

Gorgias’s AI Agent learns your policies and brand voice to autonomously handle support queries via email –– just like a human agent. 

Our customers have found that it often doesn't matter if an agent or AI responds to a customer so long as a resolution is reached quickly. 

That was the case for Ron Shah, CEO of health and wellness brand Obvi:  

“People just want to know things fast; they want things quickly. As long as they're getting accurate responses, most people don't care how.”

Within the first four weeks of its launch, AI Agent supported 300 brands, 60 of which reached a 20% automation rate. It was able to process 10,000 messages in one week. 

“These might look like modest numbers on a screen, but they’re translating to significant benefits for the people who monitor, manage, and innovate on ways to deliver exceptional customer experiences — and we feel grateful to be able to facilitate this shift,” says Gorgias CEO and Co-founder Romain Lapeyre.

Investing in and prioritizing high-quality knowledge bases will support both your CX team and your customers. Give your team time back, create better customer experiences, and get on the cutting edge of AI for customer support.

See AI Agent in action and book a demo.

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TL;DR:

• Ecommerce sales are expected to rise by 8.8% in 2024, presenting new growth opportunities.
• Longer consideration times mean businesses need to engage customers at every stage of their buying journey.
• SEO remains crucial for growth, with over half of consumers using search for pre-purchase information.
• Ethical AI and well-managed returns can boost customer trust and loyalty while driving sales.

Let’s stop with the doom and gloom ecommerce trends and talk about what’s really up: growth.

Yep, you read that right. 

Ecommerce sales are set to soar by 8.8% in 2024, and the digital marketplace is ripe with opportunity.

Sure, we’ve all been budget-conscious for the past year or more—businesses and consumers alike. And we’re not saying you shouldn’t be.

Despite that, there is a ton of opportunity to grow your sales this year. It’s just time to understand how consumer behavior is shifting and how you should adapt to it.

So, what’s changing? We shared six trends to know about below.

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1. Consideration times are longer

There’s no denying that the more budget-conscious mindset is creating longer consideration times.

According to a 2023 consumer behavior report from Knocommerce, only 23.4% of shoppers reported discovering a brand and making a purchase on the same day. 

Meanwhile, 15.3% reported buying in the first week, and 61.3% of people reported taking longer than a week to make their first purchase.

What this data tells us

It's imperative to adopt a full-funnel approach and strategically engage customers at every stage of their buying journey. 

How? First, you must understand what they need to learn about your products, when they need to learn it, and which customer service channels and content formats they prefer for learning about your products.

Part of the issue is knowing how to simply be available for your customers. They shouldn’t feel like they’re on a scavenger hunt on your website, trying to track down your product FAQs and contact information.

Helpdesks are a great way to solve both issues. For example, with Gorgias On-site Campaigns, you can integrate live chat across your website to recommend products to shoppers in a subtle way, typically at various stages of their buying cycle like,

1. Personalized messages on product pages that resonate with individual shopper preferences and browsing history.
2. Recommending complementary products or upgrades based on the customer's current cart selection.
3. Capitalizing on the excitement of new product launches to capture the attention of browsers.
4. Implementing winback campaigns targeted at customers who have previously engaged with your brand but haven't made a purchase recently.
5. Using browse and cart abandonment strategies to re-engage customers who have shown interest in your products but haven't completed the purchase process.
6. Providing valuable educational content that addresses common pain points, showcases product benefits, and guides customers towards informed purchasing decisions.
7. Sending targeted holiday campaigns around seasonal trends and shopper preferences to drive conversions.

2. Search still matters

Over half of consumers (55% to be exact) rank search as their top source for pre-purchase information. 

Despite what some marketing gurus share online, SEO is still an essential part of any brand’s growth strategy. Don’t sleep on SEO as an acquisition channel.

What to do about this 

Don’t forget the basics of SEO. 

We know it’s easy to forget when to set up an internal link or use a specific keyword, but there are a few best practices you should use to make sure your SEO engine is chugging alone:

• Conduct keyword research to identify high-value keywords related to your products or services and integrate them strategically into your website content, meta tags, and headings. 
• Focus on creating high-quality, relevant content that addresses user queries and provides valuable information to enhance your search visibility and rankings. I.e. don’t try to “game” the system.
• Use Customer Knowledge Bases to improve your website's visibility in search engine results and attract organic traffic. Incorporate targeted keywords and search-friendly formatting into your knowledge-base articles to maximize their SEO impact.
• Keep your website content fresh, relevant, and up-to-date to maintain search visibility and engage users effectively. 
• Track and analyze key SEO metrics, such as keyword rankings, organic traffic, and conversion rates, to measure the effectiveness of your SEO efforts. If possible, do this at least every few months (we know you’re busy!).

Remember, SEO takes time to build. Two things you should know:

1. Traffic reflects past efforts (often taking at least 6 months to show results).
2. Your success 6 months from now depends on your work from 6 months ago.

Essentially, what you do today will shape your results next year, which is why it’s worth investing ASAP.

3. Customers expect AI safeguards. Prioritize an ethical AI strategy

According to a report by Salesforce, 74% of customers express concerns about the unethical use of AI. Additionally, 80% emphasize the importance of human validation of AI output.

Can shoppers be any more clear about the fact that we need a human-centered approach to AI implementation?

AI is impacting how customers trust businesses. Plain and simple, you need to implement an ethical strategy and make sure it’s managed by humans.

What this data tells us

There’s a fine balance between speed to resolution and adding a human element to every customer message. And you can have both automation and humans running the show.

Businesses that take this approach meet customer expectations for AI safeguards while driving operational efficiency and delivering exceptional customer experiences.

The proof is in the pudding: According to Gorgias data, within just 28 days, merchants who automated up to 20% of tickets experienced an impressive 8-point increase in repeat purchase rates. 

Automation goes beyond keyboard shortcuts or macros; it serves as a hands-off assistant capable of engaging customers and impacting revenue significantly—while making it easy for a human to jump in at any point for more specific customer inquiries.

TL;DR: Don’t be afraid to embrace automation as a strategic tool for customer engagement and growth. 

4. Returns are becoming a profit driver, not a cost center

Returns are an inevitable part of ecommerce, with up to 30% of sales potentially resulting in returns. 

Contrary to common belief, returns are not a cost center—they can be transformed into a profit driver and a valuable touchpoint for enhancing customer loyalty and retention.

In fact, 91% of consumers actively track their packages, indicating a high level of interest and engagement in the returns process.

By making it easy for customers to track returns and exchanges directly from the order tracking page, you reduce return-related support tickets while providing a transparent experience for buyers.

TL;DR: A well-handled return can start a new chapter in the customer's relationship with a brand, not the final page.

What to do about this

At the end of the day, returns can be costly… Unless you customize the returns experience based on shopper segments and save time to re-allocate to other growth-related initiatives. 

Some tips:

1. Customize the returns experience: Only offer free returns exclusively to VIP customers to incentivize loyalty and increase customer satisfaction.
2. Understand return reasons: Collect data on return reasons to gain insights into areas for improvement. For example, customers will tell you how to improve product quality, refine the buying experience, and tailor messaging to better meet expectations.
3. Empower customers: Provide customers with the autonomy to initiate returns independently. By enabling self-service returns, businesses can streamline operations, reduce resource-intensive support tickets, and enhance overall efficiency.
4. Use integration solutions: Leverage integrated platforms such as Gorgias and Loop Returns to streamline returns management and customer support processes. With two-way integration, merchants can access comprehensive returns data directly within their Gorgias admin interface, enabling faster ticket resolution and improved customer service.

Read more: Ecommerce returns: 10 best practices for taking your online store to the next level

5. Customers expect connected journeys: Break down your business silos

A staggering 79% of customers expect consistent interactions across different departments. Unfortunately, only 45% of customers feel that companies currently provide such consistency. 

Additionally, 56% of customers report the frustration of having to repeat or re-explain information to different representatives, highlighting the disconnect between departments within organizations.

PwC states that 44% of consumers are willing to engage with chatbots to seek product information before making a purchase, making it even more important to have consistency across departments.

Today, customer support teams play a dual role as both problem solvers for post-purchase inquiries and guides for customers exploring products before buying.

What this data tells us

Your support team must understand how to provide consistent support, pre-sale and post-sale. No matter where a buyer is in their journey, every message should feel consistent with the rest of the brand’s ethos.

Our recommendation? 

First, develop templates and macros for customer communication to ensure consistency in tone of voice. By providing standardized responses, businesses can maintain a cohesive brand identity and deliver a seamless experience to customers.

Second, keep all customer information in one centralized location to avoid the need for repetitive inquiries and ensure a holistic view of each customer's interaction history with the brand. No one should have to repeat themselves when trying to get support.

Last, promote a customer-first mindset across the entire organization by prioritizing the needs and preferences of customers in all decision-making processes. For a real-life example of what this looks like, Amanda Kwasniewicz, VP of Customer Experience, shares the strategies she uses at Love Wellness in this article here.

(Teaser: the team shares customer feedback directly in Slack for the whole company to see.)

6. Email is harder, time to diversify

You’re likely already aware that Gmail, Yahoo, and others are imposing stricter rules for inbox placement, making it harder for marketing emails to reach their intended recipients.

Not only that, but according to Klaviyo's benchmark report, email-placed order rates have remained stagnant, with only a minimal increase from Q1-Q3, reaching just 0.8%, and a slight rise to 0.9% in Q4. 

PWC also shares that TV and social ads remain highly influential in customers’ purchase decisions, whereas email is closer to the bottom. This doesn’t mean you should stop investing in email marketing, but connecting with customers in other ways is a good idea to supplement your email efforts.

What to do about this

You can explore many other channels—SMS, direct mail, mobile apps. Even voice marketing is a super unique and niche way to connect with audiences today.

Here at Gorgias, we’re experts at customer experience marketing, and using conversational customer service is a great way to engage with customers directly and personally—without hoping the message hits their inbox and not the spam folder.

This communication style engages customers using various channels, including live chat, messaging apps, chatbots, and even voice support. 

For example, skincare brand Topicals increased sales by 78% using conversational customer support. Specifically, the brand uses Quick Response Flows to automate answers to common questions, such as: 

• How should I use the Faded Serum?
• Where do you ship?
• How do I apply to the Ambassador Program?
• How do I find the right products for my skin type?

All of this takes place within a self-service chat. These chat flows also guide shoppers to additional helpful resources in Topicals' Help Center or product pages. If a customer still has unanswered questions, a customer support agent can take over the conversation and chat with them directly.

Change can be good — embrace it

If there’s one thing we’ll leave you with, it’s this: 

Embrace the shifts, leverage the trends, and explore new avenues of engagement. 

You don’t have to be scared of new customer expectations, and thankfully, there are a ton of awesome tools out there now that make it easier than ever before to connect with your buyers.

With Gorgias, you can set up conversational marketing across your website, connecting with customers in ways that resonate and drive results. You can try it out for yourself here.

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TL;DR:

• Automation increases repeat purchase rates, boosts response times, improves resolution times, and allows brands to scale faster while saving time and money.
• 94% of ecommerce experts agree that automation is going to be more important in ecommerce.
• Brands saw an 8-point increase in repeat purchase rates in 28 days by handling repetitive inquiries with automation.
• Gorgias users report 52% faster resolutions, reducing response and resolution times, making customers happier.

For most CX teams, budgets are getting tighter, but tickets are on the rise. 

With strapped teams and incoming customer issues, automation is becoming an ideal tool. 

94% of Gorgias customers agree, according to our recent survey. 

Supporting automation in your workflow now is a surefire way to set your team up for success. Let’s explore why we’ll see an AI and automation-driven future within CX. 

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Automation increases repeat purchase rates 

Happy customers are the best fuel for growth. Why? 

Happy customers want to come back to shop with you, and we know that repeat customers give long-term value to your brand. 

Findings from 12,000+ Gorgias merchants show that repeat customers: 

• Account for only 21% of customers but generate 44% of revenue
• Make up 46% of orders
• Generate 300% more revenue than first-time customers

Our research also found that it is five times less expensive for a brand to retain an existing customer than it is to source a new one. 

If you want to see improvement in your repeat purchase rates, automation is the way to go. Automation can handle repetitive inquiries from customers, like “Where’s my order?” so your team can focus on high-touch problems. 

Brands that use Gorgias to fuel automation see improved repeat purchase rates. Within 28 days, merchants who automated up to 20% of tickets increased their repeat purchase rate by 8 points.

Automation boosts response times

Gorgias's research found that 90% of U.S. customers expect an immediate customer service response. Of those customers, 60% want that response in 10 minutes or less. 

A significant advantage of automation is that it effectively gives you a zero-second response time. When you trust automation to handle even a tiny percentage of your incoming tickets, you will see a decrease in your first-response time (FRT). 

After Shinesty implemented Gorgias's Automate, the company saw a 65% boost in its first response time. This change in FRT made a monumental impact on the support team's workload.

Thanks to Automate, Shinesty is able to deflect 55% of incoming tickets with automation, giving CX agents more time to deliver personalized and proactive support to customers. 

On this improvement, Molly Kerrigan, Senior Director of Retention at Shinesty, says: 

“Automate has allowed us to focus on improving customer experience from the ground up, because we're not so deep in ‘ticket town.’”

Thanks to automation features from Gorgias, Shinesty gained the best of both worlds, providing excellent customer service while saving the budget. 

Automation improves resolution times

An added benefit of lightning-fast response times is getting to a resolution faster. This is more than just a nice-to-have — it makes your customers happier. 

As we said earlier, happy customers are more likely to shop again and cite an overall more positive experience with your brand. This is a full-circle moment that shows how a slight change in workflow can lead to significantly positive results. 

In 2022, Gorgias studied over 10,000 ecommerce brands to understand the connection between customer experience and growth. We found that lowering the average resolution time to under 6 hours gave companies a 2% boost in revenue. 

With Gorgias, customers see resolution times improve dramatically, with automatically handled tickets resolving issues 52% faster than those handled without.

That happened at Psycho Bunny, where the customer support team saw resolution times improve by a staggering  99.4% after implementing Gorgias’s AI Agent to automate 26% of customer tickets.  

With AI Agent to support the team, Psycho Bunny’s human customer support agents were free to spend more time on higher-value tasks beyond answering FAQs.

“Our customer support KPIs are already fantastic: we're already leading in the industry,” says Tosha Moyer, Senior Customer Experience Manager at Psycho Bunny. “To improve on that, we need AI — it’s not physically or financially possible with human agents alone.”

Automation allows brands to scale faster

Growth is always the goal, and incorporating automation into your existing CX workflow is a tool for achieving that growth. 

Brands that use Gorgias's automation tools can successfully scale their customer service operations quickly.  

For example, just 30 days after deploying Gorgias's automation features, brands see an average 1% increase in CSAT. 

It's a small move in the meter that has a long-lasting impact on team morale, improved customer interactions, and a more positive experience for shoppers. 

Obvi relies on Gorgias’s automation features to efficiently handle 150+ tickets each day with a slim team. 

Gorgias Automate manages about 27% of Obvi’s incoming tickets — which consist of low-priority, simple, or repetitive customer inquiries. This frees up the support team to answer complex tickets and drive sales, leading to an astonishing 10x boost in revenue over BFCM. 

Even better, Obvi was able to achieve all of this after onboarding Gorgias in just two weeks. 

“AI is going to help us transform ourselves into deeper thinkers by taking over simple, standardized functions,” says Ron Shah, CEO and Co-founder at Obvi. “In the ecommerce world, Gorgias is getting ahead with doing that for customer support — they’re the center of the AI revolution, and that is the standard customers are expecting.”

Automation saves time & money

Your team can focus on more meaningful work by automating responses to repetitive questions or low-priority tickets. 

Quickly solving a customer's problem also means they can get back to checkout faster. 

But remember, automation is a tool, not a replacement for human agents. Automation helps teams of all sizes drive value, gaining extra support without spending more overhead. 

‎July turns to Automate to tackle 30% of incoming tickets, taking on the workload of three extra agents. 

In this case, the company has the demand to support a bigger team but not the budget. Automation helps July fill this gap to provide a seamless customer experience without overextending their human teammates. 

“We immediately deflected 450 tickets a month just by setting up some automated Quick Responses,” says Alex Naoumidis, Head of Operations and CX at July. 

“Now, we don’t waste the customer or the agent’s time with basic questions that probably don’t require any human interaction.”

Gorgias Automate: Your solution to an automated future

Gorgias is leading the revolution in AI-driven customer support solutions. 

Features like our AI-generated Help Center, AI Agent, Flows, and Quick Responses allow brands to autonomously answer customer questions and track and measure AI-customer interactions to create more meaningful customer experiences and transform how support is delivered. 

Start a free trial to see Gorgias’s AI and automation features in action.

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Unfortunately, many shoppers struggle to find the information they need while shopping online, even when self-service portals should be standard, according to 88% of consumers.

At Gorgias, we focus on simplifying customer experiences with AI and automation tools. Our automation tool, Flows, is a self-service feature that delivers shoppers instant answers throughout the entire buying journey, whether it’s to find the right size or track an order.

Keep reading, and we’ll show you how to leverage self-service options at every customer touchpoint using Flows. We’ll start with 10 Flows examples from ecommerce brands, show you how to do it yourself on Gorgias, and then put all the learnings together with some best practices.

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What are Flows? 

Flows are designed to initiate simple interactions that quickly guide shoppers to the information or actions they need. They minimize website bounce rates and enhance automation rates for ecommerce customer support teams.

Flows enhance your website's chat by automating interactions with customers. They provide an immediate automated response with just one click or guide customers through a branching path that caters to their specific needs. This path could include multiple-choice questions or even prompt customers to log in and select an order.

Effective ways to use Flows:

• Sizing guide
• Returns and exchanges portal
• Warranty claim handler
• Free shipping checker
• And more

Read more: The types of Flow steps

10 powerful use cases for Flows

Flows are so versatile that they can be used for every type of shopping experience, whether a shopper has just discovered you or they’re already a dedicated brand advocate.

We’ll go through 10 use cases that could benefit from a Flow, show you how real ecommerce brands use them, and how you can make them yourself with Gorgias Automate.

1. Answer shipping policy inquiries

Provide instant answers to customers' shipping inquiries with an easy-to-access shipping policy Flow directly on your website. This Flow efficiently resolves questions about shipping times and fees, helping customers quickly go from browsing to buying.

Nomad states their shipping policy in a Flow that conveniently answers processing time, shipping time, and shipping rates:

Do it yourself on Gorgias

Gorgias has a templated Flow to get you started. Here's what a shipping policy Flow might look like:

2. Automate returns & exchanges 

If a customer isn’t satisfied with your product, don’t make it harder for them to return it.  A returns Flow not only clarifies your return policy to motivate a customer who's on the fence but also connects them directly to the right process to start a return or exchange. All they have to do is enter their order number and email, and they’re done.

No handling it on the agent side and waiting from the customer end.

Try out bag brand CALPAK’s returns Flow in the tour below:

Do it yourself on Gorgias

Gorgias has a templated Flow to get you started. Here's what a return and exchange Flow might look like:

3. Recommend products to browsing customers

A product-matching quiz can solve decision fatigue if shoppers are faced with multiple versions of a product — like a supplement for different concerns, beverage flavors, or makeup for different skin tones. 

Sol de Janeiro, the fast-growing body care brand, boasts shower gels, body creams, and fragrances of different scents and colors. To prevent customers from feeling overwhelmed, Sol de Janeiro offers product-matching quizzes.

For example, their What body cream is right for me? quiz asks customers about their main skin concern. If a customer’s concern is smooth skin, they’ll recommend a body cream supporting skin elasticity. If the concern is firmer-looking skin, they recommend a cream rich in antioxidants.

Here’s what the Flow looks like on Sol de Janeiro’s website:

Do it yourself on Gorgias

Gorgias has a templated Flow to get you started. Here's what a simple product recommendation Flow might look like:

4. Manage subscriptions in a few clicks

Seventy-four percent of customers forget they’re paying for a subscription, based on C+R Research. Keep customer relationships honest and show customers that they have full control over their memberships, whether they want to upgrade, downgrade, or cancel their subscription plans.

Even if you have a customer portal for managing subscriptions, not all customers will look for it on their own. A Flow can bridge this gap by guiding customers directly to the portal while significantly reducing the volume of subscription-related tickets in your inbox.

Online vet care service Dutch lays it all out with a subscription management Flow, providing customers with straightforward instructions: 

Do it yourself on Gorgias

Gorgias has a templated Flow to get you started. Here's what a subscription management Flow might look like:

5. Display your warranty policy

Big ticket purchases need extra support in case of defective parts. Tell customers you’ve got their back by displaying your warranty policy upfront. You’ll ease their concerns and earn their loyalty knowing their premium buy is protected.

Bidet brand TUSHY sells premium bidets. To provide similarly premium customer experiences, they have a 12-month guarantee on equipment and parts. They present their warranty policy Flow on their website:

Do it yourself on Gorgias

Gorgias has a templated Flow to get you started. Here's what a warranty policy Flow might look like:

6. Notify customers about product restocks

“Sold Out” or “Out of Stock” aren’t the nicest words to see on a product page, especially if you’re a repeat customer ready to buy your favorite product. To keep customers in the loop, create a Flow that lets them know the status of your products.

For the baby stroller brand Zoe, popular products sell out quickly. To efficiently manage customer inquiries, they created a When are you expecting a restock? Flow. It informs customers about product availability and also encourages them to leave their email address or SMS number. This ensures they can purchase a stroller as soon as it's back in stock and allows Zoe to connect with them for future marketing efforts.

Do it yourself on Gorgias

Here's what a restock notification Flow might look like:

7. Troubleshoot an order

Products may require additional assistance depending on their usage. These can be products like electronics, apparel, and furniture. If customers are asking the same troubleshooting question, it would be best to add a troubleshooting Flow.

Check out how CAKES handles product issues with a simple Troubleshoot Flow:

Do it yourself on Gorgias

Gorgias has a templated Flow to get you started. Here's what a troubleshooting Flow might look like:

8. Welcome new customers

Nothing beats a warm welcome, especially for new customers who are just starting their journey with your brand. A welcome Flow is essential for engaging these newcomers right from the start. It provides them with crucial product education and relevant information, setting the tone for a supportive customer relationship. 

Take a look at how Crunch Labs, STEM building kits for kids, assists customers with a welcome Flow:

Do it yourself on Gorgias

Here's what a welcome Flow might look like:

9. Ensure perfect product matches with a sizing guide

Apparel brands face frequent sizing inquiries that can lead to returns. A sizing guide Flow provides clear, self-service information upfront, reducing sizing issues. This Flow acts as a self-service tool that customers can use to find their correct size before purchasing. 

Here’s how gender-inclusive apparel brand Both& guides customers to the right size:

Do it yourself on Gorgias

Gorgias has a templated Flow to get you started. Here's what a sizing guide Flow might look like:

10. Answer pre-sales questions

Unanswered pre-sales questions can deter purchases. A pre-sales question Flow delivers immediate, thorough answers, leads to a boost in customer confidence, and reduces post-purchase dissatisfaction.

Organic soap brand Dr. Bronner’s provides shelf life information for all their products with a Flow:

Do it yourself on Gorgias

Here's what a pre-sales question Flow might look like:

Keep these Flows best practices in mind

Stick to 1-step Flows to maximize automation potential 

Single-step Flows are the most engaging Flows because there’s no opportunity for shoppers to drop off. Single-step Flows can link out to additional resources, like a Help Center article or a returns and subscription portal through tools like Loop Returns or Recharge. 

💡 Pro Tip: Keep Flows to a maximum of five steps. Any more and you're likely to lose customers’ attention.

Include shipping and returns policies in your Flows

Online stores’ top-performing Flows are almost always about shipping and return policies. Make sure to anticipate customer questions by creating a Flow for each policy, succinctly answering questions like:

Shipping Policy:

• How long does shipping take?
• How much does shipping cost?
• Where do you ship?
• Where is my order? (with a link to Order Management tracking if possible)

Return Policy:

• What is the return window?
• Cost of return shipping
• Condition item(s) must be in
• How do I initiate a return? (with a link to the Return Portal if possible)

Create Flows for each language

Flows will not appear for shoppers unless the language of the Flow matches the language of the shopper's browser — including regional languages. 

If a Flow is only in English (UK), it will not show up for American shoppers whose browsers are in English (US).

If you sell internationally, we highly recommend adding all possible languages to Flows, including regional languages.

Note: Gorgias Chat supports 15 languages, including English (US and UK), French (France and Canada), Spanish, Danish, Swedish, Italian, Dutch, German, Norwegian, Czech, Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese, and Finnish.

Read more: Multi-language support for Chat

Link to other self-service tools (like Loop, Recharge, Help Center, etc.)

Flows often automate interactions when they send customers to another page (like a Recharge login page or a Loop portal, or even sometimes a Help Center article). 

If a customer’s inquiry could be solved with one of these tools, include a link to the right page in the Flow’s automated answer.

Automate engagement with Gorgias Automate

Join brands like Shinesty that use Gorgias Automate to transform their customer experience. By using Flows, Quick Responses, Order Management, Article Recommendations, AI Autoresponders, and AI Agent, Shinesty has been able to automate over 50% of their customer tickets. 

Book a demo now and be a part of the 15,000+ ecommerce brands using Gorgias to transform their customer experiences.

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TL;DR:

• Automating customer experience (CX) can save costs, reduce agent burnout, and increase customer satisfaction
• A good website user experience consists of fast load times, informative product pages, mobile optimization, and guest checkout
• Automate CX by using automated chat, replacing email links with contact forms, updating your help center, and deploying onsite campaigns
• Do not overcomplicate the user journey by only providing automatic support — route back to human agents

Nowhere is the customer experience more important than on your website. CX is so much more than post-purchase troubleshooting. CX that grows your brand makes the entire buying journey as effortless as possible, from the first ad to the 10th item purchased.

Your website isn’t only the marketing team’s domain. Your support team’s input is crucial to ensure customers can find all the answers they need without waiting around.

With a better website experience for your customers, you enable more sales and reduce the repetitive inquiries for your agents.

Here are some tips to enrich your website with CX automations that will delight your customers and your team.

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Why automating CX is essential

With 63% of consumers expecting service agents to know their unique needs and preferences, your efforts should be focused on improving support speed and responsiveness — and that starts with automation. 

Here are the five benefits of automating your customer experience:

1. Cost efficient: Automating routine questions cuts down the cost of human labor, redirecting resources to more impactful areas of customer service.
2. Reduced workload for agents: Your support team can focus on more complex issues instead of spending time on questions that can be answered with automated replies.
3. Increased customer satisfaction: Automation provides fast answers, keeping the shopping experience uninterrupted.
4. Enhanced navigation and user experience (UX): A website optimized for automation is easier to navigate and shop from, and reduces cart abandonment rates.
5. Prevents support overload: Automation helps your agents from lessening their touchpoints with customers where it’s not needed, allowing customers to feel in control of their own journeys.

How website UX and CX work together

If done correctly, your website's UX should be so intuitive and smooth that shoppers barely notice it. For ecommerce stores, a well-thought-out website UX consists of everything from a logical menu to a straightforward checkout flow. 

Below, pay attention to the following website elements as they directly influence the buying journey and can impact customer satisfaction.

Informative product pages

Engaging and detailed product descriptions add substantial value by influencing buying decisions and simplifying the shopping experience.

Take a look at how Good Protein keeps descriptions engaging but short in three bullet points, includes social proof by displaying customer ratings, and provides flavor, size, and subscription options in one section:

Mobile optimization

According to Airship’s 11,000-respondent survey, 76% of shoppers shop through retailers’ mobile websites. With a significant portion of online sales coming from smartphones, it’s best to test your website on mobile devices. If users can’t complete a purchase through mobile, you lose out on a large fraction of sales.

Minimized distractions

Reducing distractions like unnecessary pop-ups and banners keeps the shopper focused on the main goal of conversion. Streamlining content to spotlight key campaigns or product launches can dramatically improve conversion rates.

Quick page load times

Fast-loading pages are crucial for keeping potential customers engaged. Delays can significantly deter shoppers, as studies show that even a one-second delay in page loading can reduce conversions by 7%.

Check out Google’s PageSpeed Insights to assess your website's performance.

Streamlined checkout process

Simplifying the checkout process and providing multiple payment options, such as guest checkout, removes common barriers to conversion by offering a convenient purchasing process.

Swimwear brand TRIANGL makes shopping easy and fast by adding a Quick Buy button to every product:

‎Exceptional customer support

Tools like live chat or help centers provide a portal through fast support. AI-powered support tools like Gorgias Automate combine automated responses with the option for human interaction, ensuring customer inquiries are addressed promptly.

This integration of website UX with automated customer experience strategies creates a more efficient, enjoyable, and productive shopping environment that exceeds customer expectations.

Related: Stop Marketing, Start Converting playbook

Implement these 5 strategies to prep your website for automation

Keeping your customer support options visible is the key to prepping your website for automation. 

Follow these five methods to provide easily accessible support routes, simplify communication, and help customers quickly find the information they need. 

1. Keep chat active 24/7

When you hear “chat,” you may think about not having enough bandwidth to offer live chat all the time. Well, that’s just a common chat myth. 

In fact, chat doesn’t require agents to operate 24/7. You can configure live chat to only be active during your busiest hours or even deactivate it altogether and replace it with automated FAQs to keep customer questions answered throughout the day. 

Here’s how ALOHAS keeps their chat running using Gorgias Automate’s Quick Responses:

‎Beyond automating common questions, chat can also accomplish other support-related tasks:

• Email Capture: When live agents aren’t available, automation can ask for customer emails so that their inquiries can be routed to your support inbox.
• Article Recommendations: Chat questions can be scanned and matched with the most relevant article, reducing the need to talk to an agent.
• Order Management: Automate WISMO requests with an order management portal right in chat. Customers can track, return, cancel, or report an issue on their own without waiting for an agent to do it for them.

Don’t forget that chat is one of the most visible components on your website. Make sure the chat dialog can be minimized and hidden to avoid disrupting the shopping journey.

2. Replace email with structured contact forms

Leaving your customer support email on your contact page is the equivalent of leaving plain URLs on your website — it’s disorganized and can attract spam like no other channel.

Contact forms are far superior to email links because they collect all necessary information (like issue type and contact information). This helps agents provide resolutions as efficiently as possible because tickets are already structured and include the necessary details.

For example, Gorgias Chat includes Offline Capture to collect customer inquiries while agents are offline. Gorgias Helpdesk then uses the structured information to detect customer intent, making interactions easier to manage.

3. Display your Help Center and contact form prominently

Make your Help Center visible no matter which page shoppers are on. Displaying important customer support resources like this in your website's header, footer, and various emails like marketing messages and order confirmations allows customers to self-serve, without having to contact a live agent.

With Gorgias, you can use one-page Help Centers to create a seamless experience from one page to another on your online store. This setup allows customers to quickly find the answers they need, improving accessibility while reducing the demand on your team.

Here’s what clothing brand Princess Polly’s one-page Help Center looks like:

4. Make sure your knowledge base is up-to-date and comprehensive

Updating your knowledge base, whether it's a Gorgias Help Center or another FAQ page, directly impacts the customer journey. Gorgias's AI Agent uses the Help Center as its primary source to autonomously handle over 30% of customer email inquiries, drawing on articles that cover necessary topics like shipping, orders, product information, and account management. 

To optimize your Help Center for AI, ensure your content is comprehensive and current, particularly in areas such as policies and product updates. All articles should be published, not saved as drafts, to be accessible to AI Agent. Regularly reviewing your articles encourages customer self-service and reduces reliance on agent assistance.

5. Maintain engagement with targeted campaigns

Targeted onsite campaigns on product pages educate customers and boost confidence, especially when tailored to your top-selling products. For instance, when items are out of stock, campaigns can redirect customers to similar products, as demonstrated by Glamnetic during their product launches.

Additionally, Gorgias Convert chat campaigns like those used by Manduka, which highlight product guarantees, provide valuable pre-sales information that mimics the support of a physical store.

Related: Convert Campaigns playbook

The 3 don’t s of website optimization

There are pitfalls to avoid when optimizing your website for better user experiences. Keep the user journey simple and always provide options for human assistance like live email or voice. Below are three key mistakes to steer clear of.

1. Don't complicate the user journey

The user journey includes all interactions from browsing to the post-purchase experience, and automation should make this process seamless, not hinder it. Avoid adding unnecessary steps or making critical information hard to find, as this can disrupt the shopping experience and force customers to seek help when it isn't needed.

For instance, include a guest checkout option on the checkout page to simplify purchases, and ensure that links to your Help Center or Contact page are easily accessible in the top navigation. 

Watch out for these common elements that can confuse the user journey:

• Complex navigation: A convoluted menu system can make it difficult for customers to find what they need.
• Hidden support information: Essential details like shipping costs and return policies should be visible and easy to find.
• Excessive pop-ups: Overloading pages with pop-ups can frustrate users.

2. Don't only provide automated support

Automation is valuable but don’t rely on it — it's still important to provide avenues for human assistance when needed. This includes support options like live chat, email, phone, and social media. 

The key is balance: make it easy for them to reach out to human support once they realize self-service options are insufficient. This might involve including contact options in a Help Center or contact page rather than displaying raw email addresses everywhere.

3. Don't forget to test regularly

Maintaining an optimized website requires data-driven testing and optimization. You can improve your website by following customer feedback and suggestions. Once changes have been applied, monitoring performance metrics and user behavior can ensure the user journey remains solid.

Metrics to track: 

• Cart abandonment rate: A high abandonment rate may mean that your checkout process is too complex, causing shoppers to exit early.
• Page load time: Slow-loading webpages negatively impact the customer experience. 
• Bounce rate: Difficult navigation, slow loading times, or an unattractive layout are all factors that contribute to a high bounce rate. 
• Conversion rate: Conversion rate indicates which areas of your website are performing well and which are not. Pay attention to conversion rate to prioritize areas for improvement, such as optimizing landing pages or adjusting the user journey.

Automate 30% of CX for exceptional customer experiences

July, a leading luggage brand, uses the power of Gorgias Automate to deliver unbeatable user experiences. With Automate, routine tasks typically handled by level 1 agents are accomplished automatically. Agents are then able to free up valuable resources to focus on more complex inquiries.

Ready to elevate your CX game? Book a demo today and unlock the full potential of automation for your business.

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TL;DR:

• Automation can be customized to fit the language, tone, and voice of your brand.
• Combine automation with ecommerce app integrations to personalize messages at scale.
• Use a customer helpdesk trained on AI to automate personalized customer service.
• Disclose when automated messages are used to maintain customer trust.

While there’s a common concern that automation might alienate customers with responses that miss the mark, it turns out that 73% of customers have higher expectations for personalized experiences when advanced tech is involved.

Not only do customers expect automation and AI in customer service, but they also believe that brands should make the most out of them.

Luckily, helpdesk tools like Gorgias have found the right balance between automation, personalization, and human touch. The only thing left for CX agents to do is to use automation strategically.

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Automation is not AI & other automation myths debunked

Automation and AI are distinct, just like live chat versus chatbots. AI, such as ChatGPT, evolves in real-time from interacting with and learning from input data, while automation follows set rules for routine tasks without understanding natural language.

Automation is highly customizable — it won’t spew out an inappropriate sentence unless you tell it to. If you’re still hesitant about automating your support, here are four automation myths debunked below.

Myth 1: Automation produces robotic language

The tone and style of your automated messages are entirely within your control, thanks to the customizable nature of automation. This flexibility ensures that your brand's unique voice shines through, allowing for a tailored approach that aligns with your ecommerce strategy.

If we’re talking about AI, we’ve also come a long way from generic chatbot responses. In fact, a 2019 Stanford University report found that AI computational power doubled every 3.4 months. The result? Humans are only correct 60% of the time when guessing if they’re talking to AI or a real person.

Myth 2: Automation can’t be personalized

In reality, automation is highly adaptable and can incorporate customer data, brand voice, and plenty of dynamic variables to create powerful communications for personalized customer service.

Learn more: How Manduka used personalized, on-site campaigns and earned $70k

Myth 3: Automation can replace human agents

While automation enhances efficiency, it works best in tandem with human insight rather than as a complete replacement for human agents. Customer service thrives when there is a route back to human support.

Myth 4: Customers prefer human agents

Yes, customers appreciate the ease of connecting to a fellow human, but they also value speed — something automation excels at compared to humans.

Learn more: How Luksusbaby boosted 66% first response time with 45% automation

The balancing act of using automation effectively without sacrificing personalization

A customer-centric helpdesk trained on AI is the most effective way to have rapid and authentic customer interactions. A tool like Gorgias enables you to scale your customer service operations by connecting your ecommerce store. Gorgias learns customer conversations and data and automates simple processes like responding to repetitive tickets and refunding orders.

How to use automation the right way to support your customers

To effectively implement customer service automation, always remember to add a human touch to make customers feel comfortable. More importantly, not all customer interactions are suitable for automated responses so automate strategically.

Here are five ways to implement personalized automation with Gorgias, from automating responses to using website chat and creating a help center.

1) Create auto-responses to answer FAQs

Skip the mental work of reading a frequently asked question and thinking of a response. Auto-responses will do both for you in the background while you complete other high-priority tasks.

How to implement:

• Set up a rule to auto-respond to where is my order? (WISMO) tickets

Note: Manually follow up on complaints or technical issues. Using auto-responses on these sensitive issues may escalate them and cause more customer frustration.

2) Route customers to live chat agents or help center articles

AI is excellent at answering simple inquiries, but sometimes customers will ask questions that need a human’s problem-solving skills. Include a route to a live agent to address this. Allowing AI and agents to work in tandem is an effective way to improve customer satisfaction.

How to implement: 

• Enable live chat support alongside automated, offline chat 
• Include disclaimers and instructions in your automated responses about how customers can speak to a live agent
• Include an option to talk to an agent in your interactive voice response (IVR) system

Note: Don’t trick customers into thinking they’re speaking to an agent when they’re speaking to AI. Customers are more likely to trust you when you set clear expectations from the start.

3) Use enriched customer data to deliver personalized messages

Make personalization a part of the customer journey to create friendly experiences on a large scale. Without tailored communications, you’ll likely frustrate 76% of your customers due to irrelevant recommendations and marketing campaigns.

How to implement:

• Include customers’ names in emails, SMS, chat, social media direct messages, and other notifications with a Shopify integration
• Mention past purchases when providing customers with new recommendations
• Adjust language in automated emails and email marketing based on customer demographic

4) Prioritize VIP customers with automated rules

According to a survey of 3,000 consumers, 56% would repurchase from a retailer that provides personalization. For this reason, create an automated action, also known as a rule, that labels tickets from VIP customers. Prioritizing VIP needs will allow your team to strengthen loyalty and drive repeat purchases.

How to implement: 

• Identify VIP customers by setting a minimum purchase total or total # of orders
• Create a rule that identifies tickets from VIP customers based on their customer profile

5) Build a help center to provide article recommendations

The responsiveness of AI depends on the knowledge you feed it. To accelerate automation’s efficiency, provide it with resources from your knowledge base or help center. In 2020, organizations reported a reduction of up to 70% in call, chat, and email inquiries after implementing a chatbot or virtual customer assistant. 

How to implement:

• Compile a list of customers’ most frequently asked questions using an AI tool or help center statistics
• Create articles answering each question and upload them into a help center

Read more: 9 types of customer self-service

Balance automation and the human touch with Gorgias Automate

Setting up automation without the right tools can detract from personalization efforts. Gorgias Automate remedies this by equipping CX teams with features like Autoresponders, self-service Order Management,  Quick Responses in Chat, and Article Recommendations. Elevate customer experiences and grow your customer relationships by booking a demo with Gorgias today.

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