About Pepper
Pepper is an intimates brand specializing in bras for small-chested bodies. After struggling to find great-fitting bras and realizing that others had the same issue, co-founders Jaclyn and Lia started Pepper as a Kickstarter campaign with a $10,000 goal—one that was met within just 24 hours.
With clear demand for the product, Pepper took off. Seven years in, the intimates brand employs 50 people and is on track to break $80M in revenue this year.
The Challenge: Scaling CX without scaling costs
Pepper needed to automate repetitive support and product inquiries without increasing operational costs by hiring new agents or outsourcing support to a BPO. As Gabrielle explains,
“We would have had to expand our BPO contract by at least $25K for the holiday season, and likely more as our brand continues to grow.”
Pepper also wanted to let agents focus on personal questions, like body image and sizing concerns that need a human touch.
Pepper’s previous customer service platform, Gladly, didn’t scale well as the brand reached 400 daily emails during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The team couldn’t organize the inbox based on customer segment or country as Pepper expanded internationally leaving them with a “long, messy” queue.
“Because Gladly didn’t offer any automation or inbox organization features, our queue got really messy. We got 400 tickets a day during Black Friday and we actually didn’t clear that backlog until the following Spring. We knew we couldn’t do that again.”
—Gabrielle McWhirter, CX Operations Lead at Pepper
On top of better organizing their inbox to make the team more productive, Pepper knew a better solution would leverage AI to handle repetitive questions on its own. They knew that instantly resolving simple questions would free up the team and provide a better experience for their customers.
“Automating the different types of requests our customers had, from monotonous things like ‘How do I return or exchange an item?’ to true, in-depth product questions, was something we needed. That was a need that Gorgias very abundantly filled.”
—Gabrielle McWhirter, CX Operations Lead at Pepper
Enhancing product discovery and pre-sales assistance with an expanding catalog
Pepper’s catalog is expanding quickly, with 22 new products released in 2024 alone. This made product discovery and education another crucial area to overcome obstacles like abandoned carts, missed upsell opportunities, and lost revenue. Pepper wanted a scalable way to empower customers with personalized recommendations to increase conversions.
Pepper’s team often faced:
- Customer questions about product differences, styles, and fit
- Shopper hesitation, abandoned carts, and lost revenue if they didn’t receive immediate answers
- Time-consuming, simple questions about locating order numbers, order tracking, and order policies for underwear
- Missed upsell opportunities as the team was consumed with repetitive tickets
The team needed a scalable solution to answer repetitive tickets, provide virtual shopping assistance 24/7, and stop leaving revenue on the table without forcing them to increase headcount or support workload.
The Solution: An AI Agent capable of driving sales and automating support
Pepper onboarded AI Agent, affectionately named Penelope, to its live chat and email channels. She tailors each customer conversation to provide immediate support and has recently started offering personalized shopping assistance too.
The team knew that all of the information customers were looking for existed on the website already—in Help Articles, product descriptions, quizzes, FAQs, and policies. But shoppers didn’t want to search for it—they wanted it handed to them directly.
This is where Penelope shines.
She can drive revenue, provide faster resolutions, and give human agents more bandwidth to do what they do best—build relationships with customers.
AI-powered product discovery
Penelope handles product questions, providing real-time recommendations instead of making customers hunt through product pages and FAQs to find answers. Customers can ask about product comparisons, materials, or sizing and fit, and Penelope will respond instantly with tailored responses.
For example, a shopper asked, “What’s the difference between the Limitless Wire-Free and Feel Good Wire-Free bras?”
Penelope quickly provided a clear breakdown, explaining each bra's fit, fabric, and support level. She then follows up to learn more about the customer’s preferences and recommends the best option.
With Penelope, shoppers don’t need to navigate lengthy product descriptions or FAQs—they get instant, personalized advice, just like an in-store shopping assistant.
“With AI Agent, we’re not just putting information in our customer’s hands; we’re putting bras in their hands. With Penelope on board, we’re turning customer support from a cost center to a revenue generator.”
—Gabrielle McWhirter, CX Operations Lead at Pepper
Proactive engagement increases conversions
Pepper paired Penelope with Gorgias’s Convert Chat Campaigns to proactively engage shoppers at key points in their journey instead of waiting for them to reach out.
If a shopper browses the site for a white bra, they receive an automated message offering shopping assistance. When the customer responds with what they’re looking for, Penelope immediately recommends the best product match, with sizing availability and key features.
By engaging customers before they hesitate, Pepper helps customers find what they need faster, reduces abandoned carts, and improves conversion rates.
AI that adapts to customer needs
Just like a human agent, Penelope continuously learns from customer interactions to improve its performance. And she can do it in a matter of seconds.
For example, Pepper changed the style of some of its bras (by removing darts) for a smoother, better fit. A customer asked for guidance on buying a bra similar to the one they already had—a cotton bra similar to the Limitless Wire-Free bra, with no darts.
“Penelope dug through our website, found out which colors had darts and which didn’t, and used that information to help the customer choose the right product,” Gabrielle tells us.
“Penelope gave us that full control that you don’t really get with AI a lot of the time. Anyone who’s looking for that in their customer experience should absolutely be going with Gorgias.”
—Gabrielle McWhirter, CX Operations Lead at Pepper
Penelope even adapts to different languages, handling conversations with international customers in their preferred language. For example, a German customer asked when they could expect their order, and Penelope responded completely in German.
Seamless integration with the shopping experience
Unlike traditional chatbots that provide generic answers, Penelope deeply integrates with Pepper’s product catalog and customer data.
This means it can:
- Check product availability in real-time (to make sure they’re not suggesting anything out of stock)
- Provide size recommendations based on past customer feedback
- Suggest complementary products to increase cart value
If a customer asks about a bra or swimsuit top, Penelope naturally tries to cross-sell by recommending matching panties or bathing suit bottoms.
With zero human intervention, Penelope provides a natural, high-converting shopping experience, guiding customers from interest to purchase in just a few messages.
Automating routine inquiries like WISMO and returns
Penelope not only excels at handling pre-sales inquiries to boost conversions, but she also ensures a seamless and successful post-sales experience. Pepper’s customers love Penelope's instant support with order tracking, returns, exchanges, or modifications—without waiting for an agent.
For example, a shopper had sizing issues with her recent purchase and asked for assistance locating her order number to process the return.
Not only was Penelope able to provide the order number and step-by-step return instructions, but she also acknowledged the sizing issues that prompted the return and included a link to Pepper’s Fit Guide to help the shopper find a better fit.
Penelope’s endless patience has transformed routine inquiries from transactional touchpoints to personalized conversations.
“Penelope takes the information we give her and responds better than a Macro. She tailors it so that it sounds like a natural conversation between two people.”
—Gabrielle McWhirter, CX Operations Lead at Pepper
Freeing up agents for one-to-one virtual fit sessions
With automation handling repetitive questions, agents had more bandwidth for personalized services, such as virtual fit sessions over Zoom.
“If a customer struggles with sizing, we can schedule a Zoom session for a virtual fitting consultation. Without AI, we wouldn’t have time for this game-changing program! Since December, we’ve had 70 fit sessions with customers, all of which have led to an exchange instead of a refund or an upsell.”
—Gabrielle McWhirter, CX Operations Lead at Pepper
The Results: A cost-saving 50% automation rate that also drives sales
Penelope has helped Pepper reach a 50% average automation rate that climbs as high as 60% during peak times like BFCM.
By proactively assisting shoppers, simplifying product discovery, and adapting to customer needs, Penelope has helped Pepper achieve:
- 19% conversion rate from AI-assisted sales, with a goal of 20% this year
- 16.5x ROI on AI-driven sales interactions
- 18% uplift in average order value
Since launching Penelope, Pepper has also improved key support metrics:
- 25K+ automated interactions
- 99.5% decrease in FRT, from over a day to minutes
- 92.1% decrease in resolution time, from days to hours
With increased bandwidth, Pepper’s revenue per agent has also increased since they can be more strategic with each interaction.
“We are not threatening those really personal interactions that make our brand Pepper. Penelope is freeing our time to make those more prominent.”
—Gabrielle McWhirter, CX Operations Lead at Pepper
Looking forward: Extending AI’s impact to other teams
With conversational AI proving its value, Pepper’s CX team plans to leverage it cross-functionally with the marketing and product teams. Leveraging AI insights will help them fine-tune conversion strategies, cross-sell and upsell campaigns, and bring customers’ product suggestions to life.
Pepper also plans to push Penelope to the limit with an ambitious 20% chat conversion goal this year. By being more intentional about turning CX into a revenue generator, the team plans to go all in on AI as a virtual shopping assistant.
Want to see how AI Agent can automate your support and drive sales? Let’s chat!
