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Strategies for handling difficult customers can sometimes feel like vague, generalized advice. If you’re dealing with these types of customer interactions daily, you need specifics.

At CX Connect 2024 in LA, four leaders in the ecommerce and customer experience space shared their tips for managing demanding customers with empathy, strategy, and a dash of creativity.

In this panel recap, learn how leaders at Princess Polly, Obvi, Glamnetic, and Jaxxon navigate complex customer interactions while maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction.

Watch the full panel discussion:

‎Start from a place of empathy

Customer experience agents: The baseline is empathy, says Alexandria Collis, Senior Director of Operations at fashion brand Princess Polly. Having a reset point — empathy and understanding — can be valuable for agents to remember, especially in the middle of heated exchanges.

In particular, Alexandria points out that significant life events can be tricky because customers expect a high level of service. These milestones are often sentimental, coming with more emotional investment from the customer’s end than your run of the mill WISMO requests.

Alexandria on empathetic customer experiences:

For example, if a customer receives a damaged graduation dress, Alexandria understands it would be best to replace their item as soon as possible. “Figuring out how to integrate empathetic responses into understanding the actual customer is so important,” Alexandria emphasizes. 

Bearing in mind the circumstances and emotions around a customer’s issue, mainly when the stakes are high, is the key to finding a sound resolution.

Don’t fight until you have to fight

Ronak Shah, CEO and co-founder of collagen supplement brand Obvi, advocates for a measured approach when dealing with difficult customers. His philosophy is simple: choose your battles wisely. Obvi’s CX team aims to avoid unnecessary conflict, especially when it comes to returns.

"We don’t make people ship the product back. Instead, we say, 'Hey, you can keep the product. We’ll give you the refund,'" Ron explains. This method defuses potential tension and turns a refund into the potential for better customer lifetime value.

Ron on returns:

Ron acknowledges that not all businesses have the budget to approach returns in this way, so they add a bonus: customers can receive a $10 discount if they share the product with a family member or friend.

However, there’s a limit. "When you have abuse, that’s where you have to fight," Ron adds. His team draws the line when repeat offenders try to exploit the system, ensuring fairness for all customers.

Trust your agents, give them autonomy

Kevin Gould, co-founder of beauty brand Glamnetic, believes in empowering his customer experience team with the freedom to make decisions. He understands that micromanaging can lead to inefficiencies, so he trusts his agents to delight customers in their own ways. 

"We try to be very lenient. We give our CX team lots of autonomy to operate because you need to give [them] a lot of leeway, or else everything just gets escalated up to the head of customer experience,” Kevin says. His approach ensures that issues are resolved quickly and effectively.

Kevin on trusting his support team:

For example, Glamnetic often resolves lost package issues by sending out new products or adding an extra "just because" item. They don’t view these as unnecessary expenses. Rather, they’re a way to build trust and improve overall customer satisfaction.

This strategy has paid off, especially in situations where offering a little extra can turn a negative experience into a positive one. Kevin’s trust in his team has proven to be a key component of Glamnetic’s customer service success.

Ask, ‘What did we do wrong?’

When facing unhappy customers, it’s easy to get defensive. But instead of pushing back, Jaxxon’s Director of Customer Experience, Caela Castillo, suggests a different approach: self-reflection. Her advice to the team is to always ask customers, “What did we do wrong?”

“There are customers who aren’t going to be happy with anything,” Caela says. “I try to ask, was there something we could have done that would have made this a better experience?” This basic question shifts the focus from blame to understanding, helping to diffuse tension.

In one case, a customer complained to Jaxxon’s support team because they missed a key detail on the website. Rather than dismissing the complaint, Caela’s team asked how they could make the information more visible. Listening may be a minor solve, but it shows customers that their input matters, which can often guide the interaction toward a peaceful outcome.

Caela on defusing angry customers by asking the right questions:

Turn their frown upside down with AI Agent

Every business faces the challenge of dealing with tough customers, but the strategies shared by these industry leaders offer clear paths for handling those thorny situations. Leading with empathy, picking your battles, trusting your team to make decisions, and reflecting on what could have been done better all lead to stronger customer relationships.

It’s time to level up your customer experience strategy. Explore how Gorgias’s AI Agent can help your team deliver exceptional service. Book a demo today to see the difference it can make to your support.

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Black Friday is the strongest revenue-generating day of the year for retailers, with $9.8 billion in sales reported in 2023, according to a report by Adobe. For online merchants, the revenue potential is even sweeter, with the online shopping period extended into Cyber Monday.

But, it takes a coordinated effort by customer support, sales, and marketing to encourage a shopper to click “checkout.” Without a solid ecommerce strategy, many online retailers will miss out on the Black Friday - Cyber Monday rush. 

Whether you’re looking to optimize your existing strategy or starting from scratch, we’ve got you covered. This guide will help you make the most out of your BFCM ecommerce strategy with a clear list of steps (in chronological order) to help you prepare.

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What is Black Friday - Cyber Monday? 

Black Friday - Cyber Monday — also referred to as BFCM — are two back-to-back sales days that bring in a ton of revenue for both in-store and ecommerce retailers in the US. The Black Friday - Cyber Monday shopping window also kick-starts holiday shopping from Thanksgiving day through the new year. 

Why you need to prepare for BFCM now

BFCM isn’t just about one big day of revenue generation. It’s a crucial period for online retailers to capture new customers and convince them to keep shopping through the end of the year and beyond. 

In-person BFCM experiences are out, and ecommerce is in 

Shopper sentiment is shifting away from physical experiences. Online transactions are up by 13% year-over-year, according to research from Criteo. So, you probably won’t see consumers camping out in front of physical stores on Black Friday, but those same shoppers still want to find an excellent ecommerce deal. 

Consumers are eager to spend despite concerns about inflation 

After BFCM in 2023, research from Nielsen found the desire for a good deal caused 57% of shoppers to stay on budget and 18% of shoppers to spend more than they planned in the year prior.

Brand familiarity matters

Shoppers, Gen Z in particular, are more likely to make a purchase with a brand they’re familiar with. So, ensure your marketing tactics are firing well before BFCM will help folks get to know you before the holiday sales season starts.

Get proactive rather than reactive

When you make a plan early, you give your business more time to craft a great marketing campaign. Plus, you give your team time to figure out how to manage customer service on Black Friday for these high-traffic days. 

Considering Black Friday - Cyber Monday is the busiest ecommerce sales event of the year, prepare as early as possible to get a leg-up and stay on top of Black Friday trends. 

Related reading: Why proactive customer service is essential for growing your business

Pre-Black Friday preparation: What to do before the holiday

Preparing for Black Friday — and building a strong ecommerce strategy — goes well beyond ironing out a limited-time deal. 

Tactics like updating key policies, building out customer self-service options, and marketing early will help you be successful.

1. Update key policies on your website before BFCM 

Displaying clear-cut and easy-to-find policies on your website makes a huge difference to the customer experience. It sets the customer up for success and cultivates a positive sentiment with your brand. 

To prepare for the best Black Friday-Cyber Monday possible, we recommend updating these key policies (and your Help Center) with BFCM-related information. 

✅ Tip: A tool like Gorgias’s AI Agent learns from your policies to know how to respond to certain topics and escalate tickets. And we know that more automated tickets leads to a lighter workload for your agents. It makes a compelling case for keeping your policies up-to-date.

“The anxiety for customers during BFCM is real,” says Lauren Reams, Customer Experience Manager at VESSEL. “This year, we are planning on leveraging AI Agent to help us get ahead of the most common questions. AI Agent has been so seamless, so we’re confident that it will help us handle the busy season without needing to bring in additional agents.”

Returns and exchanges

BCFM is a popular time for consumers to buy holiday gifts, which means you could see an influx in returns or exchanges. 

✅ Tips: Use return management apps like Loop Returns to provide customers with a self-service return portal to process their returns. Take that idea one step further by using AI Agent Actions to send your Loop Returns link or return shipping status automatically.

Integrate Loop Returns with Gorgias and enable customers to initiate their own returns.

Shipping and fulfillment 

Customers expect purchases, especially if they’re buying gifts for upcoming holidays, to arrive on time and quickly (you’re competing with fast shipping speeds from retail giants like Amazon).

If those gifts don’t arrive in time, you’re going to face a lot of angry customers. 

✅ Tip: Use your shipping and fulfillment policy to be crystal clear about when you ship orders, how long orders typically arrive, and how customers can look up their order status. AI Agent can perform Shopify Actions, such as editing the order's shipping address. Having this automated means agents do not have to do manual work.

Lost packages 

All those Black Friday - Cyber Monday sales equal a ton of packages in transit. You can expect a few to go missing. 

When that happens, your customers need to know what happens next. 

Make sure you’re clear with your team and customers upfront if you are willing to cover damages (either with refunds or credits). This will help your agents handle the process quickly and consistently. Plus, it gives your customers the peace of mind that accidents won’t put them out.

✅ Tip: Include a policy about damaged items in your FAQs so your customers know what to expect in case anything goes wrong with their order. 

Related reading: FAQ Page Template & Tips (+ Free Shopify FAQ Generator)

Automate self-service options

If you’re on Gorgias, Automate includes Flows, Order Management, and Article Recommendations. These different automations can help you deflect up to 30% of tickets, freeing your agents up for higher-value conversations. 

Set up Flows to automatically answer common customer questions specific to Black Friday - Cyber Monday related to: 

• Shipping policy: Will my items arrive by the holidays? 
• Get a gift recommendation: Can you help me find a gift for a friend? 
• Return policy: Can I return a gifted item? 
• BFCM discounts: Do you offer any holiday discounts? 

Related reading: Offer more self-serve options with Flows: 10 use cases & best practices

2. Reduce strain on your customer service team 

It turns out that many customer support inquiries your team receives are repetitive. 

“If you force agents to respond to every question manually — no matter how small — you're only limiting the time they can spend on tickets that actually need human attention,” says Gorgias Director of Support, Bri Christiano.

That’s why we built Automate at Gorgias: It deflects your most repetitive tickets — up to 30% of your overall ticket volume — so you can focus on the tickets that grow your business.

Tech product retailer Nomad leaned into Gorgias’s automation to support customer service interactions. Not only did the online retailer gain a streamlined way to manage customer feedback, they also reduced response time by 70%. 

Customer story: How Nomad uses automation to reduce their response time and resolution time by over 70%

3. Build a marketing campaign to tap into social commerce

Social commerce is on the rise among consumers worldwide. 

Deloitte estimates about one-third of shoppers in the US made a purchase through a social media app in 2021. That number is estimated to be even higher for those who were influenced to buy a product after seeing it on social media. 

You don’t necessarily have to sell directly through Instagram, but you can leverage your social channels to generate brand awareness. 

The need for social-focused customer support is exactly why online retailer MNML turned to Gorgias. The company found that their shoppers turned more and more to social media for answers to their shopping-related questions. 

Ultimately, the company leveled up their customer support on social media to connect with potential buyers. 

Get started with these ideas:

Partner with influencers to generate brand awareness

Don’t partner with influencers for the sake of it. Instead, think about it like building a relationship with someone who fits your brand ideals and can cross-sell your products to their audience. 

To do this, focus less on influencers with millions of followers on Instagram and TikTok. Instead, look for micro-influencers (or creators with less than 100,000 followers) with audiences that match your brand personas.

Create content that focuses on your store’s Black Friday deals

Once you’ve figured out the Black Friday sales your store will offer, you must ensure people know about them. 

Craft content for your social media channels that highlight your deals. Since social media primarily focuses on visuals, start by collecting photos, videos, or illustrations of your products. Then, draft copy for captions, think through the best hashtags, and hand over creative briefs to your design team to build any assets you might need. 

Put a little money behind your most successful organic social media posts

The weeks or months leading up to BFCM are prime time to talk about your brand’s Black Friday promotions. Use social media analytics to see which published posts are performing best across your channels. 

Turn those high-performing posts into ads on social media by boosting them with a little money. Even with a small budget, you can use social ads to grab even more eyeballs — and potentially bring more people to your website. 

A few other ideas to consider: 

• Prompt your customers to sign up for an SMS reminder or push notification on their smartphones or mobile devices. 
• Give early sale access to email subscribers, incentivizing customers to build a deeper relationship with your brand.
• Pin the sale date and deal information at the top of your social media profiles, especially Instagram.

How to maximize revenue during BFCM in 2 steps

Imagine Black Friday - Cyber Monday is here. Even better, imagine you’ve got a ton of website traffic full of eager browsers. You need a plan to keep those browsers engaged.

One major step you can take to boost your conversion rate and potential revenue is to increase communication touchpoints and focus on recovering abandoned carts.

1. Increase customer touchpoints to keep shoppers engaged   

Throughout any customer’s journey, there are many opportunities to interact with your brand. One moment might be finding out about your BFCM sale on social media, signing up for emails to get early access, or browsing the best deals before heading to checkout. 

The more you interact with customers along the way, the more you can keep them engaged — and personalized interactions increase your chances of converting a first-time shopper into a repeat customer. 

Gorgias’s Convert is a CRO tool that easily personalizes interactions at multiple points throughout a customer journey. Convert offers several ways to increase touchpoints and boost overall engagement: 

• AI-powered cross-sell campaigns to offer product recommendations.
• Up-sell campaigns to showcase higher-priced items.
• Share timely discounts, free shipping, or valuable product insights. 
• Offer 1:1 support with a smooth hand-off to Gorgias Live Chat.
• Leverage Shopify browsing data to offer product recommendations.
• Set up onsite campaigns without any coding.

Another way to build in more touch points is to use automated chat campaigns that pop up and engage with your customers at crucial moments. Chat widgets are a small addition to any homepage, landing page, or product page that immediately lets customers know where to go for help. 

2. Reduce abandoned carts 

Cart abandonment is a major source of lost retail sales for any ecommerce business, considering about 70% of online carts are abandoned. 

You can easily target customers who have opted into an email list or receive SMS messages from your brand. Design emails or text messages designed to trigger if a cart is abandoned.

Include copy that builds a sense of urgency to drive customers back to their shopping carts to “buy now” before the deal is over. 

There’s even a chance to use re-engagement to increase your average order value by upselling once that customer returns to your site.  

How to retain new customers you get during BFCM

Repeat customers are valuable — like, really valuable. 

According to Gorgias research, returning customers make up about 21% of a brand’s customer base but generate 44% of that same brand’s revenue. 

Your brand should re-engage with anyone who shops on your website during the BFCM rush. Those same people could become returning customers who give your shop a revenue boost during the rest of the holiday season. 

1. Offer a discount for next time 

The perfect moment to re-engage a customer starts at checkout. When someone makes a purchase through your online store, offer them an immediate discount that goes toward their next purchase. 

At CX Connect LA 2024, Ron Shah, CEO of Obvi, shared his brand’s strategy for offering discounts to generate revenue. Ron knew implementing AI to support Obvi’s two-person customer support team was necessary to help the brand grow without eliminating the need for his human agents. 

“The time saved by AI handled a lot of the redundant work our agents were doing, which meant we could turn them into part-time sales agents. We also gave them a code to help them prevent a refund from happening or upsell somebody. It created a completely new shift in their mindset. They realized, ‘Oh wow, you're not just taking something away from me (with AI) — you're actually elevating my opportunity.’”

✅ Tip: You can increase the touchpoints to re-engage with an existing customer by building a reminder email that triggers one week after their initial transaction. That way, you not only stay at the top of their inbox, you also stay top of mind. 

2. Invite customers to join a loyalty program 

Loyalty programs are a tried-and-true method to build engaged, returning customers.

In a recent survey, Yotpo found that over half of surveyed consumers agreed a loyalty program would encourage them to purchase more from a brand. 

If you already offer a loyalty program, make sure new customers know about how to get the VIP experience with your store. Build awareness touchpoints into your loyalty program marketing strategy. You can also prompt buyers to become loyal customers after they make their first purchase.

3. Continue to improve your customer experience strategy 

A successful, positive, and repeatable customer experience doesn’t end after midnight on Cyber Monday. It’s a road rather than a destination. 

Consumer habits are always changing, and your support teams must be prepared to handle customer requests.

One way to anticipate your customer’s pain points is to look at customer feedback. 

Reviews and social media activity is a great place to start. You might also consider putting a more formal customer sentiment strategy in place, with a CSAT survey to collect direct feedback from customers.  

This feedback helps your team prioritize what needs to improve so you’re not left reaching in the dark.

Give your ecommerce strategy a boost this holiday shopping season

The name of the game this Black Friday - Cyber Monday isn’t just to get a ton of online sales; it’s to set up your ecommerce site for a successful holiday shopping season. 

Success could look like: 

• A reduction in BFCM returns or exchanges 
• Having the perfect amount of inventory 
• Seeing higher-than-average sustained engagement on your social channels 

If you want to move the meter, focus on a strong Black Friday marketing strategy that starts now.

Gorgias is designed with ecommerce merchants in mind. Find out how Gorgias’s time-saving automations and convenient platform can help you create successful customer experiences.

Claim your demo today, or sign up to try Gorgias.

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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.

TL;DR:

• Loyalty comes from ease, not delight. Simplifying customer support drives more loyalty than going above and beyond to surprise customers.
• High-effort interactions hurt loyalty. Long, complicated support experiences can push even satisfied customers to competitors.
• AI reduces customer effort. AI can automate simple tasks like FAQs, personalizing support, and order modifications, so your team can handle more complex tasks.
• AI enhances human support. AI works best when it complements your team by handling repetitive tasks.

For years, businesses have chased the idea that delighting customers is how to earn loyalty. The belief is simple: go above and beyond, exceed expectations, and customers will come back. 

However, research from The Effortless Experience, a best-selling customer service book by Matthew Dixon, shows that this approach might be wrong. Focusing on customer delight often makes the experience more complicated and less efficient. 

Most businesses aim to wow customers, but trying too hard leads to longer customer support interactions and higher costs. The real key to customer loyalty is making things easy.

Below, find out how AI is another string to your customer support bow, allowing you to increase speed and reduce effort while maintaining your brand's empathetic voice.

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Why doesn’t customer delight drive loyalty? 

When customers reach out with a problem they want a prompt solution –– ​​90% of customers say an “immediate” response is important.

Delight is a problem when it adds additional steps and doesn’t solve the problem upfront.

Customers don’t want a solution with all the bells and whistles. They simply want to solve the problem ASAP.

There’s a disconnect between satisfaction and loyalty 

It’s a common misconception that satisfied customers are loyal customers. But the numbers tell a different story. Research shows that satisfaction doesn’t always lead to loyalty.

In fact, 20% of customers who say they’re satisfied with a service still plan to switch to a competitor. Satisfaction alone isn’t enough to keep customers from exploring other options.

High-effort experiences put customers off 

High-effort experiences are a major driver of customer disloyalty. Studies show that 96% of customers who encounter high effort interactions become disloyal. 

When customers feel like they have to jump through hoops to get help, they’re more likely to take their business elsewhere.

Read more: Why you need to monitor customer effort score (& how to do it)

It’s easier to trigger disloyalty than loyalty 

Negative experiences are much more likely to leave a lasting impression. Even when customers feel satisfied with the products, high-effort experiences can negatively impact loyalty.

For example, a customer may contact customer service due to a minor issue, such as a shipping delay. However, they may have to wait a long time to get a response or repeat their issue to multiple agents. Even if the issue is eventually resolved, they will leave frustrated and less likely to return.

If you need to put in extra effort, even positive interactions will fall short.

Bonus track: High-effort experiences are expensive 

Trying to delight customers might sound like a winning strategy, but it often comes with a hefty price tag. Offering freebies, bending rules, and making special exceptions can increase your operational costs significantly. When these additional costs don’t contribute to customer satisfaction or loyalty, it’s important to evaluate if they’re worthwhile.

Read more: The hidden power and ROI of automated customer support

Simplify, don’t surprise: How can AI help reduce customer effort?

Several common issues make customer support a hassle. Some of the biggest culprits are multiple contacts to resolve a single issue, having to repeat information, and being transferred from one agent to another. 

You can solve these common customer complaints with AI. 

But won’t AI make my brand sound robotic and devoid of human touch? 

Our hot take is that AI actually frees up your team to focus on more valuable tasks.

For example, RiG’d Supply, a brand specializing in off-road vehicle accessories, is letting AI handle some of the repetitive work so they can do better customer service. As a small team, even the CEO occasionally jumps in to keep up with the repetitive daily requests.

“This isn’t a matter of eliminating jobs, but giving our employees their primary jobs back. We get more bandwidth back to be able to take phone calls and hear how we can help you have the best possible experience on your next ramble,” says Luke Wronski, CEO of RiG’d Supply. “Our hope is to have AI give us the time back to have a conversation with you about the stuff that keeps us stoked to do what we do.” 

Read more: Our AI approach: Onboard, automate, observe, and coach

5 AI strategies to minimize customer effort

Don’t get us wrong, AI can’t handle every moving piece of your customer support. So don’t assume you can replace your whole support team with AI. You still need high-quality human support for more complex tasks. 

But if you have a solid support team that provides top-quality customer experience, you already have the right foundation to benefit from AI.

1. Automate frequently asked questions

AI tools are excellent at resolving simple customer queries, such as “Where is my order?” or “How much is delivery?” on the first contact. 

Quick, accurate responses lead to a smooth experience and less effort from both sides. Customers no longer need to follow up multiple times for the same issue. Plus, you’ll save time that your support team can use for more complex issues.

Consider using an automated customer experience platform with an AI assistant. For example, Gorgias's AI Agent automatically responds to FAQs like “How much is shipping?” or “When will my order arrive?” in your brand’s voice. For more technical requests, it assigns them to the right agents.

Read more: What's the secret to reducing WISMO requests?

2. Personalize support

AI can analyze customer data to deliver personalized suggestions. For example, if a customer frequently orders the same product, AI might recommend a subscription service to save them time and effort. Or if a customer has ordered several cooking utensils from the same product line, AI might suggest matching pans to complete their set.

💡Pro Tip: Find a CX platform with AI that offers custom, human-like responses. You can program your AI Agent to respond in different tones — friendly, professional, playful, or empathetic — so it feels more like your brand and less like a robot. 

3. Provide guidance for next issue-avoidance

Imagine solving your customers' problems before they even know they have them — that’s next-issue avoidance. With AI, you can recall past interactions and customer habits to anticipate their needs.

If a customer has had issues with a product before, AI could suggest a protection plan upfront, saving them from future headaches. Your AI solution should help you stay one step ahead so customer support remains smooth and customers are happy.

Some AI assistants can even learn specific instructions or “Guidance” for handling certain topics. For example, you could create a Guidance instructing the AI to request photos if a customer reports a damaged product. If the AI detects that photos are already included, it automatically escalates the ticket to a human agent.

4. Automate order edits

AI’s capabilities shouldn’t end at answering FAQs. AI can also handle routine tasks like address changes or order modifications so your team can focus on issues that need more technical problem-solving.

Speedy resolutions keep customers happy, and as long as the issue is resolved efficiently, they care more about the result than who handled it.

For example, brands using Shopify can use Gorgias’s AI Agent to cancel orders and update shipping addresses without manual intervention from agents — so agents can dive into more complex requests that need their expertise, like upselling or resolving negative customer feedback.

5. Answer customer concerns with AI recommendations

Let’s face it — nobody wants to jump through hoops to get help. AI-powered helpdesks dig into customer interactions to find out where things get sticky and offer smart suggestions to improve the process. 

For instance, AI might notice that customers are often confused about how to download and print the shipping label to return items. With this insight, you could make it easier and faster for customers to find and print the correct label. 

Gorgias Automate goes a step further by detecting your customers' top concerns and allowing you to create knowledge base articles about them automatically. Brands can use this data to update their Help Center and FAQs, make key webpages more visible, and enhance product pages, ensuring customers find the answers they need quickly and easily.

Embrace effortless customer experience with AI

Customer loyalty isn’t won with flashy gestures. Instead, brands earn it by making things easy. AI is your best friend here, helping you streamline interactions, solve issues before they even arise, and keep customers in the loop without them having to chase down information. Remember, AI is there to enhance an already solid customer experience foundation and to help your team. 

It’s time to rethink how you approach customer support. With AI, you can craft a seamless, low-effort experience that satisfies customers and turns them into loyal fans.

Book a demo to see how Gorgias can eliminate customer effort.

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TL;DR:

• Gorgias views AI as an extension of CX teams, treating it like a human support agent by Onboarding it with your policies, Automating ticket handling, Observing its response quality, and Coaching it with continuous feedback.
• AI Agent uses a combination of GPT-4o, brand-owned data, and third-party integrations like Shopify to provide accurate responses while limiting hallucinations.
• AI Agent can fully resolve requests and perform actions to improve first response and resolution times without sacrificing support quality.
• Human feedback continuously refines AI Agent performance to keep it effective and on-brand.

Chances are, you’ve had at least one frustrating experience with AI in customer support. Even with 69.2% of customer support professionals using AI, you’re still skeptical about making AI a permanent part of your customer support operations.

At Gorgias, building AI has been a thoughtful process. We insist on only shipping AI features that improve customer experiences, not degrade them. 

To help you understand how we’re approaching AI, we’ll walk through the four pillars that ensure a positive AI experience for you and your customers: Onboard, Automate, Observe, and Coach.

• Onboard: Teach the AI your processes and brand voice.
• Automate: Let the AI start handling tickets in your inbox.
• Observe: Keep a close eye on the quality of the AI’s response.
• Coach: Give feedback to continually improve the AI’s accuracy.

Putting it all together: we view AI as the ultimate assistive tool for customer experience (CX) teams.

AI changes the way CX teams operate

Before diving into the four pillars, let’s set the stage. Two major changes have occurred in the past few years:

1. Customer expectations for instant answers across channels are growing.
2. We have the technology to answer hundreds of tickets simultaneously, each in <1 minute — without breaking the budget on uncapped hiring.

As AI removes the grunt work from support teams’ plates, repetitive tasks such as providing order status updates, processing returns, and answering frequently asked questions can be offloaded to AI.

AI can even handle the mental work of reading, summarizing, categorizing, prioritizing, and tagging, even when a human needs to step in.

Agents can then focus on higher-impact tasks, like speaking to VIP customers on the phone, offering new support channels, driving upsells and cross-sells, and much more. This is how CX teams evolve. 

Brands using Gorgias’s AI Agent in the alpha testing phase are already automating as much as 30% of email tickets. By the end of 2024, we envision over half of brands’ customer tickets to be handled by AI Agent.

The 4 pillars of AI at Gorgias

Our overall goal is to make CX tools, including AI, that are great for customers and their overall business goals. We follow four pillars when it comes to AI at Gorgias.

Onboard: Teach the AI your processes and brand voice

Bringing AI into your support team is like onboarding a new agent. Like any agent, AI should know:

• How to talk like your brand, using brand-specific voice and language
• Your policy, products, and FAQs
• How your helpdesk processes work, i.e. tagging tickets for organization
• Which topics should be handed over to a superior (in the case of AI, a human)

AI should model the most efficient support reps who know their brand inside and out — while being able to empathize with customers at lightning speed. That is the future of great customer service. 

How it looks in Gorgias

AI Agent’s main knowledge reference is your owned data, including your Shopify storefront and backend, Help Center articles, order data, brand voice, conversation history, and other URLs where your brand content is stored. 

When adding AI Agent to your Gorgias account, you can sync each of these resources to empower your AI Agent with the knowledge it needs to answer questions and resolve basic issues. 

To enhance AI Agent’s answering power, the Guidance feature allows you to provide detailed instructions on how AI Agent should interact with customers. 

While the prior resources are centered around brand knowledge, Guidance is more like team processes. You can instruct AI Agent to ask follow-up questions, confirm details, and treat customers one way or another depending on factors like whether:

• Their order was placed within the last XX days
• They have spent more than $XX with your brand
• They are domestic or international customers
• And so much more

Tosha Moyer, Senior Customer Experience Manager at menswear brand Psycho Bunny, highlights the value of our internal guidance feature. “The internal guidance feature is so important because we have a lot of internal processes that we do not need to be described in a customer-facing article, but we want AI Agent to be able to access that information and manage tickets accordingly.”

Last, you can instruct AI to speak in your brand’s voice. When setting up AI Agent, you can provide your team’s tone of voice guidelines, brand bible, and other resources to ensure your agent represents your brand identity. 

Automate: Let the AI start handling tickets in your inbox

AI can do so much more than restate your brand policies. At Gorgias, we believe AI should fully resolve inquiries — and that means taking action.

According to a report by Gartner, 82% of customers say quick resolutions influence their decision to stay loyal to a brand. When we empower AI to take action, customers have better experiences and are more likely to keep doing business with a brand.

How it looks in Gorgias

AI Agent uses the latest model of ChatGPT, 4o, combined with the content you already have to send human-like answers to customers.

But AI Agent doesn’t only regurgitate your Help Center content. It goes one step further by updating customers’ orders, changing addresses, sending order and return statuses, and more.

Native integrations with Shopify and other apps in the Gorgias ecosystem allow AI Agent to fully resolve basic inquiries by pulling customer-specific data and performing actions in other tools. 

Our goal is to make connecting these tools as simple as possible, minimizing the need for technical setups like configuring API calls. 

Of course, AI’s decisions on when to execute these Actions should come from your team. That’s why you can set up conditions for each Action, specifying when (and for whom) the Action can fire.

AI Agent includes a variety of pre-built Actions from popular ecommerce apps like Shopify, Recharge, and Loop Returns — with many more on the way. You can also build Custom Actions with any 3rd-party tool. 

Within two months, AI Agent outranked Psycho Bunny’s human agents’ resolution times. It resolved tickets in under 2 minutes, compared to the human average of 4+ hours. Customers even gave AI Agent a 4.67/5 CSAT score —  nearly 0.1 points higher than human agents’ average CSAT score.

Observe: Keep a close eye on the quality of the AI’s response

AI is a new technology — we humans are still building trust and comfort. In fact, only 3 in 10 Americans are able to identify AI use in digital use cases, according to the Pew Research Center. This suggests a lack of transparency in how companies use AI.

In a problem-solving service like customer support, AI’s role and decision-making should be transparent: Agents should know which tickets are handled by AI, what exactly the AI did, and why. 

How it looks in Gorgias

Agents can see the logic of AI Agent right in the ticket view.  This includes the knowledge source it used, the specific actions it took, and the exact responses it generated. All actions made by AI Agent are highlighted in purple or symbolized by the purple sparkle AI Agent icon.

Being able to discern AI responses from human ones allows brands to: 

• Ensure the accuracy of AI responses to provide speedy resolutions.
• Quickly correct AI missteps to maintain high standards of service.
• Build customer trust by being transparent about AI’s role in the customer support process.

We highly recommend nominating one human agent to review AI Agent’s responses. Set aside time each week to review to understand how it behaves, when it responds vs hands over, and the most common knowledge resources it pulls from.

Coach: Give feedback to continually improve the AI’s accuracy

Inevitably, AI won’t be perfect from day 1. Just like a new agent, AI needs coaching. That’s why the final pillar of our AI philosophy is improving AI’s knowledge and performance through coaching. 

When AI makes a mistake, you should have the power to correct it so that future errors are avoided. When AI acts correctly, you should also be able to encourage and reinforce its positive behavior. 

A continuous cycle of coaching helps AI become more aligned with your brand’s standards.

How it looks in Gorgias

Feedback is built into AI Agent. Every decision AI Agent makes can be rated with a thumbs-up/down system. Encourage AI Agent to continue making the same actions with a thumbs up, and change behavior with a thumbs down. 

You can see how AI handles every situation in detail, giving you full transparency. Reviewing these decisions leads AI to better align with your brand’s standards.

In addition, you can easily instruct AI Agent to pull from different Guidance instructions and Help Center articles or execute different Actions — with the easy ability to create or edit those resources in just a few clicks.

Empower your team with AI

At Gorgias, we designed AI to enhance your customer support experience. By leveraging the pillars of Onboard, Automate, Observe, and Coach, we ensure that AI Agent is an effective and reliable partner for your team.

With AI handling low-priority repetitive questions, your team can focus on creating more meaningful connections. This includes prioritizing VIP customers and escalated tickets, upselling, and engaging in higher-impact activities.

The future of AI at Gorgias is bright, with continuous improvements and new features on the horizon. Embrace the power of AI and see how it can transform your customer service team.

Book a demo today to experience the benefits of AI Agent for yourself.

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TL;DR:

• Launch onsite campaigns at the right time to meet customer needs. For example, start a campaign when customers look at a sizing guide. 
• Avoid using chat campaigns without a goal. Invite dialogue while addressing specific customer concerns.
• Educational campaigns help customers make better choices. When done at the right time, they can increase sales by 31%.
• Offering premium options on entry-level product pages can help engage customers and drive upgrades.

Without strategic planning, campaigns become nothing more than annoying pop-ups. But done right, onsite campaigns can energize customers to checkout and click the ‘order’ button.

At CX Connect 2024, TUSHY’s Senior Director of Customer Experience, Ren Fuller-Wasserman, and Connor O'Malley from Gorgias shared how vital timing was in creating successful Gorgias Convert campaigns.

You can also watch the full Why Education Matters for Conversions panel discussion below: 

‎How campaign timing impacts customer engagement

Launching a message too early or too late can end in two ways: engaging a potential customer or losing them entirely. Timed perfectly to align with your target audience, you have a better chance of converting them. 

Essentially, you want to be in the right place at the right time.

Connor O’Malley, a Gorgias customer success manager who helps brands optimize their Convert campaigns, said that it’s effective to solve a pre-sales friction point at the right time. “If we're going to have a campaign on the website and we want people to actually read it and feel compelled to engage with it, timing is everything.”

So, how do you resolve presale friction points with campaigns, all while getting the timing right? There are a few ways:

• Engage new customers with educational campaigns.
• Address customer concerns by initiating chat campaigns.
• Upsell to the appropriate customers based on customer behavior.
• Analyze your ticket history and metrics.

Now, let’s look at how you can launch these campaigns effectively:

1. Capture new customers with educational campaigns on product pages

Customers navigating your store might need help determining which option to choose or how your product works.

Don’t let them leave with unanswered questions. 

Instead, offer them exactly what they need while they view a product, like a video tutorial, compatibility guide, or even an invitation to chat with one of your agents.

It’s about giving them the clarity they need to:

• Learn about your product
• Increase brand awareness
• Motivate them to explore the rest of your offerings

“The engagement rate on our education campaigns was much higher than any other campaigns we've seen, even upsell or exit intent campaigns,” Ren said. More impressively, their educational campaigns led to a conversion rate of 31%.

2. Answer customer concerns with chat campaigns

Brands miss the mark when they only use onsite campaigns as a bridge to their live chat channel. 

You might even be one of them with one of these conversational campaigns on your website right now:

• “Let us know if you have any questions!”
• “Need help? Talk to an agent now!” 

While there’s nothing wrong with using campaigns to get one-on-one time with shoppers, it casts too wide a net to truly capture customers’ attention. 

“We were just asking, "Let us know if you have any questions. Here's the chat," and that’s not really compelling people to ask their questions, even if they did have some,” Connor said.

The fix? Use customer concerns to guide your chat campaigns and bake them right into your campaign messaging. 

Here are pages that could benefit from chat campaigns: 

• Compatibility/quiz page: Accelerate decision-making and alleviate concerns by activating a campaign on pages where customers are exploring product compatibility, taking a quiz, or checking sizing guides.
• Product comparison page: Trigger a chat campaign when customers are comparing similar products to help them understand differences and guide them toward the best choice.
• Checkout page hesitation: Engage customers who linger at checkout with a chat offering to clarify any last-minute concerns, such as shipping details or return policies, to help push them over the finish line.

💡 Pro Tip: Offer real-time support during peak traffic hours to catch customers when they’re most available.

“People fall in love with TUSHY through these real-time conversations. We talk to everyone like our best friend, and that is what drives people to consider making this life switch.”

—Ren Fuller-Wasserman, Senior Director of Customer Experience at TUSHY

3. Upsell items on entry-level product pages

Upselling to new customers can be effortless if you present your higher-ticket items as better options, as Ren does.

TUSHY has multiple bidet models, ranging from a basic model called Classic to one with a temperature-controlled seat. Ren uses their entry-level bidet product page to launch an upsell campaign aiming to educate and upsell simultaneously. 

“We want customers to have the insertion at the right moment. They’re on our Classic page. Great, did you know you could get hot water? We pop the campaign up for our Spa 3.0.”

4. Find the perfect timing by analyzing your metrics

We’ve given you general recommendations on when to deploy your onsite campaigns, but your campaigns should go beyond these general campaigns. 

The best information for finding your perfect timing? Your tickets. 

Tickets are a record of customer sentiment — your cheat sheet to find out what customers want to know and their exact concerns.

“If you can look at your analytics, you can target what the average site traffic spend is on a particular page. That’s the sweet spot you want to shoot for,” Connor said.

On Convert, you can tailor campaigns to display only when customers meet certain conditions. Some conditions you can customize are current URL, time spent on a page, products in cart, number of visits, total spent, and more.

💡 Pro Tip: Analyze traffic for each of your webpages and think about the reasons behind the metrics. Why are website visitors spending more time on one product page than another? Why do visitors drop off after viewing certain pages? Understanding these patterns allows you to alter your campaigns to address specific concerns.

Get your timing right with Gorgias Convert

Effective campaigns depend on delivering the right message at the right time. Focusing on presale friction points, carefully timing your outreach, engaging in valuable conversations, and providing educational and upselling content when it’s most relevant can help you reach your conversion goals.

Ready to see how Gorgias Convert optimizes your campaign timing? Book a demo today and flip customer interactions into brand advocacy.

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TL;DR:

• By automating straightforward customer requests, Gorgias Automate saved time and reduced response times by up to 69%.
• Health and wellness brand Obvi handled 27% of tickets with only two support agents within two weeks of using Automate.
• Menswear brand Psycho Bunny resolved tickets 99.4% faster than human agents by leveraging the conversational AI tool included in Automate, AI Agent.
• Luxury shoe and garment care retailer Kirby Allison boosted conversions by 23% and sales by 46% by implementing Flows.
• Automate helped businesses develop a robust help center, automating 30% of support volume within 30 days and improving customer self-service.

Guess what? Automating your customer support doesn’t mean you don't care about every customer interaction—it’s quite the opposite. 

Think about it… if someone wants to cancel an order, they simply want it done without any attempts at a personalized upsell. This type of response usually doesn’t require any additional flair.

Automation allows you to meet customers' needs promptly for straightforward requests. At the same time, it gives your team the bandwidth to invest more time and energy into solving intricate problems and building stronger customer relationships.

Many brands using Gorgias Automate features are saving both time and money, reducing response times, and even increasing sales generated directly from support.

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First, who benefits from Gorgias Automate?

As a solopreneur, it’s pretty self-explanatory. You’re busy with all aspects of your business, so automating what you can is going to help you prioritize and focus on more important things. 

But what about those who have customer support teams? This might sound counterintuitive, but Automate isn’t geared toward any specific type of brand. 

It benefits everyone at every stage of growth, whether you’re a single founder who wears many hats or lead a large CS team at an enterprise business.

Take Obvi—this mid-market health and wellness brand has a lean CX team of only two support agents. Although surprising, given their size and stage of growth, they’ve been able to automate the tedious and repetitive parts of CX.

For example, during BFCM 2023, Obvi’s CEO Ron Shah decided to use Gorgias Automate to boost CX efficiency even further while still providing excellent customer support.

“I told our team we were going to onboard Automate for BFCM, so a good portion of tickets would be handled automatically. There was a huge sigh of relief knowing that customers were going to be taken care of.”

—Ron Shah, CEO and Co-founder at Obvi

Obvi now handles 150+ tickets per day without adding any headcount, thanks to a 27% automation rate—which they achieved within two weeks of onboarding Automate. 

Even for enterprise brands with larger CX teams, Automate helps them deal with the huge influx of queries that don’t require a human response—things like, “Where’s my order?” or “Can you cancel my order?”

And it’s also more than the support teams who benefit. With more time given back to agents for strategic thinking, support teams can share helpful advice across the entire organization:

• For the product team: Report on which products are causing the most tickets to identify and address issues. When the product team can directly reference customer pain points, it becomes easier to improve product quality and reduce future support inquiries.
• For the marketing team: Analyze which campaigns may have been misleading by tracking customer complaints and dissatisfaction to improve future promotions. Customer insights can help refine messaging that resonates better with your audience.
• For the operations team: Identify big spikes in lost or delayed packages to streamline order fulfillment logistics and improve delivery processes.
• For the sales team: Provide insights on customer feedback related to pricing and product preferences to refine sales strategies.

This way, customer support becomes less about the speed of ticket resolution and more about providing high-quality customer service that returns the favor with higher CLTV. How? Let’s review a few stories from brands using Automate.

💡 Pro Tip: Deflect WISMO tickets and let customers track their order by activating Order Management in your Automate settings. Go to Automate > your store > Order Management and toggle Track Order on.

AI Agent resolves tickets 99.4% faster than human agents

Every brand eventually faces a common dilemma: how to scale efficiently while keeping customer experience high and costs low.

This was no different for Psycho Bunny, the vibrant menswear brand known for its edgy twist on classic styles and its iconic skull-and-crossbones rabbit logo. As the company grew, so did the challenge of maintaining top-notch customer support without skyrocketing overhead costs.

"As we continue to grow this multi-million dollar company, the most important thing is maintaining or improving our current KPIs and CSAT, but without raising our customer support overhead. And being able to maintain this for the next 5–10 years."

—Tosha Moyer, Senior Customer Experience Manager at Psycho Bunny

Recognizing the need for innovation, the team turned to AI for a solution, specifically through Gorgias. Quickly after setup, the team began trialing AI Agent and named it Lisa.

Gorgias’s conversational AI tool, AI Agent, is an extension of your team. Just like a new support agent, AI Agent can:

• Learn all your support processes and policies
• Answer tickets in your brand’s tone of voice
• Perform Actions in Shopify and other tools for full resolutions
• Escalate tickets it cannot confidently answer

For Psycho Bunny, AI Agent quickly became a vital member of the team, resolving 26% of customer tickets with lightning speed—99.4% faster than human agents. 

By handling repetitive questions like order status and returns, Lisa freed up human agents to tackle more complex and high-value customer interactions.

One of the standout features of AI Agent is its ability to respond with empathy and personalization, reflecting the specific information customers provide. 

"We love the empathy in AI Agent’s responses," said Mary Mundy, Technical Support Specialist at Psycho Bunny. "Replacing a generic automated reply with a response that identifies the issues and has empathy, while communicating the key information the customer needs, is awesome."

The impact was immediate and impressive. Lisa answered queries 10 times faster than the team average, typically resolving tickets in under 2 minutes compared to the 4+ hours it took human agents.

Within the first two months, AI Agent shot to the top of Psycho Bunny’s customer support leaderboard for first response and resolution times, all while generating higher CSAT scores (4.67) than the team average (4.6). 

💡 Pro Tip: Give your AI Agent some personality to match how your human agents speak. Go to Automate > your store > AI Agent > Configuration tab, and in the Tone of Voice dropdown menu, choose from Friendly, Professional, Sophisticated, or Custom tones.

Kirby Allison generated 46% more sales from answering pre-sales questions

Kirby Allison, the luxury shoe and garment care retailer, has been a staple for well-dressed customers since 2011. However, their growing success came with a hefty challenge: an overwhelming influx of customer support inquiries.

With just two dedicated team members handling a surge of repetitive questions and manual processes, Kirby Allison’s customer support team was stretched thin. 

The pressure was on Addison Debter, Head of Customer Service, who not only managed customer queries but also juggled inventory management, product information updates, and website development.

"We were inundated with simple, repetitive questions: 'Where is my order?' 'What kind of shoe polish do I need?' We had to keep repeating similar answers to similar questions. And we were doing the exchanges and returns manually, one by one. We were losing so much time. We couldn't follow up with customers as quickly as we wanted," Addison shared. 

The team wanted a better way to handle these tickets, so they switched from Zendesk to Gorgias, specifically for the automation features.

"Our favorite features are definitely Flows and Article Recommendations," Addison said. "They drive so much automation for us. Shoppers get answers to their questions by themselves: what's the right size hanger, where is my order, what shoe polish would you recommend, etc."

Flows allow you to display up to six commonly asked questions directly in your chat widget. If a customer clicks on one of those questions, they’re redirected to articles from your knowledge base where they get the answer quickly. It’s an entirely self-serve experience.

Auto responses have also been impactful for this team. These work by using Rules to automatically reply to emails and messages based on the context of the customer's message.

The results? Within just two months, Kirby Allison saw a 23% increase in conversions and a staggering 46% boost in sales from support. 

Automating responses to pre-sales questions freed up the team to engage in conversations that led to sales, improving both revenue and efficiency.

💡 Not sure which FAQs to include in your Chat? Check out our list of 50+ FAQ templates here.

Boost holiday efficiency with 69% faster resolution times

The holidays are always difficult for support teams. The stakes are high, and so is the influx of support tickets.

Thankfully, customers can get the answers and guidance they need faster and more easily via self-serve order management, Flows, and AI-driven Article Recommendations.

Shinesty, the brand that’s all about making the world take itself less seriously, started out selling wacky vintage suits. Nowadays, they’re best known for their men’s underwear range, including the signature Ball Hammocks, which promise booty bliss and scrotal serenity. 

Shinesty also offers a subscription service, delivering a fresh pair of underwear each month with exclusive prints and discounts.

As with many ecommerce brands, Shinesty’s peak sales period spans from Black Friday through Christmas. The year-round customer support team of three builds up to 20 agents during the holidays to handle this surge.

For the 2023 holiday season, Molly Kerrigan, Senior Director of Retention, aimed to boost efficiency through automation. The goal? Help the CX team work smarter, not harder, and maintain their stellar customer satisfaction without increasing headcount.

“We get a lot of praise from our customers, and they talk highly of our CX team after 1:1 interactions. We can’t lose that as we scale,” Molly emphasized.

The team was swamped with repetitive questions about order status, discounts, and account management—all important queries but ones that don’t necessarily build customer relationships. Self-service solutions seemed like the answer, but previous tools struggled with Shinesty’s subscription model complexities

“Other tools required a high level of customization to handle the subscription element. But Gorgias Automate has been straightforward,” said Molly. 

After seeing the impact early, Molly and her team doubled down on optimizing their use of Automate, specifically for

• One-step Flows offer customers instant answers to common questions. When customers ask questions in Chat, Automate checks Shinesty’s Help Center for relevant articles and shares them, often resolving the query without agent interaction. 
• Multi-step Flows guide shoppers through a more interactive experience for picking the right undies, managing their subscriptions, and applying discounts.
• Self-serve order tracking and management have become extremely popular. Customers can get instant updates on their orders and report issues through the Help Center or Chat.

These automations are accessible via Chat, the Help Center, or the Contact Form, giving customers fast answers without needing to speak to an agent.

📚 Read more: Offer more self-serve options with flows: 10 use cases & best practices

Shinesty’s Flows are so effective that many have an automation rate of over 90%, meaning they resolve customer inquiries 90% of the time without human intervention. 

Automate helped Shinesty significantly save on recruitment, training, and overtime costs. Shinesty’s first response time has dropped by 65% and resolution time by 69%. This has resulted in the fastest resolution times Shinesty has ever seen, with the smallest CX team they’ve ever had—just five agents for the 2023 peak season, compared to 20 in 2021 and 12 in 2022.

Why you need a knowledge base for automation

Today, shoppers expect a high-quality shopping experience, and we know that they love having the power to solve problems on their own, on their schedule. In fact, 84% say a company's customer experience is as important as its products and services.

While we’ve seen how Automate can help you meet those expectations, a core component to making all of the flows work effectively is a customer knowledge base. This is crucial for any effective customer support automation strategy. Why? 

A few reasons:

• Customers get the answers they need quickly and easily, leading to a better overall experience.
• By deflecting common queries to the knowledge base, your support team can focus on more complex issues, improving efficiency.
• Providing detailed product information helps customers make informed purchase decisions, leading to higher conversion rates.
• Educated customers are less likely to make returns, saving your business time and money.

A knowledge base is an interactive portal that connects your customers to both sales and customer service. That means making it easy for them to find answers before making a purchase and helping them troubleshoot any possible issues afterward.

Here’s a helpful example from BrüMate 

This brand’s Help Center shines with its customer-focused design. 

At the top of the page, it addresses common questions like returns policy and product compatibility, allowing customers to find answers quickly without scrolling. To enhance the shopping experience, BrüMate offers an interactive quiz that guides customers to the perfect product, saving them the hassle of extensive research. 

The Help Center also includes easily accessible links for package tracking and returning to the main site, with a chat bubble for immediate assistance. When the customer service team is offline, customers can still access helpful articles.

💡 Did you know? You can teach AI Agent information from specific URLs! Simply go to Automate > AI Agent > Configuration > Knowledge > Public URL sources.

“We’ve started pushing people towards resources that are in our Help Center. We're trying to help our customers self-solve.”

—Colin Waters, leading at The Feed & former Associate Director of Customer Experience at BrüMate

Automate 30% of support volume in 30 days

By integrating Automate into your customer support strategy, you can significantly reduce your team's workload. Gorgias Automate is proven to be able to handle 30% of inquiries autonomously within just 30 days. 

Curious about how Automate can benefit your business? Book a demo to learn about the advantages of Gorgias Automate and AI Agent and see firsthand how they can transform your customer support operations.

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• Create personalized onsite campaigns to enhance the shopping experience.
• Activate exit-intent campaigns to reduce cart abandonment.
• Implement upselling strategies to increase average order values.
• Offer product education to boost customer confidence and purchases.

At this point, you’re already well aware that CX is now proving itself to be an invaluable acquisition tool — not just a retention lever.

But to drive the hammer home, we looked into our database to see how CX-focused strategies like onsite campaigns enhance the customer journey and drive substantial increases in sales and conversion rates, specifically with Gorgias Convert.

Using these well-curated campaigns, businesses like Manduka have witnessed a remarkable increase in revenue — approximately $130,000. 

We’ll show you how you can achieve similar results and why it’s a crucial marketing strategy — just as important as paid and email marketing.

Ways to use onsite campaigns for sales without disrupting the shopping experience

Gorgias Convert is an onsite revenue generation tool that helps ecommerce brands boost their conversions by over 6% — and it isn’t your typical intrusive pop-up. This feature seamlessly integrates with your website, recommending products to shoppers in a subtle but still captivating way.

Targeting customer segments based on their browsing behaviors, Convert makes timely and relevant suggestions via chat.

Here are a few ways you can use it:

Create fluid shopping experiences that reduce acquisition costs

Imagine this: someone clicks on your social media ad for acne removal solutions, lands on your site, and isn’t just greeted with a standard product page but accompanied by a personalized message that offers valuable product education.

In fact, Gorgias users see that we typically generate $20 for every $1 spent. So think of onsite campaigns as a way to make your ad dollars work harder with a more personalized experience by:

• Mirroring the language and tone of your ads within your onsite campaigns creates a familiar and comforting environment for your visitors. 
• Populating welcome campaigns that kick in when a shopper lands on your site so that every new customer engagement starts with meaningful dialogue geared toward turning curiosity into sales.

Here’s a fun example from TUSHY, the modern bidet company. 

When customers visit a bidet page, they receive a message from TUSHY’s support team, letting them know about their toilet compatibility page to help them select the right bidet:

Personalize cross-sell and upsell messages on specific product pages

Here’s something many brands get wrong about ecommerce upselling: It’s not about pushing the most expensive items; it’s about showing customers the value of an upgrade that’s complementary to the problems they’re already trying to solve.

As your customers shop, Gorgias Convert suggests complementary items. It’s like when you’re in a store and an associate suggests a tie to match the shirt you’re buying.

Manduka uses these campaigns brilliantly. Targeting shoppers nearing the free shipping threshold, they suggest just the right little extras to tip the scales. 

This makes it quick and easy for customers to top up their orders with relevant products.

The results? 

• Total Campaign revenue: $11,788.91
• Impressions: 37,586
• Mobile Clicks Conversion Rate: 19.65%
• Desktop Clicks Conversion Rate: 12.06%

Jessica Botello, the Customer Service Manager at Manduka, explains why this campaign works so well: 

“People want free shipping. So if they've already got over $75 worth in their cart, they're almost there. Then we pop up and suggest: check out these items. It’s a curated list of the easy little add-ons that you'll need anyway for your yoga practice, but will also take you over the free shipping threshold,” she explains. “What's really helpful is that it pops up, rather than the customer having to go through the menu and look for things.” 

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Winback browsers with exit-intent campaigns

You’ve likely tried exit-intent pop-ups before. You know, those pop-ups that trigger when a customer indicates they’re about to abandon their cart or browsing session. 

As more brands adopt these pop-ups, customers are becoming more accustomed to them. But what’s less obtrusive is a personalized message directly from your team.

There are many ways you can grab your customers' attention with these messages. Maybe it's offering a little nudge with a timely discount, waiving that shipping fee, or answering a last-minute question they had about the product.

Here, let’s look at two examples of how effective these campaigns can be.

Manduka’s exit-intent messages

Manduka uses these exit-intent messages to offer $20 on orders over $100 (a strategic way to not only reduce cart abandonment but also increase AOV and email subscribers simultaneously.) 

By engaging visitors with personalized, timely messages right when they’re about to leave, Gorgias Convert helps transform potential bounces into real conversions.

You can read more about how Manduka set up these campaigns with Gorgias Convert here.

Glamnetic’s approach

Glamnetic has had particular success with an exit intent campaign offering a discount for new customers, new product promotions, and educational campaigns. 

Its most successful campaign offers a sweet 15% discount and boasts an on-ticket conversion rate of 18.39%. 

Here’s how it works:

• Using Gorgias Convert, Glamnetic detects when the mouse hovers near the top of the browser, a telltale sign of an impending exit.
• The same 15% discount available through newsletter or SMS sign-ups is now presented via live chat. It’s straightforward, no strings attached. 
• The campaign targets visitors who’ve been to the site three times or fewer and linger for at least 15 seconds. This specificity ensures the message is relevant and timely.

You can peek at the campaign setup below. It runs 24/7, ready at any moment to engage: 

Strategically highlight new product launches

Countless new products pop up every day; consumers are bombarded with options. The challenge for brands is to launch new products in a visible and desirable way. 

As you’re well aware, that’s tougher than it sounds amidst all the noise consumers already experience daily.

This is where Gorgias Convert stands out and is different from the other pop-up tools.

Unlike your latest TikTok and Instagram ads, these onsite campaigns feel genuine because a friendly support agent makes the recommendation without disrupting the shopping experience.

For example, when Glamnetic unveiled its vibrant Rainbow collection in May 2023, the team deployed targeted, visually appealing onsite campaigns that immediately drew visitors’ eyes to the new products.

Directly on the homepage, visitors were greeted with eye-catching product images from live chat, featuring a seamless and effortless option to add new items to their cart.

Mia, Head of Customer Experience at Glamnetic, shares the strategy behind the success: “The aim was to elevate the visibility of new releases without requiring customers to hunt for them. Our onsite campaigns proactively present our latest products through compelling visuals and straightforward navigation, simplifying the decision-making process for the buyer.”

That’s why Glamnetic prominently placed top-selling items in the product carousel, directly in the live chat box. The products were impossible to ignore, leading to a 49% sales increase for featured items.

Help customers be successful with product education

Product education is a powerful sales and retention tactic. By building trust with customers right away, they’ll feel more confident purchasing your products because they know they will use them successfully. 

Manduka uses onsite campaigns to educate potential customers. Triggered when visitors spend more than 15 seconds on the yoga props page, the campaigns guide customers through their yoga journey and help them choose the perfect props for their practice.

Jessica Botello, Customer Service Manager at Manduka, highlights the campaign's impact: 

“This yoga props blog suggestion campaign is really great because we have several options, and that can feel confusing to someone who doesn’t know which one to get because they are new to yoga and aren't familiar with which props would benefit them. The blog explains in more detail how to use the different props in your yoga practice, and the different benefits of a round bolster vs a rectangular bolster. So it helps people go ahead and choose the right product for them.”

In other words, simply explaining the nuances between choices like a round versus a rectangular bolster helped customers feel more confident about the products they purchased. 

And the proof is in the pudding. Between April–August 2023, this campaign achieved the following:

• Total Campaign revenue: $3,851.73
• Impressions: 6,310
• Clicks Conversion Rate: 11.5%

By proactively addressing potential questions and concerns, Manduka enhances the shopping experience, leading to higher satisfaction and fewer post-purchase issues.

Promote sales with holiday campaigns 

Holidays aren't just for festivities — they're prime opportunities for brands to connect with customers in fun, thematic ways. 

Take TUSHY, for example. To celebrate US Independence Day, TUSHY ran a cheekily-themed on-site campaign called "USofSPRAY," offering a patriotic 25% off all bidets.

Yes, you read that right — cleaning your bum has never been more patriotic!

Why it works: TUSHY’s approach to holiday promotions is smart and spirited. By aligning their campaign with a major holiday, they tapped into the celebratory mood of their customers, making it not just about a discount but about being part of a nationwide celebration. This not only makes the promotion more memorable but also more engaging.

The USofSPRAY campaign not only captured attention but also captured significant sales:

• Influence on store revenue: A staggering 47.9% of the store's revenue during this period was influenced by the campaign.
• Click-through rate (CTR): The campaign achieved a healthy 3.5% CTR, indicating strong interest and engagement.
• Impressions: It racked up 65,000 impressions, spreading the word far and wide about the benefits of a cleaner, fresher bathroom experience.
• Conversion rate: Impressively, 76% of customers who engaged with the campaign went on to make a purchase.

4 tips to create a well-thought-out onsite campaign

Investing time in well-thought-out onsite campaigns can significantly amplify your marketing efforts, driving a notable increase in conversion rates and better capturing paid traffic. 

Here’s how you can design campaigns that catch the eye and convert browsers into buyers.

Segment, segment, segment

The more targeted your campaign, the better your results — plain and simple.

By segmenting your audience based on specific criteria, such as the amount spent with your brand or past products purchased, you can tailor your messages to match the unique interests and buying habits of different customer groups. 

Note: Gorgias is deeply integrated with platforms like Shopify, so it’s easy to leverage shopper data to create highly personalized onsite campaigns that resonate with your audience. 

Identify your triggers to personalize messages

Set up your campaigns to activate based on specific behaviors, such as browsing certain products, adding items to the cart, or showing signs of exit intent. You can also use more niche triggers, like:

• Total value of shopping cart
• Products in cart
• Time spent on a page
• Number of visits
• Total spent in the past
• VIP status

For instance, by setting up a trigger for VIP customers, you can send campaigns to those high-value shoppers, like exclusive discounts or personalized style recommendations based on past purchases.

A/B test your campaigns

One of the most powerful tools in your marketing arsenal is A/B testing. By systematically testing messaging, design, or offer variations, you can uncover what resonates most with your audience and refine your strategies accordingly.

TUSHY provides a prime example of A/B testing done right. They conducted an experiment where:

• Group A: 50% of visitors experienced the full suite of targeted on-site campaigns without any discount codes, focusing instead on providing personalized guidance for choosing the right bidet.
• Group B: The other 50% did not receive any targeted campaigns during their visit.

The results were telling:

• Conversion rate lift: Group A saw a 9.6% higher conversion rate than Group B.
• Sales uplift: Additionally, sales increased by 14% compared to those not exposed to the campaigns.

This test highlights the effectiveness of providing personalized support over just using discounts and how A/B testing your offers and messaging — even for one week — helps you understand what makes your customers tick.

Keep track of your success in a detailed dashboard

Effective campaign management isn't just about launching strategies; it’s also about understanding their impact. 

With Gorgias Convert, every campaign you run is tracked in detail through the Campaigns Statistics dashboard. This gives marketers a granular view of performance across different time frames and campaign specifics.

Some specific features you can expect are

• Revenue tracking: See at a glance the total revenue generated by each campaign. This allows you to evaluate the financial impact of your campaigns and prioritize those that deliver the best return on investment.
• Engagement metrics: Monitor key metrics like impressions and click-through rates to assess how well your campaigns are engaging potential customers. This data is crucial for understanding which elements of your campaigns are capturing attention and which may need tweaking.
• Conversion details: Dive deep into the data to see which campaigns are converting browsers into buyers. A list of converted tickets or interactions can highlight successful tactics and offer insights into customer behavior.

In addition to tracking basic metrics, the dashboard also provides insights into more nuanced aspects of campaign performance, such as engagement trends over time or the effectiveness of specific call-to-action placements.

Check out an overview of the Campaign Statistics page in the image below. 

Start investing in onsite marketing

Onsite campaigns stand as pillars in digital marketing, carrying immense potential to captivate and convert visitors into loyal customers. Through them, you can get directly in front of your customers and showcase products or services – but in their capacity to tailor experiences, foster engagement, and ultimately drive conversions. 

Gorgias Convert's innovative approach makes revenue generation easy through onsite campaigns - you will find that you’re increasing your ecommerce revenue quickly and cost-effectively. By leveraging this tool, you can navigate the digital landscape with confidence whether you’re in CX or Marketing. 

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