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The Gorgias helpdesk is a highly customizable, automatable tool. In theory, you could use it like a standard inbox, answering customer support tickets from top to bottom. But you’re better off taking advantage of its features to organize your inbox, automatically prioritize and assign tickets, and automate repetitive tasks.
Streamlining your helpdesk from the jump is the best way to spend less time on administrative work so you can respond faster and leave customers satisfied.
TalentPop is a customer service management agency for ecommerce brands like yours and optimizes Gorgias for over 500 top brands like Jaxxon, Lilly Lashes, and Kettle & Fire. And while each brand’s needs are unique, every ecommerce company could benefit from essentials like automated ticket routing and answering WISMO requests.
We developed this playbook to share these best practices for setting up Gorgias so your team can get back to focusing on what matters most: tending to urgent requests and having impactful conversations with your valued customers.
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Create tags to organize tickets
In Gorgias, Tags keep track of the contents and context of a ticket at a glance:
- What type of issues are they experiencing?
- What’s the status of the conversation?
- What kind of automation has been applied?
- What kind of customer are they?
Especially as your team grows, Tags are the best way to keep your helpdesk organized, filter for specific conversations, and track the progress of customer resolutions. Plus, when combined with automation (which we’ll discuss in the next section), Tags help your team prioritize requests, route conversations to a specific team member, or send messages to customers.
Accurate and up-to-date Tags also help you analyze ticket trends much easier. For example, if you suddenly experience a 20% spike in tickets tagged with “product-complaint,” you can quickly dig into that issue.
Tags most ecommerce brands should use
Gorgias comes with a set of Tags that you can start using automatically, but you should build out the list based on your needs. When we help brands build out their list of Tags, we start by auditing past tickets to understand existing patterns.
Below, we included a list of the most common Tags you’ll likely find helpful. Start there, and consider auditing your own helpdesk to add any additional tags your team would find helpful.
Tags for customer account management
- Update billing information
- Update email address
- Password reset requests
- New account requests
Tags for collaboration
- Influencer requests
- Affiliate requests
Tags for customer feedback
- Product improvement (broken down by product category or SKU)
- Negative reviews
- Positive reviews
- Negative social comments
- Positive social comments
- Frustrated customers
Tags for product feedback
- Minor product defect
- Major product defect
- Product suggestion
Tags for discounts
- Discount error
- Discount requests
Tags for orders
- Cancel order (not shipped)
- Cancel order (shipped)
- Change order (not shipped)
- Change order (shipped)
- Incorrect product received
- Missing items
- Order confirmation requests
- Status: Pre-order
Tags for return and exchange
- Exchange requests
- Refund/Cancellation requests
- Return requests
- Return status
Tags for shipping
- Address change (not shipped)
- Address changed (shipped)
- Damaged in transit
- Marked delivered but not received
Order status
- Delivered
- Not shipped
- Partial shipment
- Shipped/In-Transit
Tags for social media
- Facebook comment
- Facebook Messenger
- Instagram comments
- Instagram DMs
- Twitter comment
- Twitter DM
Tags for subscriptions
- Cancelation requests (shipped)
- Cancelation requests (not shipped)
- Skip shipment request
- Edit subscription
Tags for urgent inquiries
- BBB claims
- Manager escalations
- Pre-sale questions
- Payment disputes
- Upset customer
Tags for VIP customers
- VIP +250
- VIP +500
- VIP +1000
Tags for wholesale requests
- Wholesale
Once you have those (and other) Tags set up, you can apply them manually or use automation to automatically tag incoming tickets.
Use rules to automate tedious tasks (like tagging, routing, and simple replies)
In Gorgias, Rules are flexible tools to automate a wide range of day-to-day tasks, like tagging, routing, automatically closing no-reply messages, and even replying to basic messages.
Just like Tags, Rules will vary from brand to brand. And the possibilities of Rules are near-endless, so no blog post can give you a complete list of Rules to use. That said, here are four categories of Rules (with specific examples) you’ll likely find useful:
Auto-tag tickets based on keywords
Manually applying Tags can eat up agent time (and leave room for error). Move faster and ensure your tags are more accurate by setting up Rules to auto-tag tickets based on ticket content.
The following Rules use keywords in the message to apply Tags. For even more advanced tagging, you can use Gorgias’s Intent and Sentiment Detection to tag tickets even when the ticket doesn’t include a specific keyword.
Rule: Tag address update needed
Rule description: When an agent requests an email address update from customers, apply the “edit-address” tag.
Rule benefit: This Rule helps you keep track of incorrect email addresses and email address updates. When you then use this Tag in correspondence with a View, you’ll have an easy time matching up the customer’s old and new email addresses.
How to set up Rule:
Rule: Tag damaged/defective goods
Rule description: Automatically tag incoming tickets mentioning product damage with “Damaged/Defective.”
Rule benefit: Tagging these kinds of tickets is a great way to prioritize these sensitive interactions, so customers aren’t left waiting after they receive a damaged item. If you respond quickly and courteously, you greatly increase your chances of mitigating an escalation and retaining the customer.
How to set up Rule:
💡Tip: Adjust the rule to include keywords from previous tickets about damaged inquiries, which will best reflect how customers talk about your product getting damaged. For example, if you sell clothes, people will use words like “torn” and “stained” more than “broken.”
Rule: Tag exchange requests
Rule description: Automatically tag incoming tickets containing exchange requests with “Exchange Request.”
Rule benefit: This is a very beneficial auto-tagging feature that, when corresponding to a view, will help your customer service agents prioritize exchange requests on time. From our experience, this is especially helpful for apparel and jewelry brands, although you can use it for a variety of brands.
How to set up Rule:
💡Tip: We recommend updating the Exchange Request Rule with language from previous and future tickets. Continuously optimizing the rule to include additional keywords will help make the tagging function more accurate over time.
Rule: Tag refund/cancellation requests
Rule description: Automatically tag incoming tickets containing refund/cancellation requests with “Refund/Cancellation.”
Rule benefit: When corresponding to a View, this auto-tagging feature will help your team effectively prioritize refund and cancelation requests, which is important for a couple of reasons:
- If the customer wants to cancel the order before it’s shipped, you can save on shipping by processing the cancellation before it leaves the warehouse.
- If the customer requests a refund, a fast-acting customer service agent may be able to offer another solution (like troubleshooting the product or suggesting an exchange).
How to set up Rule:
Rule: Tag reviews
Rule description: Automatically tag incoming tickets mentioning new product reviews with “Review.”
Rule benefit: When corresponding to a view, this rule will help your customer service agents properly manage and respond to incoming reviews, both positive and negative.
How To Setup Rule: Unlike our other rules, there can be multiple configurations for this set-up — it depends on the platform that you are using. Gorgias currently integrates with several review apps, but each one can require a different setup. In this example, we will include the most common configurations.
Here’s a Rule that leverages the Gorgias integration with Yotpo, flagging new reviews of your channel:
Here’s a review based on the ticket’s subject line to catch new reviews based on the standard format of some review platforms:
💡Tip: Take your internal reviews-monitoring processes to the next level by manually tagging reviews as positive or negative. This will help you better understand which reviews are positive or negative, overall trends, and flag reviews with a high score but negative tone.
Another trick we like is to tag reviews with the relevant product’s SKU to help your team better understand which products people enjoy or dislike the most. This feedback is invaluable for your Product team.
Rule: Tag urgent tickets
Rule description: Automatically tag incoming tickets containing time-sensitive requests with “Urgent.”
Rule benefit: Urgent tickets should always be prioritized, which is what this rule — when corresponding to a view — helps your team to do.
How to set up Rule:
💡 Tip: Set up this rule with keywords that your team deems urgent, like when customers threaten to contact the Better Business Bureau or ask to speak with a manager. Negative comments don’t have to be the only urgent ones, either: You can tag pre-sales tickets or tickets from VIP customers as urgent.
Additionally, you can apply a rule for Urgent tickets explicitly related to social media. This setup is a stellar method for ensuring public (ie. customer-facing) issues are resolved quickly.
Rule: Tag website issues
Rule description: Automatically tag incoming tickets mentioning problems with your website with “Website Issue.” (Note: You might also choose to also add the Urgent tag so you can address these issues quickly.)
Rule benefit: This Rule is a lifesaver — it’s been highly effective for our clients during sales, general marketing campaigns, or even on an average Tuesday. It can ensure that you don’t miss out on sales and that your customers always have the best experience.
How to set up Rule:
Rule: Tag attempts to use chat outside business hours
Rule description: This ticket advises customers when your live chat is unavailable due to business hours or holidays.
Rule benefit: One of our favorites for gauging bandwidth, this rule is great for identifying when messages come in outside your regular business hours. With this data, you may consider bringing on additional support if ticket volume is high outside of your regular customer service schedule.
Note: To use this Rule, you’ll have to set up Business Hours. You can also adjust your chat setting so chat is unavailable outside business hours, and customers must fill out Contact Forms (which require their email address) to send a message so you can follow up via email when your team logs back on.
How to set up Rule:
Auto-tag tickets that have internal notes
In case you missed it, an internal note in Gorgias is a note added to a ticket that’s only visible to your team — it’s not shared with the customer. Internal notes can be added to conversations to share vital or helpful information about the customer or the ticket with your team. These notes can also record any actions taken on the customer's request.
Rule description: When an agent creates an internal note, this Rule automatically tags the tickets as “Internal Note - Open.”
Rule benefit: This Rule is great for ensuring internal team communications are appropriately tagged and sorted into Views, so all internal views get flagged and all customer questions get answered.
How to set up Rule:
Auto-replying to Where Is My Order (WISMO)
An auto-reply is a pre-written response automatically sent to a customer based on the ticket’s content, channel, timing, or a variety of other factors. You can use auto-replies to:
- Acknowledge receipt of a customer's message
- Provide an estimated response time
- Offer a general resolution to a common issue
- Provide information such as office hours or contact details
Note that auto-replied tickets still have limitations and should be frequently reviewed and re-assessed.
Rule: Automatically reply to WISMO requests:
Rule description: Answer and resolve inquiries about order status.
Rule benefit: Provide instant responses to the most common question in ecommerce customer support and free your agents up for higher-impact interactions.
How to set up Rule:
📚 Related reading: Check out our complete guide to automating WISMO requests.
Use Views to prioritize tickets
Views filter and organize customer data within the left sidebar, allowing customer service teams to access and respond to customer inquiries quickly. Views can also prioritize tickets by urgency or organize them by channel. This feature helps customer service teams manage their workload more efficiently and provides insights into common customer issues or trends.
Views are simple to set up based on ticket tags and other qualities, so we won’t spend time explaining how to set them up here. Instead, we’ll share a couple of types of Views you’ll likely find useful.
Views based on urgency
Building views based on urgency within Gorgias is a good idea for several reasons:
- Prioritization: Prioritizing customer inquiries based on urgency is critical to providing timely and effective customer support. By creating a system that identifies urgent issues and addresses them promptly, support teams can improve overall customer satisfaction and prevent potential negative feedback.
- Improved workflow: Building views based on urgency helps support teams manage their workloads more effectively. For example, they can assign urgent customer inquiries to agents who can handle them immediately and postpone less urgent inquiries.
- Better CX: Responding promptly to urgent customer inquiries is essential to maintaining a positive customer experience. By prioritizing urgent inquiries, support teams can ensure that customers who need immediate assistance receive it promptly, enhancing customer loyalty and trust.
- Better visibility: Urgency is key to determining the overall health of a support queue. By creating views based on urgency, support teams can gain visibility into the volume and types of high-priority customer inquiries, allowing them to make informed decisions about staffing and resource allocation.
Views based on channel
Building views based on specific channels within Gorgias can be extremely helpful for your brand’s customer service needs:
- Improved efficiency: Creating views based on specific channels allows agents to quickly access and manage the most relevant interactions for that channel. This function can improve a support team's overall efficiency and productivity by reducing the time spent searching for specific customer inquiries.
- Channel-specific information: Different channels, such as email, chat, or social media, may have unique requirements and data fields that are specific to that channel. Building views based on your specific support channels allows your team to access and manage this channel-specific information easily.
- Better CX: Your support teams can ensure that they provide a tailored and consistent experience to customers, no matter the channel they choose, which can help improve customer satisfaction and increase the likelihood of repeat business.
- Better visibility: Your brand can gauge the overall volume and type of interactions occurring on each channel. The data from this view will provide valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences, which can inform future support and business decisions.
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Write Macro templates
Macros in Gorgias are pre-made responses that insert commonly-used text into a ticket response after being triggered by a keyboard shortcut or by clicking a Gorgias interface button.
They help agents decrease response times by eliminating the need to repeatedly (and manually) type the same response for similar customer service inquiries. A customer service representative might use a Macro to insert a standard response to a frequently asked question or even a product return request.
As we tell our own TalentPop agents during training, it is never in your best interest to 100% rely on Macros. Macros should be a foundation for writing responses to customers, as every inquiry is unique and each customer deserves a personalized experience.
Macros for returns and exchanges
Handling returns and exchanges can be complex. As a customer service management agency that has worked with over 500 top ecommerce brands, we can confidently say that a “one-size-fits-all” approach is not the correct one for these situations.
With this in mind, we generally provide our agents with different options to handle situations based on client SOPs.
Below you will find an example of what an unbranded Macro for this could look like:
Hi {{ticket.customer.firstname}},
It's {{current_user.firstname}} from [Brand Name].
Thanks for reaching out!
Use this Macro to state the return policy
You can return an item within [X days] of receiving your order.
Once we receive your package, please allow up to 2 weeks for us to receive and inspect your product.
Once everything is properly verified on our end, we can process the return and issue the credit back to your original payment method.
For more information, please take a look here [Link to Return Policy].
Use this Macro if the customer is eligible for a return
We would love to help you out regarding your return request.
Since you received your goods within the return window of [X days], we can absolutely help you with a return.
Attached is a return label you can use to ship the items back to us.
Once we receive your package, please allow up to [X days] for us to receive and inspect your product.
Once everything is properly verified on our end, we can process the return and issue a credit back to your original payment method.
For more information, please take a look here [Link to Return Policy].
Use this Macro if the customer is not eligible for a return
Your order was delivered on [Delivery Date] and is already past our return window of [X Days], we can no longer process a return.
For more information, please take a look here [Link to Return Policy].
Should you have any further questions, please let me know and I am more than happy to assist you.
All the best!
{{current_user.firstname}}
[Brand Name]
💡Tip: Another option to make this Macro more concise is to separate the situation types specifically. I.e. Return: Return Policy, Return: Within Return Window, Return: Outside of Return Window, etc. We find this the best approach, as it provides you with cleaner data that you can use to better understand customer situations.
Macros for refund processes
Just like exchanges, we can either create a single Macro that explains different options for an agent to choose from, or create separate Macros for each situation (like regular refund/order cancellations, damaged refunds [minor/major defect], discount errors, product out of stock, subscription refund, etc.)
Below you will find an example of what an unbranded Macro for this could look like:
Hi {{ticket.customer.firstname}},
It's {{current_user.firstname}} from (Brand Name). Thanks for reaching out!
I am more than happy to help you out with your refund request.
If the customer is eligible for a refund
I've refunded your last order {{ticket.customer.integrations.shopify.orders[0].name}} as requested.
If the customer is eligible for a partial refund
We have successfully processed a partial refund on your order {{ticket.customer.integrations.shopify.orders[0].name}} as requested.
Please allow (X-X) business days for the refund to be processed. These funds will be refunded back to the original form of payment used for the purchase.
Thank you and please let us know if there is anything else that we can help you with.
If the customer isn't eligible for a refund or store credit
We are very sorry to hear that you were not satisfied with your purchase. We can't process your refund request at this time because (insert the reason why a refund is not applicable).
Please let us know if you have any questions on this.
If the customer wants to follow up on a refund request that has been processed
Upon checking your order {{ticket.customer.integrations.shopify.orders[0].name}}, I can confirm that your refund has been processed on our end. You will see the refund amount on your payment account within 3-5 business days.
If you do not see any updates, I would recommend contacting your bank directly to verify the refund progress.
We apologize for any delays on this.
Please let us know if you have any questions.
All the best!
{{current_user.firstname}}
[Brand Name]
💡Tip: If you create a more specific refund Macro, we recommend adding the specific tags and corresponding actions that should be taken while using it. For example:
This action lets you choose whether you want to process a full refund or a partial refund:
Macros for appeasing customers with defective or damaged products
Minor Defects
Hello {{ticket.customer.firstname}},
It's {{current_user.firstname}} from (Brand Name). Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
I am so sorry for how you received this item!
Since this defect seems it should not affect the integrity of the item, we can provide the following options:
1. Keep the item and we will issue an XX% discount code for the inconvenience and condition that the product showed up in.
2. We will issue a return label for you to be able to send it back and we can then process a replacement or a refund.
Please note that if you decide to keep the item, it will not qualify for further compensation in the future if any additional issues occur.
Thank you,
{{current_user.firstname}}
[Brand Name]
Major Defects
Hello {{ticket.customer.firstname}},
It's {{current_user.firstname}} from (Brand Name). Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
We're so sorry you received your order damaged. We totally understand how frustrating this feels and we'd love to be able to make it up to you!
Here are a few options for you to choose from:=
1. A replacement (if stock allows).
2. A refund back to your original payment method.
3. A refund in form of store credit (gift card).
Please let us know what option would work best!
If the customer demands compensation for sending a defective product
Also, please use the discount code XXXX on your next purchase as a gift from us.
Thank you!
{{current_user.firstname}}
[Brand Name]
In the examples above, you may notice that in both situations, we are providing customers with options to choose from. From our experience, when customers can choose the type of service they want, they are more likely to be satisfied with their overall experience.
Macros for dealing with order cancellations
Order Cancellation: Not Shipped
Hi {{ticket.customer.firstname}},
We would love to assist you!
If the customer did not tell us what they wanted to change
Can you kindly share with us what you would like to change in your order?
Once we have this information, we can go ahead and update your order.
If the customer provided complete details regarding the order change request
We have successfully updated your order. We have sent you a new order confirmation to your email for your reference.
Please let me know if you have any questions and we look forward to getting your order in your hands!
Order Cancellation: Shipped
Hi {{ticket.customer.firstname}},
It appears that your order was fulfilled last {{ticket.customer.integrations.shopify.orders[0].fulfillments[0].created_at|datetime_format("MMMM d YYYY")}} and unfortunately we can no longer cancel it.
You can simply refuse the package upon delivery, and once your online tracking information updates that your order is on its way back to us, please let us know over email so we can assist and provide you with either a store credit or a refund.
If the customer did not provide the reason for cancellation
Out of curiosity, can you kindly share what made you change your mind about your order? I'd love to share this with our Product Team! From there, we can understand how we can improve things on our end and how we can best help you out.
Please let me know if you have any questions and I look forward to your reply.
Macros for live chat
Live chat can be an impactful support channel for your ecommerce business, as it can decrease response times, improve your overall customer experience, and drive revenue further.
Live chat closing message
This Macro is great to use as a sign-off; you can amend it according to your brand voice or the situation at hand.
Hi {{ticket.customer.firstname}}!
I hope I was able to address your concerns.
Please feel free to reach out anytime. All the best! {{current_user.firstname}}
If we can be of further assistance, please free to reach us again or send us an email at support@client.com. Thank you and have a great day!
Live chat for an agent coming soon
This Macro is great to use when you have agents online and receive a live chat message, but are busy responding to another customer.
Hi {{ticket.customer.firstname}}! We received your message and an agent will be with you soon!
You can pair this Macro with an autoresponder Rule, so customers automatically receive this message in response to the first live chat message they send. Here’s what that Rule looks like:
Get extra help from TalentPop to optimize your helpdesk
The basic setup of Gorgias is easy, but some brands may want extra help to fully customize Tags, Views, Rules, and Macros to provide great service as efficiently as possible. If this sounds like you, TalentPop is here to help.
As a trusted Gorgias Partner, we have extensive experience with Gorgias’s helpdesk. We understand that every business is different, and we strive to help each of our clients find the best solutions that work for their teams. We’re well equipped to customize the platform to your preferences and unique situation streamline your processes and help your business grow.
Whether you’re getting started with Gorgias or are ready to level up your helpdesk to meet your needs, our implementation team is here to be your Gorgias guide.
If you’re interested in learning more about how we can help, book a call with our team for a free consultation.
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