TL;DR:
Shoppers aren’t always going to reach out and ask the questions they have, especially if they’re going to have to wait for a response from a CX team.
That means you’re losing sales to friction, indecision, or information gaps.
In 2025, the average cart abandonment rate is 70.19%. But if you can find an AI tool that doubles as a support and sales agent, it could make all the difference.
Gorgias’s Shopping Assistant, for example, has brought a 62% uplift in conversion rate for brands that implement it.
Ahead, learn where you can leverage an AI shopping assistant to increase conversions and craft better purchase experiences.
An AI shopping assistant is a chat tool powered by AI to provide pre-sales support for shoppers. It can answer questions, make product recommendations, and help guide shoppers in the right direction if they’re stuck.
Gorgias's Shopping Assistant is a powerful, hyper-personalized AI tool built for Shopify brands. Unlike other AI tools, Shopping Assistant starts conversations with customers, not the other way around. It’s uniquely tailored for each customer by tracking browsing behavior during each session and remembering what shoppers say, keeping conversations natural and recommendations relevant.
It’ll also chat with shoppers in your own brand voice, as its responses are pulled right from the knowledge you feed it.
The stages of the customer journey where common drop-off points occur for brands that lack proactive support include:
There’s a big chance that shoppers—especially first-timers—have questions, but aren’t willing to wait for a human to get back to them. And when your CX team is off the clock? Customers will likely leave altogether.
An AI shopping assistant can help you engage customers right away, even outside your business hours.
Bra brand Pepper uses Gorgias Shopping Assistant to help shoppers find their perfect size. When it detects hesitation, Shopping Assistant points customers to the sizing guide.
This proactive approach creates an easy path for conversation and sets the precedent that any questions will be answered immediately, providing a better––and less confusing––experience.
“With Shopping Assistant, we’re not just putting information in our customers’ hands; we’re putting bras in their hands,” says Gabrielle McWhirter, CX Operations Lead at Pepper.
For shoppers in the Discovery stage, using a Shopping Assistant boosts clicks and time on site and reduces bounce rate. It does this by surfacing specific questions on relevant product pages. Pepper boosted their conversion rate by 19% with Gorgias Shopping Assistant.
Read more: How Pepper’s AI Agent automates 54% of support and converts 19% of conversations
In a retail environment, a salesperson can give shoppers recommendations by asking a few questions, especially if they’re unsure of what to buy.
AI shopping assistants have the ability to mirror those in-person shopping experiences by interacting with customers in real-time to help them find their perfect match.
Shoppers can give as much (e.g., “Help! What dress is suitable for a wedding reception?”) or as little information as they’d like, and the AI shopping assistant will do the rest.
It’s possible even for questions that are slightly vague, like a customer who types in “how to make up” without any other context:
For example, jewelry shop Caitlyn Minimalist uses Shopping Assistant to recommend products, engaging interested customers and bringing them closer to a purchase.
“As a result of Shopping Assistant, we've seen a measurable lift in AOV through more meaningful customer interactions,” says Anthony Ponce, Head of Customer Experience at Caitlyn Minimalist.
“Our clients are provided the right information at the right time, creating a seamless experience that builds trust and drives confident purchases."
According to data from Gorgias, email is the highest volume support channel, with ~25% of that tied to pre-sales. AI shopping assistants tackle these pre-sales asks and also upsell by recommending complementary products. This can lead to a boost in average order value (AOV) and conversion rate.
Read more: How Caitlyn Minimalist uses Shopping Assistant to turn single purchases into jewelry collections
The main reasons customers abandoned a cart in 2025 include:
An AI shopping assistant can mitigate or resolve these issues. They resolve crucial questions—like delivery time or return policies—that need in-the-moment answers. By alleviating pre-sale concerns, they give customers the confidence to make a purchase.
For example, bidet brand TUSHY leverages Shopping Assistant to answer questions about toilet compatibility that might flush a pending sale.
Aside from quelling customer concerns, Shopping Assistant can also send discount codes to close deals. Unlike general discount codes you find across the internet, these discounts are uniquely generated for each customer, keeping them engaged and on your site.
AI shopping assistants can reduce cart abandonment rate and increase conversion rate. Gorgias Shopping Assistant adjusts to your sales strategy by sending customers discount codes that can be the final nudge to checkout.
Most AI tools are built just for support. They deflect tickets and answer FAQs, but they’re not built to sell.
Shopping Assistant proves that support teams can also drive revenue by upselling, suggesting exchanges, and giving shoppers the confidence to try a brand for the first time (or to give it another shot).
Gorgias’s AI Shopping Assistant uses context-based decision making and looks for specific behavioral signals:
Feature |
Traditional Chatbot |
AI Shopping Assistant |
---|---|---|
Deflect tickets |
✅ |
✅ |
Answer frequently asked questions |
✅ |
✅ |
Upselling |
❌ |
✅ |
Proactively reaching out to offer support |
❌ |
✅ |
Use context-based signals to guide shoppers to checkout |
❌ |
✅ |
Ultimately, the cost of not adopting AI can be higher than the investment of implementing it. 77.2% of ecommerce professionals use AI to improve their work. Why not extend those benefits to your customers?
AI Shopping Assistants help you create better customer experiences overall. These tools help reduce customer effort, increase average order value, save would-be-lost sales, and create more customer touchpoints.
Hire the always-on Shopping Assistant that never misses a sale.
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TL;DR:
What’s the common factor between shoppers debating between products and considering a splurge? Hesitation.
Today’s shoppers are overwhelmed with choices. They don’t want to be left to figure things out on their own. They want guidance.
But most brands are missing that crucial piece of the puzzle. They lack a strategy that accompanies shoppers on their journey. A tool that encourages shoppers to proceed to checkout. And, ultimately, a customer experience devoid of a sales approach.
That’s why we built Shopping Assistant, an AI Agent that proactively engages browsers, offers context-aware product recommendations, and turns hesitation into conversions in real time.
And it’s working. Brands using Shopping Assistant are seeing a 62% uplift in conversion, 10% higher average order value, and 5x ROI.
Here’s a closer look at what’s behind the magic.
Most traditional chatbots passively wait for questions and deliver answers that aren’t personalized to each shopper's preferences.
Unlike these bots, Shopping Assistant reads real-time signals like pages viewed, cart contents, and conversation tone. This results in a solution that not only offers support but also offers personalized, proactive selling. This enables Shopping Assistant to continuously refine and adjust its playbook, evolving with each shopper as their journey matures.
Here’s how Shopping Assistant engages with customers across the shopping journey:
Take this example below. When a customer vaguely asks “how to make up,” Shopping Assistant interprets it as a sign of interest in makeup products and recommends a starter kit.
Where traditional bots reset with every message, Shopping Assistant does the opposite. It has built-in context-aware intelligence that remembers what shoppers have clicked, viewed, and added to their cart during a session.
This enables natural, relevant, and persuasive conversations that truly resonate with each shopper. It goes beyond reading messages and observes behavior to adapt its responses.
That means it knows if someone has:
With plenty of context to work with, Shopping Assistant is not only smarter but also more profitable than the average chatbot. It drives more conversions with product recommendations and lifts average order value with timely upsells based on what’s been added to the cart or viewed.
Here’s what it looks like in action: When a customer engages through a product page, Shopping Assistant recommends a matching outfit, suggesting it’s aware of alternate product variants and the customer's likely interest in that style.
Promotions are powerful, but they’re not one-size-fits-all.
With Shopping Assistant, merchants can define their discount strategy to align with their brand. These strategies can range from offering no deals to using aggressive promotions.
Once the strategy is set, Shopping Assistant waits for hesitation and customer intent to trigger a discount, firing it at the most conversion-worthy moment.
Shopping Assistant initiates conversations. It’s built to engage shoppers, spotting when they linger or show signs of confusion, stepping in with timely, personalized help.
Every second counts in ecommerce. If a shopper pauses on a product page or is left scrolling through an endless search results page, Shopping Assistant detects it in real-time and reaches out with a relevant prompt like:
Here’s how Shopping Assistant reduces drop-off, builds confidence, and drives faster decision-making in three different ways.
Shopping Assistant automatically triggers commonly asked questions depending on the product currently being viewed. In one click, shoppers can get the answer to the question they’re curious about. This combats hesitation caused by a lack of information, resulting in more confident conversions.
When shoppers land on the homepage, it’s easy to become overwhelmed and not know where to navigate. The Ask Anything Input provides an easy way to start a conversation with Shopping Assistant and get the guidance they need.
Shopping Assistant can refine its response to the customer based on the page context. For example, when the customer is on a product page, Shopping Assistant knows exactly what product is being asked about.
Shopping Assistant can step in to offer pinpointed help based on a shopper’s search query. Instead of scrolling through a results page, Shopping Assistant triggers a message based on what the shopper entered, offering an easier and faster way to find what they need.
Shopping Assistant’s suggestions are rooted in real context: what the shopper has viewed, added to cart, or asked about. Whether they’re exploring a specific product line or revisiting a category they’ve shown interest in, Shopping Assistant delivers relevant upsells and complementary items that make sense for the customer.
This personalized approach to upselling increases cart size without feeling forced—it’s smart, seamless, and sales-driven.
Shopping Assistant can even turn vague product questions into upsell opportunities. By asking questions, it learns more about an individual to come up with recommendations that best fit their preferences.
Shopping Assistant is transforming the way shoppers engage and helping ecommerce brands sell more effectively. Through smarter conversations and real-time personalization, it turns every interaction into an opportunity to convert, build trust, and drive revenue.
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TL;DR:
The most coachable team member on your support team might not be human.
Brands that want to keep up with rising customer expectations are turning to AI to help meet demand. But as SuitShop’s Director of Customer Experience, Katie Eriks, will tell you, great results don’t come from flipping a switch.
They come from coaching.
Since implementing Gorgias AI Agent, SuitShop has reached a 30% automation rate, all while maintaining a lean CX team and giving every customer the tailored experience they expect (literally and figuratively).
“I consider myself its boss,” said Katie, who runs the entire coaching process solo. With under an hour of weekly maintenance now, SuitShop’s AI Agent runs efficiently, accurately, and on-brand.
Katie spoke at Gorgias Connect 2025 to share exactly how she got there. You can watch her full session below:
When brands think about automation, they often imagine flipping a switch and watching repetitive tasks vanish. But in practice, it’s not that simple, at least not if you care about customer experience.
Gorgias encourages brands to treat their AI Agent like a junior teammate — someone you onboard, train, observe, and coach over time.
Brands that do this well are already seeing massive gains:
For SuitShop, automation was about creating space for their small team to focus on specialized service. Space to scale without scaling headcount. And space to do it all without losing their voice.
Katie and her team had been longtime Gorgias users, but when they turned on AI Agent in August 2023, the results were unremarkable. The responses weren’t inaccurate, but they weren’t helpful enough either.
What Katie learned was to “Be hands-on early. Use downtime to train. And never stop refining.”
So she got to work, not by replacing the tool, but by going deeper into it. Here are her coaching tips:
Katie made herself the sole point of contact for training and QA. That might sound like a lot, but over time, it became a light lift.
“At this point, it’s definitely less than one hour per week,” she said. “In the beginning, it was more time-consuming because I needed to create help center articles and Guidance regularly. Now I’ve got it down to a pretty quick thumbs-up, thumbs-down kind of process.”
Katie uses Monday mornings to review AI Agent tickets from over the weekend, when fewer human agents are available and AI takes the lead.
Read more: Why your strategy needs customer service quality assurance
Unlike many retail brands, SuitShop’s busiest time isn’t the holiday rush — it’s wedding season in the summer and fall. So when things quieted down in December, Katie used that time strategically.
She temporarily turned off the AI Agent to regroup.
“I decided to turn it off and really beef up our Help Center,” she explained. “I went back to the tickets I had to answer myself, checked what people were searching in the Help Center, and filled in the gaps.”
She built out content with a mix of blog knowledge, internal macros, and ChatGPT. Once she felt confident the content base was solid, she turned AI back on.
Read more: How to optimize your Help Center for AI Agent
Once SuitShop’s foundational content was in place, Katie didn’t just sit back and hope for the best. Instead, she built a repeatable feedback loop grounded in data — one that helped her spot opportunities for improvement before they became issues.
Rather than combing through tickets at random, Katie created custom views inside Gorgias to zero in on the most impactful coaching moments:
To keep all of this actionable, Katie logs insights in a shared spreadsheet that functions as a live to-do list. Every row includes:
These insights are also available in Gorgias’s dashboard, where you can identify the top issues customers had.
“Sometimes I do it all in the moment. Other times I’ll log it and come back later when I can take the time to do it right.”
By combining frontline feedback with structured ticket views, Katie turned scattered QA into a consistent coaching system — one that ensures SuitShop’s AI Agent keeps getting smarter every week.
One of Katie’s most effective strategies comes from her own team.
Like many CX leads, she noticed that some agents consistently resolved tickets in a single touch. That pattern, Katie realized, wasn’t just a win for customers, it was a roadmap for an AI-driven support strategy.
Her teammate Tacy quickly became her go-to signal for what the AI Agent needed to learn next.
“I pull her tickets often to see what she’s responded with. It helps AI learn from her directly.”
By reviewing Tacy’s ticket history, Katie identified standard replies that didn’t yet exist as macros or Guidance. If Tacy was writing the same sentence repeatedly or copy-pasting a reply manually, that meant it could (and should) be taught to the AI Agent.
She also tracked Tacy’s macro usage rate. If Tacy frequently used a macro for a certain issue, but other agents weren’t, it flagged an opportunity to standardize responses across the team and the AI.
The key insight? If it only takes one touch for a human to answer, the AI can be trained to do it too.
These small efficiency wins added up quickly, especially during peak season, when the ability to automate just a few extra conversations per day created meaningful breathing room for the rest of the team.
Related: How to automate half of your CX tasks
Automation without brand voice feels robotic. Katie made sure SuitShop’s AI Agent sounded like a natural extension of the team, and that started with a name: Max.
“We get replies like, ‘Thanks Max!’ from customers who think it’s a real person.”
Using AI Agent’s tone of voice settings, Katie went deep on personalization. She customized everything from sentence structure and greeting format to whether or not emojis and exclamation marks should be used (they shouldn’t, in SuitShop’s case).
Her AI Agent instructions include clear direction on:
Katie also made sure she instructed AI Agent to acknowledge customer emotions — especially frustration — and to offer reassurance when things went wrong.
And because AI responses are written at lightning speed, she regularly reviewed messages to ensure they didn’t come off as cold or abrupt, especially in sensitive situations like delayed wedding orders or size issues close to the event date.
In the workshop, Katie walked through two real support tickets where AI missed the mark and how she used those moments to improve.
In one case, a customer asked a common question: “The navy suit I’m looking at says ‘unfinished pant hem.’ Will the pants need to be hemmed?”
Despite having help articles and macros explaining this exact issue, AI Agent responded: “I don’t have the information to answer your question.”
That was a red flag.
Katie immediately stepped in to coach the agent by:
“I like to write a short internal note, so if I see that ticket again, I know exactly how I coached it.”
In another case, AI Agent was incorrectly handing off a sizing question about jacket sleeve length. Katie realized that a previous broad handover topic ("sizing and fit questions") was causing confusion by flagging issues that the AI should have been able to handle.
So she deleted the handover topic and replaced it with a clear guidance article — complete with example questions, macros, and links to sizing resources.
“Once I added specific questions in quotes, it made a huge difference.”
SuitShop didn’t automate 100% of CX — but that’s not the point. At 30% automation (and growing), Katie gives her team more time to specialize, connect, and handle urgent or emotional conversations with care.
Here’s what Gorgias offers to help as well:
Whether you’re just getting started or trying to move beyond basic automation, Katie’s approach proves that coached AI outperforms out-of-the-box tools every time.
Want to coach your AI Agent like SuitShop? Book a demo to see how Gorgias can help you scale smarter.
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TL;DR:
Vanessa Lopez, VP of Customer Experience at Recharge, recently led a workshop that outlined how brands can transform one-off interactions into rich subscription journeys that increase opt-ins, reduce churn rate, and boost lifetime value (LTV).
Here’s what we learned.
There are many different ways that you can offer subscriptions. Here’s a rundown of the most common.
The most common subscription type is “Subscribe and save.” Instead of making a one-time purchase, customers subscribe to a product and receive it on a different cadence, whether that's weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or quarterly.
For example, Apothékary offers a Subscribe and Save option for its herbal remedies where shoppers get a discounted rate if they subscribe every one, two, or three months.
Subscription boxes ship to customers monthly. Shoppers subscribe over a course of time, like every quarter, six months, or year. For example, CrunchLabs offers a prepaid Build Box option for kids and adults who want to tinker like engineers.
Meal kits are weekly food delivery services that either include pre-packaged ingredients to cook a dish or fully cooked dishes.
For brands that are selling higher-cost or unique items, subscriptions to purchase the same product over and over might not be the best way to gain subscribers.
The better option is a curated box, also known as a "subscribe and delight" or “mystery” box. It’s a unique way to cater to customers who prefer trying out different products, rather than receiving the same product on a recurring basis.
For example, premium snack box brand Bokksu specializes in shipping Japanese snacks. Rather than packing the same treats each month, the brand curates different items with every package. This creates both excitement and differentiation each time a customer gets a delivery.
Subscriptions are the original relationship between a brand and its customer. In fact, subscribers drive three times more value than the one-time buyer. That's because a one-time purchase is really just that—a moment in time—while subscriptions are a journey.
“When you have a customer and they subscribe, you get to see that moment they fell in love with your brand,” says Vanessa. “You get to see when they have those moments where they made you a part of their routine. Every time they engage with you and purchase something new, you learn their rhythms. You learn their preferences. It's impossible to do that with one-time buyers for the most part.”
Subscribers drive three times more value than the one-time buyer, and that's because a one-time purchase is really just that—a moment in time—while subscriptions are a journey.
Subscribers can only drive growth if you can get those customers to subscribe in the first place. This is what Recharge does: it takes customer interactions and turns them into a customer journey, allowing you to act on those signals in a personal way at scale.
It all starts the moment a shopper browses a product. Each touchpoint is an opportunity to turn that shopper into a subscriber—from the product description page to the subscription widget to checkout.
Vanessa’s tip? Make subscriptions the default option on a product description page. When you present customers with the better and more convenient option, and they see this information at the right time, they're more likely to subscribe.
Now, it’s time to test. Here's a checklist you can follow to A/B test your subscription journey:
When customers see the right information at the right time, they're more likely to subscribe. That's because it's the better and the more convenient option.
Let's say you have a customer who starts on a product description page. They decide not to subscribe—no worries. You can catch them in the cart.
When they add a product to their cart, you can upsell them with different subscription benefits so they know what they're missing out on. Do it again when they review their cart, and then again when they go to checkout, showing them complementary products that they might be interested in.
And don’t forget to take advantage of that post-purchase "your order is confirmed" high—offer customers cross-sell products, complementary products to their order, or similar items to what they've purchased in the past.
By creating multiple touchpoints for conversion, you’ll increase the possibility that they’ll make a purchase.
Set up automations in the subscription tool –– like Recharge –– you use. That means adding on upsell and cross-sell tools, and perfecting the times they trigger for customers. Test out different copy and cross-sell/upsell offers to see what resonates the most.
Just as important as acquiring customers is keeping them around.
The Recharge team names three core customer moments that might actually diverge from what brands expect to happen in the customer journey:
And while they might seem like hiccups in the process, these moments are actually hero moments. They’re moments that give you the opportunity to actually win those customers back.
For browsing shoppers, educational and informational resources are the best way to meet their needs, hesitations, and objections.
For regular subscribers, it’s providing them with direct control over their subscription, whenever they want.
The goal is to reach customers where they already are and respond instantly to their needs in a personalized way.
Gorgias’s Shopping Assistant does exactly that—meeting customers where they are by answering customer questions and even initiating conversations based on browsing activity.
This AI sales tool detects a shopper's intent, cart contents, and browsing behavior to initiate conversations, recommend products, and even send discounts as they make a decision.
Modern bidet brand TUSHY saw a 20% increase in chat conversion rate after implementing the tool.
Decide how you’d like to leverage AI and automation to meet customers where they are. That might be by providing a phone number that customers can interact with via SMS, or implementing a tool like Shopping Assistant to strike up conversational AI chats. Using AI and automation will help you better meet your customers where they are and at scale.
Rather than using AI to come up with problems your brand can solve, Vanessa recommends looking at the challenges your brand has already seen with subscriptions.
The key is to view AI as a tool that drives three core areas:
Vanessa says the most effective strategy starts with leveraging AI-powered tools, such as Recharge’s Concierge SMS.
Typically, SMS tools use template auto responses like, "How do you want to manage your subscription? Type one to cancel, type two to skip." But these aren’t compelling enough for customers to respond. What if they want to do something that doesn't fit in those two options?
Concierge SMS enables brands to build stronger relationships with their customers through conversations powered by pre-trained AI. It personalizes SMS support with customers, so relationships can expand into loyalty.
Implement an AI-driven subscription management tool that allows customers to interact and ask questions via SMS, rather than only being able to confirm or deny upcoming shipments.
Gorgias and Recharge are a powerful combination when it comes to integrating subscription management with top-notch customer support.
With Recharge, efficiently convert one-time buyers into subscribers, retain subscribers through intelligent interventions, and connect every customer touchpoint into one cohesive journey.
With Gorgias, sell more and resolve support inquiries with conversational AI.
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TL;DR:
At Gorgias Connect LA 2025, CX leaders from Tommy John, TUSHY, Triple Whale, and Talent Pop shared how support teams solve problems and drive revenue.
This shift, known as the support sales flywheel, doesn’t involve massive overhauls or shiny new tools. Instead, it means doing the small things exceptionally well, like picking up the phone, empowering agents to make judgment calls, and adding a personal touch where others automate.
These brands have shown that when support teams focus on consistency, connection, and conversion, the results compound. Every thoughtful interaction spins the flywheel faster, boosting loyalty, LTV, and revenue.
Ahead, we’re breaking down the most actionable takeaways so your team can start building its own support-led growth engine.
Watch the full panel here:
From scrappy install calls to AI-powered training, these CX leaders aren’t only talking about driving revenue, they’re doing it. Here’s how they’re turning support into a sales flywheel, and the tactics your team can start testing today.
“Customer service done right is actually a great source of revenue.” That’s how Tamanna Bawa, Tech Partner Manager at Triple Whale, kicked off the conversation on how data can transform CX from reactive to revenue-driving.
She advises segmenting customers based on purchase history and behavior to deliver more personalized, higher-converting interactions.
In a market where margins are razor-thin and ad costs are high, Tamanna emphasized that “incremental gains from personalization are the difference between companies that are thriving and the ones that are just surviving.”
What do you do when your hero product needs a cultural shift as much as it needs installation instructions? If you’re TUSHY, you send in your “Poop Gurus.”
Ren Fuller-Wasserman, Senior Director of CX at TUSHY, shared how her team launched a scrappy, free CX-led service that has now become a legendary video install program to help customers set up their bidets.
The real value wasn’t just tech support. As Ren put it, “It wasn’t about the actual install process, it was the encouragement they needed to change culture.” These calls sparked deeply personal moments (yes, even with cats and toddlers wandering in) and created the kind of emotional connection customers never forget.
Today, that service has evolved into a $15 paid add-on at checkout, and the customers who use it have significantly boost LTV and retention. It’s a masterclass in turning support moments into revenue through genuine human connection.
Phone support is back, and it’s becoming one of the most effective ways to turn conversations into conversions.
Ren from TUSHY swears by it. Her team uses customer phone numbers from abandoned carts to reach out directly. “You can send a hundred emails,” she said, “but a voicemail from a real person cuts through the noise.” Even if customers don’t answer, the fact that a brand called is memorable, and often enough to drive them back to checkout.
Max Wallace, the Director of CX Tommy John echoed the value of voice. His team recently implemented Gorgias Voice, using it to track conversion rates by agent. That visibility helps them identify what top performers are doing differently and replicate it across the team. “By the end of a tough call, customers often apologize for how they started. You can’t get that kind of de-escalation over email.”
In a world where inboxes are crowded and chat fatigue is real, a real voice builds real trust and real revenue.
Pro Tip: Don’t rush into phone if your other channels aren’t dialed in. “Master email and chat first. Then, start with limited phone hours. Taste it before scaling it,” said Armani Taheri, the co-founder of TalentPop.
For Max at Tommy John, revenue-driving support starts with two things: deep product knowledge and the freedom to bend the rules.
“We have five different fabrics for men’s underwear alone,” Max shared. To help customers choose the right one, agents need firsthand experience. That’s why Tommy John sends new products directly to the support team, so they can offer real, personalized recommendations like “Try Second Skin instead of Cool Cotton.”
But product knowledge is only half the equation. The other half is empowering agents to make judgment calls. Tommy John’s “Best Pair Guarantee” allows customers to try a product and get a refund or replacement if it’s not the right fit.
Agents are trained to prioritize retention, offering replacements instead of refunds, recommending better-suited products, and using their own discretion to keep customers happy.
As Max put it, “We don’t have really strict policies… we want them to use their best judgment.” That confidence translates into smoother resolutions, more cross-sells, and customers who stick around.
How do you train outsourced agents to drive revenue, without sounding like a sales team? According to Armani Taheri of TalentPop, it starts with confidence and context.
“You have to tailor-fit the training approach to each brand,” he explained. That means grounding agents in product knowledge, tone of voice, and customer journey before they ever interact with a shopper.
One of the most effective tactics is roleplaying. Armani’s team uses both live roleplays and AI-powered chat simulations to prepare agents for real conversations, pre-sales, post-sales, and everything in between. Tools like Replit and Lovable help create lightweight, brand-specific training environments agents can practice in at their own pace.
The goal isn’t to turn CX reps into hard sellers. It’s to give them the confidence and consistency to recognize revenue opportunities, and act on them in a natural, helpful way.
Ready to turn your CX team into a revenue engine? Here are some of the tools mentioned by the panelists that help make it happen:
Whether you're scaling phone support or experimenting with post-purchase outreach, the right tools make the flywheel spin faster.
They’re on the front lines with your most engaged customers, answering questions, easing doubts, and uncovering what really drives purchases. With the right tools and training, they resolve tickets and help close the sale.
With tools like Gorgias Voice, it’s easier than ever to connect the dots between conversations and conversions.
Want to see how your CX team can help drive growth?
Book a demo to see how Gorgias Voice powers sales through support.
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TL;DR:
Your CX team talks to customers every day. They know what’s confusing, driving purchases, and causing returns, because they hear it firsthand.
But all too often, those insights stay siloed in support tickets and live chat transcripts instead of informing the campaigns that shape the customer journey.
This post is here to change that. We’re breaking down the most valuable questions marketing teams should be asking their CX counterparts. When marketing and CX work together, you get more relevant messaging, smarter product positioning, and campaigns that convert.
Whether you’re planning a big seasonal push or just want to improve product education, this is where to start.
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Your CX team knows what makes shoppers hesitate. They’re the ones fielding questions like: Does this come in a larger size? Is it final sale? Will it arrive in time?
Beyond being pre-sale inquiries, they’re signals. They reveal what your customers care about most, and where your messaging may be falling short. When marketing teams tune into this, they can proactively address objections in landing pages, product detail pages (PDPs), emails, and top-of-funnel content.
At luxury jewelry store Jaxxon, Director of Customer Experience Caela Castillo saw firsthand how important it is to address these questions early.
“Chat used to be a support tool for repetitive questions and problem-solving, but now AI Agent takes care of that for us,” she said. Once those friction points were handled upfront, the CX team could focus on more meaningful conversations, and conversions improved.
And when AI recommended the wrong products? Conversions dropped. It was a clear signal that relevance matters, especially before the sale.
Ask your CX team:
“What do customers most often need to know before they buy, and how can we answer that earlier in the journey?”
Your best-selling product isn’t always your hero product. Sometimes, it’s that under-the-radar item that customers can’t stop talking about. The one that shows up again and again in reviews, chats, and post-purchase surveys.
The insight is gold for marketers. The key is to find out why people love it. Is it the fit? The feel? The results?
At online fashion brand, Princess Polly, Alexandria shared that her team expected Gen Z shoppers to lean on AI for recs, but what really influenced them was customer feedback. Reviews, not bots, built trust. That’s why campaigns built around real customer language and experiences often outperform the most polished product copy.
Shopping Assistant can turn those rave reviews into real-time action. It highlights top products using your Shopify product catalog to make personalized recommendations, proactively assists shoppers by using behavior signals, and even offers tailored discounts when they’re ready to convert. That means less guesswork, greater relevance, and an easier path to purchase.
Ask your CX team:
“Which product do customers rave about most, and what exactly are they saying?”
When customers are frustrated, it’s easy to blame the product. But in many cases, the issue isn’t quality, it’s communication.
At Shinesty, a men’s underwear brand, Molly Kerrigan, Senior Director of Retention, observed that high return rates often stemmed from unmet customer expectations.
She noted the importance of maintaining clear and consistent communication as the company grows, “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 notes that using Gorgias AI Agent enables Shinesty’s customers to receive quick answers, freeing her team's time for more complex or sensitive issues.
Similarly, Princess Polly saw that delivering a standout customer experience meant being fast, consistent, and helpful at every stage. After switching to Gorgias, their support performance improved dramatically:
Before changing the product, try updating the messaging. Use insights from CX to rewrite descriptions, add size guides, include user-generated content, or even build a quick-fit quiz. Small tweaks help set clearer expectations and reduce unnecessary returns.
Ask your CX team:
“Which products are driving the most complaints, and what do customers wish they knew before buying?”
Confusion is a conversion killer. If a customer isn’t sure about how something works, what’s included, or whether it’s right for them, they’re more likely to bounce.
That’s why it pays to ask your CX team where customers get stuck. Is it a product feature that needs more context? A vague store policy? A missing detail on a bundle?
The good news is that most confusion is fixable. Start with the following steps:
If you’re using Shopping Assistant, you can go even further. It can detect when shoppers are hesitant and provides real-time nudges. Like an assistant who knows all your needs, Shopping Assistant automatically surfaces the questions customers are likely to ask when evaluating a product, so they’re equipped with the clarity they need to proceed to checkout.
TUSHY, a modern bidet brand, faced similar challenges. As bidets aren't mainstream in North America, shoppers often had concerns about product compatibility and installation. They’d ask questions like:
Without immediate answers, many potential buyers would abandon their purchase. To address this, TUSHY implemented Shopping Assistant, providing instant support. Taking this approach resulted in an 81% higher chat conversion rate compared to human agents and a 13x return on investment.
“The Shopping Assistant has been a game-changer for our team, especially with the launch of our latest bidet models. Expanding our product catalog has given customers more choices than ever, which can overwhelm first-time buyers. Now, they’re increasingly looking to us for guidance on finding the right fit for their home and personal hygiene needs,” said Ren Fuller-Wasserman, Sr. Director of Customer Experience at TUSHY.
Ask your CX team:
“Where do customers get confused most often—and how can we clear that up sooner?”
Your CX team picks up on patterns that analytics sometimes miss. They hear which items customers ask about in the same chat, which products get added to carts together, and which pairings people reorder time and time again.
That intel is a goldmine for bundling and upselling. It helps you build smarter campaigns that feel relevant and drive real value.
Zoe Kahn, owner of Inevitable Agency and former VP of Retention and CX at Audien Hearing, emphasizes the importance of using AI to enhance customer interactions.
“A lot of that revenue was potentially missed revenue because these were customers sitting on the site, asking questions about the products, and wanting an answer now so they could purchase…Now, AI can answer those questions immediately and convert those customers.”
With Shopping Assistant, you can act on these insights in real time. It will surface personalized product pairings, bundle suggestions, or accessories based on customer behavior. All before they hit the checkout page.
Returns cut into your margins and chip away at trust. Most of the time, they’re not caused by poor-quality products. They happen because expectations weren’t met.
Your CX team already knows which items come back the most and why. Maybe the color doesn’t match the photos. Perhaps the fit runs small, or the product description left out a crucial detail.
Instead of pushing the product harder, reframe how you present it. Add real customer photos. Include fit notes or a sizing chart. Call out anything that might surprise the customer post-purchase. A little clarity upfront goes a long way in reducing returns and boosting retention.
At Pepper, an intimates brand specializing in bras for small-chested bodies, they recognized the importance of pre-sale education. When customers have sizing questions, their AI Agent, Penelope, can provide immediate assistance.
“Penelope takes the information we give her and responds better than a Macro. She tailors it so that it sounds like a natural conversation between two people,” said Gabrielle McWhirter, CX Operations Lead at Pepper.
By proactively providing instant support, Pepper improved customer satisfaction and saw an 18% uplift in average order value.
Ask your CX team:
“Which products get returned the most—and what could we do upfront to change that?”
Before you launch your next campaign, start with a quick sync with your CX lead. They already know what your customers need to hear. You just have to ask.
From fixing messaging gaps to surfacing the right products at the right time, these insights help you connect with customers in personal, timely, and relevant ways.
Tools like Shopping Assistant make it easier than ever to act on this data in real time. You can turn CX knowledge into dynamic recommendations, personalized nudges, and smarter discounts.
Ready to see how you can improve your online shopping experience? Book a demo to see how Gorgias Shopping Assistant engages customers in real-time.
TL;DR:
Scaling great customer support is often seen as a challenge, especially when ticket volumes climb and customer expectations rise. But for CX leads and executives, it’s essential to recognize that support isn’t just a cost center—it’s a profit driver. Exceptional customer support builds loyalty, drives repeat business, and creates upselling opportunities, directly boosting revenue.
That’s where Gorgias comes in. In this blog, we’ll show you how brands like Rumpl, TalentPop, Stylest, and Baby Gold have turned their support challenges into measurable wins with the power of automation and smart tools.
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Obvi was leaving money on the table. Without phone support, they faced challenges like subscription drop-offs and missed upsell opportunities. Voice as a support channel wasn’t on their radar, so valuable revenue streams slipped through the cracks. Plus, they lacked a proactive strategy to retain subscriptions.
By integrating Gorgias’ omnichannel support tech, Obvi transformed their customer experience. They introduced a personalized, phone-based support system tailored to upselling and subscription retention, and partnered with Aventus’ Learning Management System (ALMS) to give their agents expert training.
The result?
A customer support system that delivered exceptional service while boosting revenue.
Results achieved:
With Gorgias and phone support, Obvi unlocked the potential of voice to grow their business and deepen customer loyalty.
During peak seasons like back-to-school, Jonas Paul Eyewear struggled to keep up with the sheer volume of customer inquiries. The small customer care team was overwhelmed with repetitive questions, leading to slower response times and increased stress. They needed an efficient solution to handle the increased load while maintaining excellent service.
By partnering with Gorgias, Jonas Paul Eyewear transformed their customer service operations. AI Agent automated responses to common queries like prescription details and return policies, freeing up their team to focus on more complex issues.
An integration with Aircall allowed agents to handle phone calls directly within Gorgias, with access to customer interaction history and Shopify data. A Klaviyo integration streamlined inquiries related to home try-on kits and orders. Together, these tools created a customer-focused experience.
Results achieved:
"With faster responses and more proactive support through AI, we are seeing happier customers, which obviously translates into more retention and more brand loyalty. Overall with the improvement in first response time, we've really seen an uptick in customer satisfaction and less of an escalation in tickets."
—Lynsay Schrader, Lab and Customer Service Senior Manager at Jonas Paul Eyewear
As Dr. Bronner's business grew, so did their customer support challenges. The limitations of their previous system, Salesforce, made it difficult for their small customer experience (CX) team to handle increasing inquiries, especially repetitive questions. As a result, customers experienced longer response times, and the brand needed a more effective solution.
By switching to Gorgias, Dr. Bronner's transformed their customer support operations. They implemented AI Agent to automate routine inquiries, allowing their team to focus on more complex, personalized interactions.
The addition of a comprehensive Help Center empowered customers to find answers independently. At the same time, integrations with Shopify, Aircall, and Loop Returns streamlined the management of orders, returns, and voice communications — all within a single platform.
Results achieved:
"Our CX team is small, which is why leaning into automation was so crucial for us. We were really at a turning point at the beginning of the year, and we knew that we had to make a change. We had to make our tools work for us, not against us. Gorgias was a huge opportunity, and we decided to jump in head first. Within the first 30 days, we were able to automate 30% of customer interactions and are now up to 45%."
—Emily McEnany, Senior CX Manager at Dr. Bronner’s
Peak seasons like winter, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday brought immense pressure to Pajar’s small customer service team of five agents. With high ticket volumes and a bilingual customer base (English and French), maintaining quick response times and delivering excellent service became a major challenge. They needed a solution to streamline operations and keep their customers happy.
Partnering with Gorgias proved to be a game-changer. Pajar implemented AI Agent to handle common inquiries in both English and French, freeing their team to focus on complex tickets. Automation reduced repetitive tasks, improving team efficiency, while Gorgias’ 30-in-30 onboarding program helped them quickly hit their automation goals.
Results achieved:
"We were nervous to get started at first, but as soon as we had the implementation call it was a huge weight off of our shoulders — we knew it was going to be great. And we were right. The first day we turned it on, we started seeing results right away."
—Noémie Rousseau, Customer Service Manager at Pajar
LSKD, a popular Australian activewear brand, struggled to keep up with a high volume of customer inquiries during peak periods. Their previous system couldn’t handle repetitive queries efficiently, leading to slower response times and an overburdened support team. To maintain their commitment to excellent customer service, they needed a smarter solution.
Gorgias delivered. By implementing AI Agent, LSKD automated responses to common questions, enabling their team to focus on complex, high-value interactions. Automation streamlined workflows, reducing manual tasks, while integration with Shopify provided instant access to customer order data. LSKD could respond faster and more accurately, improving the overall customer experience.
Results achieved:
"Gorgias AI Agent is going to be a game-changer for us during BFCM. With the ability to provide immediate, personalized responses, we’re confident it will not only reduce the volume of repetitive inquiries but also ensure our community feels supported during the busiest time of the year.”
—Kailey Burton, Community Experience Head Coach at LSKD
Baby Gold, a jewelry brand known for its personalized pieces, faced growing challenges in meeting customer demands for quick and efficient support. Their existing customer service system lacked the automation needed to manage repetitive inquiries, leading to slower response times and an increased workload for their team.
They needed a solution to improve efficiency and meet customer expectations for rapid assistance.
AI Agent autonomously resolved customer email tickets by learning the brand’s unique policies and voice while automation reduced manual tasks. Easy integration with their existing systems provided agents with instant access to customer data, enabling quicker, more accurate responses and improving overall efficiency.
Results achieved:
"I feel that nowadays, people expect quick responses and rapid assistance. AI and tools such as AI Agent are perfect to meet these expectations."
—Sindi Melgar, Customer Service Manager at Baby Gold
Psycho Bunny, a bold menswear brand known for its edgy take on classic styles, faced a challenge: how to maintain a stellar customer experience while scaling their multi-million dollar business. With a focus on improving key performance indicators (KPIs) and customer satisfaction (CSAT), they needed a solution to boost efficiency without adding to their customer support team’s workload.
Psycho Bunny implemented AI Agent to handle routine customer inquiries, such as order status, returns, and exchanges, freeing up human agents to focus on more complex, high-value interactions.
With automation managing 26% of tickets and integration with existing systems, Gorgias provided the tools to streamline operations and deliver exceptional service, all from one unified platform.
Results achieved:
"I already love Gorgias because its email and chat capabilities are ahead of the competition, so I trust Gorgias to also build the best AI agent. And having all our CX tools within the same system is important—I don’t want yet another dashboard to check."
—Tosha Moyer, Senior Customer Experience Manager at Psycho Bunny
Stylest, a swimwear brand, set its sights on a big goal: to boost visitor engagement and convert more casual browsers into loyal customers. They wanted to increase sales and highlight their best-selling styles while providing an enjoyable shopping experience.
To achieve this, Stylest partnered with ECOM DEPARTMENT and implemented Gorgias Convert, an onsite marketing tool designed to optimize customer interactions and drive conversions. With Convert, they launched targeted campaigns that effectively guided visitors toward completing their purchases without disrupting the shopping experience.
Results achieved:
TalentPop, a customer service management agency serving ecommerce brands, set out to expand its client base and elevate its service offerings. To achieve these goals, they needed a partner that could align with their go-to-market strategies, provide innovative tools, and help attract new business.
TalentPop tapped into Gorgias’s robust platform and co-selling initiatives to acquire mutual customers.
They received tailored guidance to plan forward-thinking strategies, looking 1–2 years ahead, while maintaining a high standard of service delivery. Access to essential tools and operational support allowed TalentPop to streamline processes, boost efficiency, and increase revenue from customer support services.
Results achieved:
"Gorgias has been instrumental in TalentPop’s growth from the start of our partnership. They have provided key prospect opportunities, supported us in winning accounts, and invested in TalentPop by bringing on best-in-class customer service agents to support their teams."
—Olivia Parker, Senior Partnerships Manager at TalentPop
Rumpl’s manual, 3PL-dependent returns process was time-consuming and inefficient, with resolutions taking 2–3 weeks. A reliance on shared Excel sheets created operational bottlenecks during busy periods and frustrated customers.
By integrating Loop Returns with Gorgias, Rumpl automated and streamlined their returns process. Customers could manage returns and exchanges via an automated portal in the Gorgias chat widget. Self-service tools and automated communications reduced manual workloads, while centralized support within Gorgias improved efficiency and visibility.
Results achieved:
"The Gorgias/Loop integration has been really useful for us. Being able to view return info in Gorgias, then open that return in Loop with one click, makes it super easy to navigate and resolve any issues the customer might have."
—Jacob Cantu, Senior Customer & People Experience Manager at Rumpl
Great customer support goes beyond answering questions. It involves building trust, driving loyalty, and turning everyday interactions into opportunities for growth. From streamlining returns to automating repetitive tasks, brands like Rumpl, TalentPop, Stylest, and Baby Gold show how the right tools can transform support into a revenue-driving powerhouse.
With Gorgias, you can work smarter, resolve issues faster, and create exceptional experiences that keep your customers coming back.
Want to see how Gorgias can help you scale your support and grow your business? Book a demo today and discover the tools that will take your customer experience to the next level.
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TL;DR:
Tone of voice—and a strong brand personality—have become essential components of exceptional customer service.
As many brands introduce AI to automate customer service interactions, the challenge of ensuring that AI is helpful looms. Part of that helpfulness means speaking to customers in a way that connects with them, not alienates them.
That’s why implementing AI that uses your brand’s signature tone of voice has never been so important.
This post will explore why tone of voice matters in customer service and provide insights on how AI can effectively replicate brand voice, with tips on implementing it successfully.
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Through a customer service lens, tone of voice is the style, word choice, and general vibe of how your brand speaks when it communicates with customers. Tone of voice is one of the key components of brand identity, so the tone of voice a support team uses will always align with its greater brand.
According to Statista, 64% of customers prefer making purchases from companies that create experiences tailored to their needs and wants. A consistent tone of voice does just that, building trust, creating better relationships between customers and brands, and making experiences more personal.
On the flip side, brands that don’t prioritize tone of voice — especially when it comes to AI — will see robotic tones cause a loss of customer trust.
51% of customers share concerns that brands that use AI won’t connect them to a human. But if you choose the right AI tools that leverage your brand’s information and use it effectively, you can train it to mimic your unique voice — sometimes to the point where customers don’t even know that it’s the AI talking.
That’s true for the CX team at toddler carrier brand Wildride.
”An influencer emailed us saying, 'I really love you guys,' and our AI Agent replied, 'Love you too,' with heart emojis, which was really funny. It was just like an email from me and my other team members,” says Amber van den Berg, their Head of Customer Experience.
Wildride trusts Gorgias AI Agent to manage a high volume of tickets while still providing each customer with a great experience.
📚 Further reading: How Wildride automated 33% of email tickets with AI Agent
AI Agent uses a few key components to mimic tone of voice, including LLMs (Large Language Models) to form human-like responses, guidance from you, and the internal resources you provide it.
“We’ve had customers respond to AI Agent thinking they were speaking to a real person. That’s how elevated the response was from AI,” says Emily McEnany, Senior CX Manager at Dr. Bronner’s.
You can absolutely train AI to match your brand's specific voice and style. Here are a couple of tips that will help you be successful:
If your brand has an established voice and tone, make sure that you either have internal documents that detail it or can describe it accurately in a couple of paragraphs.
You’ll use that information to help train the AI, so it’s essential that it’s up-to-date and accurate.
If you don’t have an established tone, now is a great time to generate your brand voice. Review customer conversations and the copy on your website. Chat with your marketing team and even your brand’s founder to get a clear picture of what it is or what you’d like it to be.
Here’s a quick-start guide for how to find your tone of voice:
Most AI-powered tools will allow you to set up some sort of guidance around how they interact with customers. If you use Gorgias AI Agent, you’ll be able to set specific tone of voice parameters. Choose from three pre-built options—Friendly, Professional, Sophisticated—or Custom to give it your own instructions.
For example, jewelry brand Baby Gold uses an upbeat, friendly, warm, and personable tone. They would likely choose the Friendly option, which is the go-to option for many teams.
“Sometimes agents forget personal details to call out when communicating with our customers, like birthdays or weddings,” says Sindi Melgar, their 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 Michelle is able to adopt is definitely on brand for us.”
If you’re looking to provide your own specific guidelines, create custom guidance like Wildride did below:
📚 Recommended reading: How to customize AI Agent with 7 brand voice examples
In general, you should always keep an eye on how your AI tool is answering questions to ensure that it’s providing accurate responses and that your customers aren’t getting frustrated. Combing through responses manually can be overwhelming, so that’s why Gorgias offers an AI Feedback feature.
In the ticket sidebar you’ll find a summary of the response AI Agent provided, including why it responded the way it did and the resource it pulled the response from.
Then, give feedback by using the 👍 or 👎 icons to mark AI Agent’s response as correct or incorrect. AI Agent uses this feedback to improve responses over time.
📚 Recommended reading: How to coach AI Agent and give feedback
Any time you add new policies or update existing ones, make sure you add them to your helpdocs and Macros, which are the main resources the AI is going to draw from.
The more consistently you can go in and provide the AI direct feedback on each response, the more easily AI will nail your unique tone.
Your brand’s tone of voice makes a huge impact on the relationships you build with customers. Combining your unique brand voice with AI means you’ll provide more personalized responses and resolve customer issues faster.
“We were hesitant at first, but AI Agent has really picked up on our brand’s voice,” says Lynsay Schrader, Lab and Customer Service Senior Manager at Jonas Paul Eyewear. “We’ve had feedback from customers who didn’t even realize they were talking to an AI.”
Gorgias AI Agent is the go-to tool for AI-driven customer support that aligns with brand tone.
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TL;DR:
Forrester’s 2024 Customer Experience Index reports that 39% of brands’ customer experience (CX) quality has declined over the past year.
It can be challenging to get a full understanding of how your team—and AI, if you use it—are truly performing.
This is true even with metrics like CSAT.
“A 5-point scale only tells you and your agents so much, and relying on consumers providing feedback further limits what you’re able to look at and learn from,” says Kayla Oberlin, Senior Manager of Customer Experience at amika.
Quality Assurance (QA) is becoming a more crucial component of a customer experience strategy, especially one that prioritizes customer happiness.
We’ll cover the importance of customer service QA, best practices, tools, and tips to implement QA effectively.
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In the CX context, QA (Quality Assurance) refers to reviewing customer conversations to improve your support team’s performance and enhance customer satisfaction. QA ensures a consistent and satisfying customer journey across touchpoints, including your website, support channels, and social media.
Aside from accuracy issues, a manual quality assurance process is:
The solution isn’t for CX teams to skip the QA process altogether but to automate it.
According to research from McKinsey, “A largely automated QA process could achieve more than 90 percent accuracy—compared to 70 to 80 percent accuracy through manual scoring—and savings of more than 50 percent in QA costs.”
With an automated QA process, brands can:
According to Statista, 94% of customers are more likely to purchase again after receiving top-notch support. Quality assurance ensures that every customer gets the same experience, and provides agents with the feedback to learn and stay on-brand with each resolution.
At its core, QA:
Addressing errors early is important, as even small mistakes can harm customer trust and create lasting negative impressions. QA tools can prevent mistakes because of better coaching and training. This can stop misinformation in its tracks –– and from escalating into bigger problems down the line.
QA makes sure that all customer touchpoints, like calls, emails, live chat, and even AI responses, are handled with the same level of care. This is especially helpful when training new team members, introducing new products or policies, or during high-traffic periods.
Consistent and reliable experiences build customer trust and loyalty. If you were to reach out to a brand and have an amazing experience the first time but a bad experience the next, you’d probably question which experience was the norm.
Top-notch experiences that happen time and time again tell your customers that you’ll always be there to help. This can boost repeat sales and even referrals: According to Statista, 82% of customers recommend a brand after a great experience.
Aside from increasing happiness and making customers feel heard and appreciated, personalized support also affects your bottom line. Statista notes that 80% of businesses found that providing personalized customer experiences led to increased spending for consumers.
With QA, teams are able to rate and review all tickets instead of spot-checking. This provides them with a:
Whether it’s lowering resolution times, introducing a knowledge base, or adding AI Agent to your team, making continuous improvements will help you stay ahead of the competition.
Implementing a QA program (especially if you can automate it) is one of those additions that provides you with the refinements you need on a resolution-to-resolution level.
QA best practices include:
As you set out to integrate a Quality Assurance process into your CX program, first establish benchmarks for various metrics and KPIs. These benchmarks help track and evaluate the performance of QA as you implement it.
If you don’t already track customer support metrics, CSAT, first response time (FRT), resolution time, and net promoter score (NPS) are great ones to start with.
💡Tip: If you use Gorgias, you’ll find your current support performance statistics in the Statistics menu. Make sure that you can see back at least six months. Then, compare an equal time frame for post-QA implementation.
While it might sound a bit “meta” to monitor your quality assurance (which is already monitoring your support responses), it’s still worth noting.
Ensure that your QA process works smoothly, helps your metrics rather than hurts them, and provides actual helpful feedback to your agents.
The simplest way to maintain your support quality standards is to use an automated QA tool. Automating the QA process lets CX teams get deeper insights into agent strengths and areas for improvement, and captures deeper insights than a CSAT score could.
Understanding how customers feel will allow you to fine-tune your processes and ensure you’re delivering a consistent and high-quality experience. Here are a few ways to collect feedback:
Lack of resources, ineffective training, poor communication between team members, not having the right tools, and doing everything manually are some of the challenges you can encounter when adding a QA process.
Here are a couple of solutions we recommend:
By prioritizing QA, your team can identify potential problems early, reduce errors, and improve overall performance, leading to a smoother, more reliable experience for customers –– and your CX team.
In the long run, brands that focus on QA can gain a competitive edge, building stronger relationships with customers and driving sustainable growth. Book a demo now.
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Let's talk about something that often gets overlooked in ecommerce: what happens after someone hits that "Place Order" button. You might think the hard part's over once you've made the sale, but here's the thing the post-purchase experience can make or break your relationship with customers.
In today's competitive online marketplace, those relationships are everything — especially considering that loyal customers spend an average of 67% more per purchase than new customers.
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Providing an excellent post-purchase customer experience can turn one-time customers into loyal advocates who are more likely to make repeat purchases and recommend your brand to others.
When someone buys from your store, they're not just getting a product — they're starting a relationship with your brand.
A great post-purchase experience shows customers you actually care about their satisfaction beyond just making the sale. 90% of U.S. customers say that an immediate customer service response is "important" or "very important.”
When you nail this part, something magical happens: one-time shoppers transform into passionate advocates who not only come back for more but can't help telling others about their amazing experience with your brand.
Having accessible support and an efficient and easy returns process may make the difference between a happy customer and an unsatisfied one.
Trust is everything in online shopping. When customers feel supported after making a purchase, they're much more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt if something goes wrong down the line.
It's like building a friendship: every positive interaction adds another layer of trust. And that trust translates directly into repeat business and glowing recommendations.
The post-purchase support experience makes a huge difference in building that trust. In fact, 96% of customers say excellent customer service builds trust.
Great post-purchase support can actually help reduce your return rates. By addressing concerns quickly and providing clear information upfront, you can prevent many returns before they happen.
This can save you money on shipping and restocking and create a smoother experience that keeps customers happy and your business healthy.
Automation eliminates manual tasks, freeing up your team to focus on more strategic initiatives. By automating repetitive tasks, you can improve efficiency and productivity, allowing your team to focus on more value-added activities.
You can automate everything from customer support to returns and exchanges to your order tracking and more. Besides meeting customers' straightforward needs, automation allows you to focus your team's energy on solving bigger problems and strengthening customer relationships.
Automation helps ensure consistency across all your post-purchase processes.
When customers know they can count on a reliable experience every time they shop with you, it builds confidence in your brand.
Plus, fewer mistakes mean happier customers and less time spent fixing problems.
Speed matters in today's world, and automation helps you deliver faster, more personalized responses to customer needs.
Whether it's instant order updates or quick responses to questions, automation helps you meet and exceed customer expectations. The result? More satisfied customers who feel valued and understood.
Here are some ways to automate the post-purchase experience:
Streamline the returns process with automated return labels, tracking, and updates. Use ReturnGO to automate this process, saving time and reducing manual errors. With automated returns, you can provide a hassle-free experience for customers, encouraging them to return to your store in the future.
Automated returns can help to improve the customer experience by making the returns process easier and more convenient. 65% of customers say the speed and ease of refunds affect where they choose to shop.
By automating tasks such as generating return labels and tracking packages, you can reduce the time and effort required for customers to return items.
Think about it from their perspective — if returning an item is hassle-free, they'll feel more confident buying from you in the future. It's like having a safety net that makes customers more comfortable taking chances on new products.
In today's fast-paced world, customers expect quick and efficient support. Using a customer experience platform like Gorgias, you can manage all your customer support tickets in one place, making it easier to provide fast, accurate help when people need it.
By centralizing your post-purchase support, you can manage support tickets more efficiently, respond to customer inquiries quickly, and provide the most up-to-date information. This centralized approach can hugely improve response times.
Nobody likes being left in the dark about their order. Automated post-purchase notifications keep your customers informed every step of the way - from order confirmation to delivery and returns. Using tools like ReturnGO, you can send personalized updates that make customers feel looked after. This is essential for building customer loyalty.
Keeping customers informed about their orders can help reduce customer anxiety. When customers know what to expect, they’re less likely to worry about their purchase and are more likely to keep buying from you again and again.
To truly streamline your post-purchase customer service, if you connect your returns management system with your customer support system, you really bring all of the pieces of a puzzle together.
When these two systems are in sync, you can create a smooth workflow that makes things easier for both your team and your customers.
By automating tasks like creating support tickets and processing returns, you can save time and create a more reliable, efficient system that helps you serve customers better. No more jumping back and forth between systems to check on a return when a customer reaches out about it.
The ReturnGO-Gorgias integration makes this happen seamlessly, with features like:
The ReturnGO-Gorgias integration makes it easy for your team to manage returns and communicate with customers without having to jump between systems to hunt for information.
So, there you have it! In the world of online shopping, how you handle the after-purchase experience can be just as important as making the sale in the first place.
By automating your post-purchase process, you can create a seamless and satisfying customer experience.
Tools like ReturnGO and Gorgias can help you create the kind of experience that builds customer loyalty.
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TL;DR:
People are only able to identify AI-generated content 46.9% of the time. That’s less than half the time!
In the ecommerce customer service industry, this is just one reason teams are getting more comfortable with using AI.
Better language processing abilities mean AI can be a better extension of CX teams, relieving agents of repetitive questions, like where is my order?, while speaking in a way that’s familiar and delightful to customers.
Upholding a strong brand voice should be one of your top priorities in CX. With Gorgias AI Agent, you can choose AI Agent’s exact tone of voice, from sophisticated to fun. Below, check out seven AI Agent brand voice examples from real customer conversations.
“We’ve had customers respond to the AI thinking they were speaking to a real person. That’s how elevated the response was from AI.”
—Emily McEnany, Senior CX Manager at Dr. Bronner’s
Tone of Voice refers to how AI Agent communicates with your customers. In Gorgias, you can select from three pre-built tone options:
Or, you can create a custom tone, keeping your brand guidelines, style guide, and target audience in mind.
Note: AI Agent and Tone of Voice are only available to Gorgias Automate subscribers.
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Explore how effectively AI Agent adapts to seven distinct tones in the examples below. First, we’ll show you what a preset AI Agent tone option sounds like, then we’ll move on to six examples using custom instructions.
Feel free to copy and paste our provided instructions to set up your AI Agent with the custom tone of your choice, or, even better, take some inspiration to create your own.
A friendly AI Agent is the go-to for most CX teams. A Friendly tone of voice is outgoing and welcomes inquiries with enthusiasm. If you were to imagine the model support agent, they would speak like this.
The Friendly tone of voice is available by default in AI Agent’s settings.
Here’s how an AI Agent with a Friendly tone of voice responds to a customer asking for samples and coupons:
Now, we move away from AI Agent’s default Tone of Voice options and toward the vast possibilities of the Custom option.
If you prefer your AI Agent get to the point in as few words as possible, create a Custom tone of voice that breaks up text into separate lines, limits paragraphs to two to three sentences, and keeps responses short.
💡 Tip: Access a custom tone of voice by going to Automate > AI Agent > Settings > Tone of Voice > Custom. A text field will appear where you can write your instructions.
Tone of voice instructions:
Acknowledge the customer's feelings by briefly repeating their initial concern(s). Break text up, don’t send entire paragraphs, and keep responses short and easy to read. Keep interactions brief but filled with empathy. We are not long-winded. Keep an informative tone while remaining professional, clear, and easy for customers to follow. Insert links where needed. Don't use too many adjectives when expressing empathy. Never tell the customer to email support or contact our customer service team.
Here’s how an AI Agent with a direct and brief tone of voice responds to a customer who wants to cancel their order:
Who says support agents can’t have personality? Bring some fun into your conversations by creating a custom tone of voice that allows your AI Agent to use emojis and exclamation points.
Tone of voice instructions:
Greet with first name only. Acknowledge the customer's feelings by repeating their initial concern(s). Be concise and provide shorter responses, try to keep your responses to a few sentences. Use a warm, positive, and engaging—like chatting with a helpful, considerate friend. Sign off with "Best Regards". Avoid jokes or comments related to sensitive topics. Make the customer feel like a friend. You can include approved emojis for a personal touch and exclamation points. Approved emojis to use: 💞🫶✨🥰💖🎀💓💘🥳💗💕💯 You should recognize and celebrate personal milestones mentioned by customers, making the interaction feel more personal. After the customer's initial message, there's no need to restate their issue in follow-up responses.
Here’s how an AI Agent with a fun tone of voice responds to a customer asking about exchanging their damaged product:
Customer support often gets a bad rep. Customers anticipate long response times and unpleasant interactions. Flip customer expectations by giving your AI Agent a calming and comforting voice that can instantly fix negative experiences.
💡 Tip: Brands in the wellness and baby industry would do well to use a comforting tone of voice for their AI Agent.
Tone of voice instructions:
Our brand embodies the role of a nurturing parent, promoting happiness, growth, and well-being while creating moments of joy and inspiration. Stay genuine and reflect childlike wonder without being overly sentimental. We maintain a positive and supportive tone, offering a safe, comforting space. Avoid admitting fault or apologizing. Be shorter in replies. Do not offer replacements. Do not give out phone numbers.
Here’s how an AI Agent with a comforting tone of voice responds to a customer asking about exchanging their damaged product:
Give your AI Agent a laid-back, “we’ve got your back” vibe that feels like chatting with a buddy. This tone keeps things casual, approachable, and like you’re ready to tackle any issue together.
Tone of voice instructions:
Sound like a gym bro. Speak casually and friendly. Be eager to help. However, do not go overboard with puns or stereotypical phrases. You may use the following emojis: 🤙💪🏋️ End responses with "Stay awesome,"
Here’s how an AI Agent with a bro-y tone of voice responds to a customer asking about glove sizing:
If your brand isn’t afraid to lean into humor and puns, this tone will definitely connect with your audience. Let your AI Agent use wit and clever wordplay to keep conversations lighthearted and customers smiling at their screens.
Tone of voice instructions:
Speak in bee and honey puns and use colorful emojis. Use at least one emoji per message. Keep your messages brief. Sign off with a different pun in every conversation. If a customer is upset or needs urgent help, avoid puns.
Here’s how an AI Agent with a punny tone of voice responds to a customer asking about suit sizes:
In all of our examples, AI Agent responses can easily be mistaken for one of your human agents. But if, for any reason, you want to change that by making your AI Agent sound robotic — it’s possible.
Tone of voice instructions:
Sound like a robot. Make robot sounds and puns. Use short, direct, and easy-to-read sentences.
Here’s how an AI Agent with a robotic tone of voice responds to a customer asking about exchanging their damaged product:
Like a chameleon, AI Agent adapts to your brand voice. Whether it’s friendly, professional, or a custom tone, you can be sure that every interaction aligns with your brand’s identity.
With AI Agent on your side, you have the power to make each conversation feel authentic. Take it from Psycho Bunny’s Senior Customer Experience Manager Tosha Moyer who says, “The overall tone is good, and its responses are really excellent.”
Ready to see AI Agent’s excellence for yourself? Book a demo and discover how AI Agent can be a permanent part of your team.
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This episode’s featured guest is Nik Sharma, the CEO at Sharma Brands. He works with founders and executives of a wide variety of brands to launch their digital platform, develop an acquisition and retention strategy, expand their channels, and optimize their revenue. He has worked with big brands such as Bill Blass, Roc Nation, and Haus, and he is on the podcast today to discuss the importance of customer service.
Customer service is a brand’s frontline of defense. They are the first to know when something is wrong, broken, or if anything can be done better. By identifying the needs, concerns, and issues of the customer faster than anyone else, they can also fix or address problems before it gets any bigger and becomes damaging to the company. For example, when Nik was working with Judy, an emergency kit brand, there was an issue with their discount code. It simply was not working but no one knew until an online shopper got in contact with customer service. Immediately, the code was fixed and although Judy must have lost several potential customers during the mistake, they could have lost far more if customer service were not there to receive and respond to the matter.
It is important to keep the customer happy. If it is their first time ordering from a brand and they have a less than stellar experience, they are most likely not going to order again. They will not give any of the company’s second products a try, such as the more expensive purchases or subscriptions. That is why customer service is there to pacify the consumer and their issues, acting as a prevention method to any bad experiences. By offering even simple solutions from a technical standpoint, such as dealing with refunds or providing a shipping label, the customer is excited that the brand provided them with a solution.
Through this excitement and acknowledgement, an intimate relationship is created between the brand and customer. The customer feels valued as the brand understands and emphasizes with them. They recognize that they will be taken care of and as more customers begin to feel the same way, a community is built. Every company talks about wanting to build a community and all the strategies that it will take to do so, but the easiest and fastest way to accomplish that is by just having an efficient customer support team. Even a simple third-party logistics team can give a significant boost to a brand by providing front-line workers for customers.
It is not an exaggeration to say that customer service is the most vital piece of a brand. Nik has seen firsthand what good customer service can do and how much feedback, both positive and negative, it can receive. By offering world-class customer experiences, it can boost businesses to new heights and maximize profits. To speak to Nik and to get a further insight into the importance of customer service, he can reached via text at 917-905-2340.