TL;DR:

• Full-screen pop-ups disrupt the shopping experience. They frustrate visitors by interrupting their browsing and increase bounce rates, driving 72% of customers away.
• Gorgias Convert offers a non-intrusive alternative. With a chat-based widget, it engages customers naturally without interrupting their journey.
• Convert tailors messages to shopper behavior. Personalized campaigns detect browsing habits, cart details, and exit intent to deliver relevant offers at the right moment.
• Shopify brands see measurable results with Convert. Users report conversion boosts of 6-10%, improved customer satisfaction, and revenue growth, proving its effectiveness over traditional pop-ups.

Looking to grow an email list to capture leads or offer welcome incentives? These days, the default solution is to plaster a full-screen pop-up on your homepage. 

It seems effective on the surface, collecting emails right off the bat, but dig deeper, and these pop-ups disrupt the shopping experience and skyrocket bounce rates—with 72% of customers exiting a website.

But how else do you get your message across?

That’s where Gorgias Convert comes in—a smarter, more customer-centric tool to drive conversions without pushing your visitors away. 

Below, we’ll explore why it’s time to move on from full-screen pop-ups and how Gorgias Convert offers a better alternative for Shopify brands looking to boost engagement and revenue.

What’s wrong with full-screen pop-ups?

Pop-ups can be an effective marketing tool, but their full-screen counterpart often creates more problems than they solve. These intrusive overlays pose several challenges that can harm both user experience and your bottom line.

Disruptive experience 

Full-screen pop-ups demand attention, often at the worst possible moment—like when a customer is browsing products or is just about to check out. This experience can frustrate visitors and lead them to abandon your site entirely.

High bounce rates

The BBC says every extra second a page takes to load can cost you 10% of your users—and pushy pop-ups don’t help. If your pop-ups are poorly timed or overly intrusive, visitors feel unwelcome, causing them to leave before exploring your offerings.

Lack of personalization

Traditional pop-ups are static and one-size-fits-all. They can’t adjust messaging based on where the customer is in their shopping journey or their behavior on your site.

Can be blocked

Many users employ ad blockers that filter out pop-ups altogether, meaning your message never even reaches a portion of your audience.

Why Gorgias Convert is the better alternative: 7 benefits

Gorgias Convert flips the script by offering a subtle, customer-friendly way to capture leads and drive sales without the drawbacks of full-screen pop-ups. Here’s why your Shopify brand should make the switch:

1. Non-intrusive 

Gorgias Convert integrates seamlessly into your store, using a chat-based widget that feels like a natural part of the browsing experience. Using chat to double as a supporting and converting tool is less disruptive, allowing customers to explore your store at their own pace.

2. Caters to user behavior

Convert makes it easy to bring any type of campaign to life. Catch the attention of the exact shoppers you want by detecting their browsing behavior, customer profile, cart attributes, and more.

For example, the exit intent campaign is the top-performing Convert campaign—it detects when a user is about to leave and displays a discount code. It’s fully customizable, allowing you to tailor offers based on how much time they’ve spent on a page, the number of items in their cart, or if they’ve visited more than three times without making a purchase.

3. Customizable messaging

Unlike one-size-fits-all pop-ups, Convert lets you tailor your messaging based on customer behavior, order history, and engagement. For example, if a customer is browsing a specific product, Convert can offer a relevant discount or incentive tied directly to that item.

4. Encourages conversations

With Convert, you’re not just collecting an email address—you’re starting a conversation. The tool allows you to engage with customers in real-time through pre-set flows that guide them toward taking action, whether it’s signing up for your newsletter, redeeming an offer, or completing a purchase.

Related: 6 types of conversational customer service + how to implement them

5. Mobile-friendly

In 2024, smartphones were responsible for generating 68 percent of online shopping orders. To meet shoppers where they are, Convert’s chat-style interactions are optimized for mobile users. Unlike traditional pop-ups that don’t display correctly on smaller screens, Convert maintains a seamless experience for shoppers who prefer to shop on the go.

6. Integrated with Shopify and Gorgias

Using Convert means you can combine immediate assistance with smart marketing through its native integration with Gorgias and Shopify. For example, if a customer hesitates to make a purchase, you can intervene with a live chat offer or product recommendation in real-time.

The Shopify integration also allows you to generate unique discount codes that expire within 48 hours—preventing them from being shared on unauthorized coupon sites. These codes are automatically created with customizable thresholds, such as discounts for specific collections or individual users, without manual setup.

7. A/B testing made easy

Convert allows you to test different messages and incentives, giving valuable insights into what resonates most with your audience. This data-driven approach ensures your lead capture strategy evolves with shoppers over time.

Read more: How campaign messaging can increase conversions

Rave reviews from real Shopify brands

Shopify brands using Gorgias Convert have led to a conversion rate boost of 6-10% more across their website, up to a 24% click-through rate and 43% click-to-order rate, and improved customer satisfaction. By prioritizing a frictionless shopping experience, these brands are turning casual visitors into loyal customers.

Here’s what some happy brands have to say about Convert:

Haircare brand, Kreyol Essence, influenced 13% of revenue with Convert campaigns: “With Convert, we’ve not only improved our conversion rates but also created a seamless, personalized shopping experience that our customers love. It’s like having a personal assistant for each shopper. Thanks to Convert, we can interact with our customers and surface key information at the right time, turning clicks into connections."

Brands using customer service management agency, TalentPop, love how easy it is to generate revenue with Convert: “Clients are constantly surprised and delighted by how effective Gorgias Convert is for revenue generation. They especially appreciate that Convert can be used to target a diverse range of customers across the entire purchasing journey.”

In five months, yoga brand Manduka, increased revenue by 284.15% after using Convert: “Gorgias Convert has helped us make the shopping experience more intuitive. We can give a nice prompt to remind people of promotions we’re running, highlight specific product features, or just remind them we're here to help and answer questions. The chat campaigns make it easy for customers because they lead them to us, as opposed to them having to search for how to contact us for assistance.”

Goodbye full-screen pop-ups, hello Gorgias Convert

Shoppers want personalized experiences that respect their time and preferences. Full-screen pop-ups belong to an era of intrusive marketing that shoppers would rather leave in the past.

Gorgias Convert for your Shopify brand means delivering impactful interactions, more conversions, and an easy path to long-term customer loyalty.

Ready to make the switch? Start your effortless shopping journey today with Gorgias Convert. Chat with our team!

Today, we’re announcing our deeper investment in conversational AI for ecommerce. 

"Since day one, Gorgias has been dedicated to helping ecommerce brands deliver exceptional customer experiences. We started with a helpdesk to centralize support, then introduced AI Agent to instantly resolve support questions,” says Romain Lapeyre, CEO of Gorgias.

“Now, we're taking the next leap forward with an AI Agent that powers the entire customer journey—anticipating buyer needs, boosting sales, and automating high-quality support. Today, I'm happy to announce Gorgias as the Conversational AI platform for ecommerce.”

Gorgias’s Conversational AI platform will let teams provide fast, scalable, and cost-effective support while helping them drive revenue growth. From automatic order changes and refunds to product recommendations and cross-sells, brands will be able to flawlessly combine their support and sales efforts.

The end result is an AI-powered customer journey where every customer interaction feels complete, personal, and connected, both before and after purchase.

Questions in Chat, resolved in seconds

Last year, we introduced AI Agent for email. 

Some brands call their AI Agent Lisa, some call it Wally, and most treat it like a real member of the team. But this reliable support sidekick was only available to answer customers on email—until now.

Get ready for instant responses that tackle support inquiries of all sizes. Now, your customers can enjoy fast responses that keep their shopping experience as smooth as possible.

On top of improving first response times, AI Agent can play an even more critical role in unblocking sales, suggesting products, and driving upsells and cross-sells.

With responses sent in 15 seconds or less, brands can delight customers with near-instant resolutions.

Let your AI Agent take action

Actions let AI Agent perform customer requests on behalf of your support team. This includes changing shipping addresses, fetching fulfillment status, canceling orders, adding discounts, and more. 

You can use a library of pre-configured Actions for popular apps like Shopify, Rebuy, Loop, and more. And you don’t need any technical skills to set them up.

With almost half of queries requiring some kind of update, Actions is your go-to for complete resolutions so you can get more accomplished.

Quality built into every support ticket

Quality checks have traditionally been manual, time-consuming, and inconsistent. Our brand new Auto QA feature changes that by automatically scoring 100% of conversations on resolution completeness and communication quality—whether from a human or AI agent.

With Auto QA, team leads can:

• Scale quality consistently and easily. Both human and AI agents follow the same quality standards, allowing for consistent, high-quality customer experiences.
• Coach smarter. Use real-time QA ratings in tickets to give agents targeted feedback.
• Track team performance. The dashboard highlights metrics by agent, showing what’s working and where to improve.

Gain clarity on your AI Agent’s impact

Support teams should be in complete control of their AI. That’s why the AI Agent Report and AI Agent Insights were created—to help you know exactly how your AI Agent is performing and contributing to your customer service operations.

The AI Agent Report provides full visibility into AI Agent’s performance, covering metrics like first response Time, CSAT, and one-touch ticket resolutions. Fully integrated into your Support Performance Statistics dashboard, the report includes:

• The percentage of tickets automated by AI Agent
• The number of tickets closed by AI Agent
• Success rates for one-touch resolutions
• How satisfied customers are with AI Agent’s responses

AI Agent Insights takes it a step further. It analyzes AI Agent’s performance data and provides you with a dashboard of recommendations, including potential automation opportunities, popular ticket intents to optimize, and knowledge base improvements.

Meet your new AI sales assistant

Soon, we’ll be expanding AI Agent's skills with the launch of Shopping Assistant, a tool designed to assist customers on their shopping journey.

Shopping Assistanthelps brands boost their sales capabilities through smart product recommendations, on-page checkout assistance, and personalized conversations. Now it's easier to reduce cart abandonment, suggest complementary products to boost average order value, and overcome pre-sale objections.

This new tool will bridge the gap between marketing and CX, ensuring brands can scale personalized interactions 24/7 without increasing headcount.

Looking ahead with conversational AI

As we continue to innovate with conversational AI, our focus remains on helping you succeed.

By combining smarter tools with valuable insights, we’re creating opportunities for you to put your customers first and build deeper connections at every touchpoint.

Join us as we pave a new way for the future of ecommerce.

{{lead-magnet-1}}

TL;DR:

• Ticket Fields make it easy to organize ticket data. They let agents collect the right information by filling out specific fields before closing a ticket.
• Conditional Ticket Fields are smart fields that adapt based on the ticket type. These fields show up only when they’re needed, helping agents capture just the right details.
• Use Ticket Fields to spot trends and improve your CX. Track things like return reasons, product feedback, or refund patterns to make smarter decisions and keep customers happy.
• Get your team up to speed with quick, practical tools. Share a best practices deck, give them a handy cheat sheet, and run a quick demo to make Ticket Fields easy to understand and use.

Your customer service conversations contain a goldmine of insight about your shoppers—like why they reached out, trends in shopper behavior, and how your products or services perform.

But how do you turn thousands of unstructured support tickets into accurate, digestible, and actionable takeaways?

Ticket Fields are the answer. They give support teams extra layers of data by labeling tickets in a much smarter way than traditional tags. With the right setup, Ticket Fields can help you uncover patterns, make smarter decisions, and highlight the value customer experience (CX) brings to your entire organization.

{{lead-magnet-1}}

What are Ticket Fields?

Ticket Fields are customizable properties that allow CX teams to collect and organize information about tickets. Agents fill in ticket fields before closing the ticket, making it much easier to scale data collection.

Ticket Fields can be mandatory, requiring an agent to populate a field before closing the ticket. They can also be conditional, only appearing when relevant to the ticket.

There are four types of Ticket Fields: Dropdown, Number, Text, and Yes/No. Here are some ways to use each:

• Return Reason (Dropdown): Track why customers are returning items, such as incorrect sizing, damaged goods, or dissatisfaction. This can help you spot product deficiencies or fulfillment errors.
• Product Feedback (Text): Collect feedback about products directly from customers. Share this data with your product team and make it easier for them to make improvements that customers ask for.
• Refund Amount (Number): Use this to identify trends, like high refund rates for a specific product, and modify your refund policies to minimize losses.
• First-Time Buyer (Yes/No): Flag whether a customer is making their first purchase. Use this to address pain points among new customers.

Why Ticket Fields are more powerful than Tags

Unlike Tags, which are single-reason and non-conditional, Ticket Fields ensure key information, such as fulfillment details or cancellation reasons, is built into a ticket.

Think of Tags as stickers added to a ticket, while Ticket Fields are part of the ticket’s DNA itself, giving you much more control and insight.

Let’s take a closer look at why Ticket Fields are far superior at collecting data than Tags:

Mandatory fields for comprehensiveness

Agents manually apply Tags, which means it’s easy to forget to tag a ticket.

Ticket Fields, however, enforce structure by allowing CX managers to decide which fields are mandatory and which are optional. This flexibility ensures that all tickets contain the same basic details.

Conditional fields for a streamlined experience and in-depth data

Ticket Fields can be conditional, meaning certain types of tickets automatically include fields that must be filled in.

How does it work? Take a look at this example:

If the Contact Reason field is Cancellation, conditional ticket fields like Cancel Reason, Did We Cancel Subscription, and Order Number must also be filled out.

Here’s how it looks in the Field Conditions settings:

No more missing context, gaps in the data, or typing N/A in a field. Support teams can capture the data they need from each ticket every time.

Ease of migration

For CX teams transitioning from other helpdesks, being able to import historical ticket data with the field information intact is significant. This preserves workflows and existing data, helping teams get set up in no time without losing crucial information.

Tags, on the other hand, should be used to:

• Sort tickets in different Views. Tags are helpful for organizing your tickets into different views to aid your workflow. For example, you can focus on all urgent tickets by creating a view that only displays tickets tagged as “Urgent.” 
• Used as temporary categories for exceptions. Tags can be used to add extra detail to an existing category. For instance, if you have a field named “Subscription Type” with “Premium Plan” selected as value in the ticket, you can add a “Gift Subscription” Tag temporarily. 

12 Ticket Fields every CX team should consider for better reporting

Ticket Fields are incredibly adaptable, allowing you to capture the exact data your team needs to meet your goals—whether it’s tracking product trends, choosing a shipping carrier, or increasing customer satisfaction.

Here are 12 examples of custom Ticket Fields to level up your data analysis.

1. Contact reason

Type of ticket field: Dropdown

What to do with the data: Identify common reasons customers contact you and take proactive steps to address them.

The Contact Reason ticket field is an easy way to figure out why customers reach out to your support team in the first place.

You can quickly identify trends, such as a sudden spike in return requests, and investigate whether it's a website, fulfillment, product, or service issue.

Some common contact reasons:

• Status inquiry
• Discount
• Refund
• Product question
• Feedback

Note: Gorgias AI automatically suggests contact reasons, pre-filling the field with a prediction based on message content. Agents can accept or adjust the suggestion, helping the system become smarter over time as it learns from these interactions.

2. Resolution

Type of ticket field: Dropdown

What to do with the data: Assess the effectiveness of resolutions and refine your service level agreement.

The Resolution ticket field tracks the action taken to resolve a ticket. Analyzing how your team handles tickets and identifying opportunities to improve resolutions is essential.

For example, you could analyze how often issues are resolved with replacements versus discounts. If you find replacements are overused for minor issues, you might implement a policy to provide discounts instead, helping to reduce costs without harming customer satisfaction.

Here are some values to add to the Resolution ticket field:

• Sent more information
• Replacement sent
• Discount given
• Refund
• Sent tracking order information
• No action taken

3. Feedback

Type of ticket field: Dropdown

What to do with the data: Use both positive and negative feedback to update your policies, escalation process, customer-facing resources, product, and more.

The Feedback ticket field can capture general feedback about your brand or feedback specific to your products.

This field is an excellent way to carry out product research. For example, if you’re a food brand, you can create a dropdown that categorizes feedback by sentiment, such as “Too Sweet,” “Too Salty,” “General Dislike,” and “Artificial Taste.” Once you’ve received a decent amount of feedback, you can return to the test kitchen and perfect your recipe.

4. Product

Type of ticket field: Dropdown

What to do with the data: Track product trends and prioritize improvements.

The Product field is valuable for tracking which items generate the most inquiries. If you have a large inventory, incorporating a Product ticket field can help flag which products are causing the most issues or trouble for shoppers.

If a product is the most used value, this could indicate frequent issues with the product, such as quality issues, defects, or missing information on its product page.

If a product is the least used value, it may not be generating much attention. If this is due to low sales, consider enhancing its visibility through marketing to attract more shoppers. However, being the least used value can also be good news, meaning your product performs well, and shoppers have no complaints.

Pro Tip: To understand which specific products are getting returned, add a conditional “Product” ticket field.

5. Defect

Type of ticket field: Dropdown + conditional field

What to do with the data: Identify recurring quality issues and fix root causes.

Track the most prominent defects reported by customers with a Defect ticket field. This can help you monitor product quality and adjust production, manufacturer, or supplier processes.

For deeper insights, add a conditional “Product” field to pinpoint which products experience specific defects. For example, if you’re a bag brand, you might find that a certain backpack is usually tied to a “Zipper” defect. This can be a valuable insight to pass on to your product team to alter the design or adjust your manufacturing process.

Here’s a look at the dropdown values for the Defect ticket field:

6. Cancellation reason

Type of ticket field: Dropdown

What to do with the data: Lower churn by addressing cancellation triggers.

If you’re a subscription-based business with a climbing cancellation rate, adding a Cancellation Reason ticket field can help you stop the churn. This field tracks why customers cancel orders or subscriptions. It’s a powerful way to identify patterns, such as price sensitivity or delivery delays, and to take steps to retain customers.

Cancellation reason examples:

• Too expensive
• Bad product-customer fit
• Don’t need it
• Moving to a competitor
• Poor customer service

7. Shipping carrier

Type of ticket field: Dropdown + conditional field

What to do with the data: Evaluate shipping carrier performance and improve logistics.

For any ecommerce brand, your shipping carrier is a big contributor to customer satisfaction. The faster a customer’s order gets to them, the better.

Use a Shipping Carrier ticket field to track the shipping carrier for tickets related to delivery issues. This will provide insights into which carriers perform poorly, enabling you to modify your logistics and order fulfillment processes.

Pair the Shipping Carrier field with a conditional “Shipping Issue” field to identify potential correlations. For example, if “Delayed” is a top shipping issue for a certain carrier, it may be time to change your logistics process.

8. Purchase origin

Type of ticket field: Dropdown

What to do with the data: Learn how customers find your brand and see what types of customers and issues are tied to the purchase source.

The Purchase Origin field helps you see where customers are coming from. Are they buying directly from your website? Or from social media platforms like Instagram or TikTok? 

Dig deeper, and you may also spot connections between purchase origin and common issues.

For your marketing team, this data will help improve strategies at all levels, from advertising and messaging to targeting the right platforms.

9. Customer escalation

Type of ticket field: Yes/No

What to do with the data: Reduce escalations by revising escalation processes and retraining agents.

The Customer Escalation field tracks whether a ticket was escalated to a manager. It helps teams identify training needs and improve processes to reduce escalations. 

As the use of AI agents increases in ecommerce customer service, having a clear view of which tickets are escalated can help pinpoint gaps in AI performance and identify scenarios that require human intervention. 

Analyzing this data over time can guide updates to AI workflows and agent training, reducing the need for escalations altogether.

10. Discount percentage

Type of ticket field: Number

What to do with the data: Understand how discounts impact customer satisfaction.

The Discount Percentage ticket field tracks the percentage of a discount applied to a customer's order, offering insights into how promotions affect customer behavior. 

For example, if customers using a 20% discount frequently contact support about order confusion or dissatisfaction, it might indicate unclear promotion terms or product descriptions. This data helps brands refine promotional messaging and determine whether higher discounts lead to increased ticket volumes, customer satisfaction, or sales.

11. First-time buyer

Type of ticket field: Yes/No + conditional field

What to do with the data: Improve the customer experience for brand new customers.

The First-Time Buyer field flags whether a customer is making their first purchase, making it easier to spot and support new shoppers. When a customer is marked as a first-time buyer, a conditional “Customer Sentiment” field can appear to capture how they feel about their experience.

First-time buyers often have questions about products or need recommendations to feel confident about their purchase. Pairing this ticket field with sentiment data helps to identify common pain points, preferences, and patterns among new customers so your team can finetune the customer experience and leave a lasting first impression.

12. Months in use

Type of ticket field: Number

What to do with the data: Analyze product performance over time.

The Months in Use field tracks how long customers have been using a product. It’s perfect for spotting when items start breaking down, spoiling, or losing effectiveness.

This data helps brands figure out where durability, shelf life, or packaging could be improved to keep customers happy and products performing as expected.

Who benefits from Ticket Fields?

Ticket Fields provide value across the entire CX ecosystem, from agents to decision-makers.

• Support teams: Gain a deeper understanding of shopper behavior and where issues arise from.
• Operations teams: Identify and resolve operational inefficiencies in your support, fulfillment, and feedback workflows.
• Data and tech teams: Analyze Ticket Fields reports from the support team that provide detailed customer service and product data that can inform other departments like product.
• Executives: Get visibility into CX operations, including shipping, damaged items, cancellations, and team performance, to make data-backed decisions.

How to make Ticket Fields a core part of your support process

Ticket Fields are only as powerful as the processes that support them. Follow these five steps to help your team turn support tickets into valuable data for better reporting.

1. Define your data and reporting goals

Decide what insights your team needs to improve workflows, product quality, or customer satisfaction. For example, if you want to track cancellations, set up fields like "Cancellation Reason" and "Refund Amount." Keep your Ticket Fields focused on data your team can use.

2. Set up Ticket Fields

Use Gorgias to configure Ticket Fields in a structured and easy-to-use format. Keep dropdown options concise and specific to avoid confusion. Then, run a test ticket or two to confirm the setup works smoothly for agents.

Read more: Create and edit Ticket Fields

3. Train and onboard your team

Create a presentation deck that clearly explains the purpose of every Ticket Field, the options agents can select for each field, and how the fields tie into the team’s data goals. For added visuals, include flowcharts to show when and how to use each field.

Pro Tip: Give agents a quick reference tool they can easily consult by providing a cheat sheet summarizing Ticket Field best practices.

4. Implement changes based on insights

Whether the data points to gaps in your workflows, product details, or customer education, acting on these patterns is how you drive meaningful change. 

Here are some fixes, from low to high effort, that your team can implement:

• Update FAQs in your Chat Flows
• Edit automated responses
• Retrain your AI agent with new information
• Add relevant answers to your Help Center
• Optimize product pages with more details like usage instructions, ingredients, or sizing charts
• Modify product categorization on your website
• Adjust internal workflows
• Renegotiate contracts with underperforming shipping carriers
• Redesign or reformulate products

5. Review Ticket Field data in monthly meetings

Schedule a monthly meeting to review your Ticket Fields Statistics and evaluate their impact on your support workflows and customer satisfaction. 

During the meeting, discuss:

• What trends do the reports reveal?
• Are agents consistently filling out each field?
• Which fields are consistently filled out and provide actionable insights?
• Have our priorities changed, making some fields less useful?

Lastly, remember to document the insights and update your team regularly to keep everyone aligned.

Drive smarter decisions with Ticket Fields

Gorgias’s Ticket Fields turn ticket data into insights you can actually use. Spot trends, improve workflows, and make faster, smarter decisions.

Are you ready to see it in action? Book a demo, and let us show you how Ticket Fields can elevate your support.

{{lead-magnet-2}}

TL;DR:

• Automate repetitive questions to give agents time back. Use tools like Help Centers, Flows, and AI agents to handle common queries so agents can take care of more complex issues.
• Lower response times with automation. Set up automated email responses, use Flows, and leverage AI Agents to reply to customers faster.
• Maintain a consistent tone of voice with AI. Automate QA processes and provide custom tone instructions to ensure every response aligns with your brand's voice.‍
• Self-serve returns and use chat campaigns to upsell. Use tools like Loop Returns for self-serve returns and Gorgias Convert to boost revenue with personalized upselling campaigns.

According to Salesforce research, 77% of support staff have dealt with increased and complex workflows compared to the year prior. In addition, 56% of agents have experienced burnout due to support work. 

As teams transition into the next era of CX—one where almost every customer expects efficiency, convenience, and friendly and knowledgeable service –– they’ll need the support of more than just a stellar lead to avoid the stress that comes with the job.   

AI and automation are valuable and impactful tools that can aid teams in providing these top-notch experiences while helping agents lower their own stress. 

Here are seven ways to leverage AI and automation to increase agent productivity, meet customer expectations, and decrease burnout on CX teams. 

{{lead-magnet-1}}

How to reduce stress with AI and automation

While there will always be reasons for human intervention, here are seven support challenges that AI and automation can solve for CX teams long term. 

1. Tackle repetitive questions 
2. Lower response times
3. Keep a consistent tone of voice
4. QA responses at scale
5. Upsell customer conversations
6. Let customers self-serve returns
7. Address common points of confusion

1) Tackle repetitive questions

Every CX team receives repetitive questions like “where is my order” (WISMO), “can I change my shipping address,” or “what is your return policy” every single day. These questions add up over time, creating frustration and burnout for agents and longer response times for customers. 

Instead, teams can leverage AI and automation to answer these questions and take time back for other essential tasks. 

How to use AI and automation to reduce repetitive questions 

If you use Gorgias, there are a couple of ways to put automation to work. 

• Lowest effort: Create a Help Center. Help Centers are beneficial for a couple of reasons. First, they give customers an avenue for self-service. Second, they're the primary knowledge source that Gorgias AI Agent draws from. To make setup a breeze, browse 50 help center templates with included answers, all customizable to your brand’s policies.  
• Medium effort: Set up Flows. Flows guide simple automated interactions that get customers the answers they need. Flows might help customers understand sizing, learn how long delivery will take, or find warranty information.  
• Highest effort: Activate AI Agent. AI Agent is conversational AI that can handle repetitive tickets for teams by learning your brand’s policies, tone of voice, and specific instructions. 

"Gorgias's AI Agent has been a game-changer for us, allowing us to automate nearly half of our customer service inquiries. This efficiency means we don’t need to hire additional staff to manage routine tasks, which has saved us the equivalent of two full-time positions.

—Noémie Rousseau, Customer Service Manager at Pajar

Resource: How to automate half of your CX tasks

2) Lower response times

Many customers get frustrated due to delayed support responses, especially if (they believe) they’re asking a simple question. Not only can AI and automation support by offering responses to these questions, they allow human agents to respond faster to customers who have more complex questions. 

How to use AI and automation to lower response times  

• Lowest effort: Use automated acknowledgment responses to reassure customers that you’ve heard them, and provide a time frame for when they can expect to hear back. This can be as simple as setting up an email to trigger each time a customer sends in a support request. 
• Medium effort: Set up Flows in Chat to give customers quick, automated answers to common questions.
• Highest effort: Use AI Agent to answer customers 10x faster than your human agents. 

AI Agent has been an effective tool for the team at luxe golf accessory shop VESSEL. “Now we’re able to get back to people so much faster than before,” says Lauren Reams, their Customer Experience Manager. 

“We can quickly collect information – avoiding the back and forth questions like what is your name, email or shipping address. Using AI to eliminate the back and forth has been great, and getting back to customers much faster than before has been the biggest win for our team.” 

3) ​​Keep a consistent tone of voice

If customers see an inconsistent tone of voice across responses, it’ll affect your brand credibility. It also causes confusion and may create issues maintaining repeat and loyal customers. 

How to use AI and automation to keep tone of voice consistent 

• Lowest effort: Set up AI Agent’s tone of voice with custom instructions. While AI Agent comes with three pre-set options (Friendly, Professional, and Sophisticated), you can also provide custom Guidance for how you’d like it to sound.
• Medium effort: Use Macros or templated responses to always keep agents on brand.  
• ‍Highest effort: Conduct agent training via an automated QA system. Auto QA can provide instant feedback on agent responses to ensure they’re on brand and use the right tone of voice.

4) QA responses at scale

Manual quality assurance checks are time-consuming and often inconsistent. But they’re key to providing great support at scale while maintaining a high standard across thousands of interactions. Aside from catching any errors, a regular QA process also builds trust with customers, increases personalization, and helps agents improve over time. 

How to use AI and automation for QA

Automated quality assurance can provide up to 90% accuracy, according to research by McKinsey. To ensure 100% of your customer conversations are checked, used Auto QA. This AI-powered QA tool evaluates your team's responses—AI or human—based on Resolution Completeness, Communication, and Language Proficiency.

5) Upsell customer conversations

When CX teams are bogged down with an overwhelming amount of tickets, there’s going to be a lack of time and opportunity to upsell in customer conversations. This is especially true when dealing with angry or upset customers, and during high-impact periods like BFCM. 

How to use AI and automation for upselling 

Activate onsite marketing campaigns with Gorgias Convert to provide product recommendations and promote current discounts, sales, or campaigns.

For example, you can use AI to promote relevant items to shoppers to increase their cart value. You might highlight items that are frequently bought together, or show a bundle that would make a great gift for someone. Research shows that these types of personalized recommendations can increase average order value (AOV) by 15%. 

Resource: 5 Holiday Onsite Campaigns to Maximize Year-End Sales

6) Let customers self-serve returns

The National Retail Federation (NRF) projects that retail returns will total $890 billion in 2024. With so many brands losing money from returns, it’s essential that you find ways to mitigate them. 

How to use AI and automation for returns

By switching to Gorgias, Audien Hearing saw nearly a 5% drop in return rates. And Rumpl saw $8,000 in recouped return fees by integrating Loop Returns with Gorgias. 

Loop lets customers self-serve returns through a returns portal that encourages exchanges instead. It makes the entire process a breeze, and eliminates back and forth between customers and busy support teams. 

7) Address common points of confusion

Many times, issues that were completely avoidable are escalated, leaving support teams with more tickets and already frustrated customers. These issues are likely common points of confusion that you can easily solve before they ever reach your customers. 

How to use AI and automation to ease confusion

If you use Gorgias, here’s how you can leverage automation:  

• Lowest effort: Update your Help Center to address FAQs or policies customers have found confusing in the past. 
• Medium effort: Create Flows to address frequently asked questions. 
• Highest effort: Set up AI Agent’s handover rules to only escalate certain topics to your human team. 

“I’ve been in this role for four years and this was probably our best back to school season yet. In past years, you knew you were going to come in and be bogged down – but this year was way more seamless and much less stressful and that’s thanks to AI Agent.”

—Danae Kaminski, Customer Care Team Lead at Jonas Paul Eyewear

Get time back to do what really matters 

At Gorgias, our goal is to create solutions to the real problems CX professionals face every day. Tools like AI Agent make it possible for teams to provide better customer experiences, reduce agent stress, and create more cohesive and positive working environments overall.  

”Thanks to the time we've saved by automating many of our routine tasks, our team has had the chance to bond more,” says Noémie. 

“We even had time for a team picnic and painted a picnic table outside! It’s been great to step away and spend time as a team occasionally, knowing that our customers are still being taken care of by the AI Agent. It’s really improved team morale.”

{{lead-magnet-2}}

TL;DR:

• Audit your help center. Review analytics, gather feedback, and test usability to identify gaps and outdated content.
• Update and optimize content. Add trending FAQs, visuals, and clear formatting to improve readability and usability.
• Boost accessibility and SEO. Place links across your site, optimize with keywords, and integrate with proactive support tools.
• Leverage AI for better support. Use your help center to train AI tools and regularly update content for accuracy.

The start of a new year is the perfect time to give your help center the refresh it deserves. For many ecommerce brands, the help center is one of the most underused support tools—yet it's also one of the most powerful. 88% of customers already search your website for some kind of knowledge base or FAQ.

Customers expect fast answers, and a well-designed, updated help center can meet their needs while taking some weight off your support team. We’ll walk you through why refreshing matters and how to do it.

{{lead-magnet-1}}

Why refresh your help center?

90% of consumers worldwide consider issue resolution their top priority for customer service. A robust help center gives you the tools to meet this expectation, delivering fast and reliable solutions that simplify your customers’ lives.

A well-designed help center benefits both your customers and your team. For customers, it lets them solve problems quickly and independently. Instead of waiting for an email response or queuing for live chat, a help center empowers them to find answers on their own terms 24/7. 

For your team, a refreshed help center is transformative, too. Here’s what a help center update can achieve:

• Deflect repetitive pre-sale questions: Save your agents from answering the same FAQs over and over by addressing common queries proactively in your help center.
• Support your team: Equip agents with easy access to up-to-date product, service, and policy information. You’ll reduce response times, and your team will deliver consistent answers.
• Train AI tools: Turn your help center into a powerful data source for AI tools. Comprehensive, structured content helps AI provide accurate and consistent responses, giving customers fast solutions and further reducing ticket volume.

In short, refreshing your help center will improve customer experience and boost efficiency across your entire customer service strategy. It’s a win-win for everyone.

How to refresh your help center: 4 steps to follow

Refreshing your help center doesn’t have to be overwhelming. By breaking the process into clear, actionable steps, you can transform your help center into a powerful self-service tool that delights customers and supports your team. 

Here are four key steps to guide your refresh.

Step 1: Audit your existing help center

Before making any major changes, you need to understand where your help center currently stands. A thorough audit will help you identify areas for improvement and ensure you make targeted updates.

Here's how to start:

Review analytics

Dive into your help center metrics to spot underperforming content. Look at article views, time-on-page, and bounce rates. Low engagement might mean the content is unclear, irrelevant, or hard to find.

With a customer experience platform like Gorgias, you can view the performance of each article:

Survey your customers

Customer feedback is invaluable. Use surveys or follow-up emails to ask customers what information they had trouble finding. Their responses can highlight blind spots in your help center.

Add CSAT questions

At the end of each help center article, include a simple question like, "Was this content helpful?" Use the feedback to pinpoint which articles are effective and which may need improvement.

Test usability

Put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Try searching for answers to common questions. Is the layout intuitive? Are the search results helpful? A smooth user experience is key to a successful help center.

Evaluate content freshness

Check if your articles are outdated or missing important updates, like new product features or policy changes.

Read more: How to create and optimize a customer knowledge base

Step 2: Update and optimize your help center content

Fresh, well-organized content is the backbone of a great help center. Customers rely on clear and accurate information, so investing in your content can transform your help center into a powerful self-service tool. 

Here’s how to refresh your content and make it shine:

Add trending FAQs

Regularly analyze support tickets to identify common and emerging questions. Integrate these into your knowledge base to address customer needs proactively and reduce incoming tickets.

Create multimedia content

Text alone isn’t always enough. Use images, GIFs, and videos to break down complex topics and make instructions easier to follow. For example, a quick explainer video can save customers time and eliminate confusion.

Princess Polly’s customer help center exemplifies what a great help center should look like. Its visually appealing design ensures that customers can quickly navigate to the information they need. Whether they’re looking for help with shipping, payments, returns, or any other issue, the intuitive layout makes the process simple and stress-free.

Gorgias lets you customize fonts, logos, and headers for your Help Center without any coding. If you want more customization, you can dip into HTML and CSS to tailor specific elements.

Standardize your tone

Ensure your content reflects your brand voice while staying approachable and customer-friendly. Consistency builds trust and reinforces your brand identity.

Need help finding your brand voice? Read AI Tone of Voice: Tips for On-Brand Customer Communication for guidance.

Update outdated articles

Review older content for inaccuracies or missing information, such as policy changes or new product details. 

Structure for readability

Use bullet points, short paragraphs, and clear headings to make articles easy to scan. Most customers skim for quick answers—design your content to match their behavior.

Step 3: Make your help center easy to find

Even the most well-crafted help center is ineffective if customers can’t locate it. Ensuring visibility across all customer touchpoints is key to driving engagement and making self-service the first stop for support. Here’s how to do it:

Link it everywhere

Make your help center easily accessible by placing links in strategic locations, such as your website’s header, footer, and main navigation menu. Include links in transactional emails, like order confirmations, tracking updates, or shipping updates, where customers often have questions.

Improve SEO

Optimize your help center articles with keywords your customers are likely to search for. Use clear, concise titles, meta descriptions, and headings to boost search engine visibility and help customers find answers directly from Google.

Integrate with support tools

Use tools like automated chat and automated email responses to proactively surface relevant help center articles. For instance, when customers type a question in a chatbox, suggest related articles before escalating to a support agent.

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

Promote it proactively

Don’t wait for customers to stumble upon your help center—promote it! Highlight it in onboarding emails, social media posts, and banners on your site.

Jonas Paul Eyewear ensures their help center is easy to access by prominently linking it in the website’s footer under the “Quick Links” section. The thoughtful placement ensures customers can quickly navigate to the help center from any page, making it a convenient resource for addressing their questions or concerns.

Read more: Boost your Help Center's visibility: Proven strategies to increase article views

Step 4: Use your help center to power AI tools

Your help center isn’t just for customers—it will also level up your AI-driven support strategy. By structuring your knowledge base effectively, you enable AI tools to deliver accurate, reliable, and consistent answers to customer queries.

Here’s how to make it work:

Create comprehensive content

Ensure your help center articles cover a wide range of customer questions in detail. This makes it easier for AI tools to pull relevant information and respond accurately.

Structure for machine readability

Organize your content with clear headings, bullet points, and simple language. Well-structured articles are easier for AI to parse and interpret.

Focus on consistency

Use uniform terminology across articles to prevent confusion and ensure AI tools can quickly identify relevant data.

Update regularly

Keep your knowledge base fresh by adding new FAQs, updating outdated content, and incorporating customer feedback. Up-to-date information ensures AI tools provide answers that align with your latest products, policies, and services.

Test AI performance

Periodically review how well your AI tools are using your help center content to address customer needs. Identify gaps in information and fine-tune articles as needed.

Dr. Bronner’s built their help center to power AI Agent, a conversational support assistant that answers both transactional and personalized customer inquiries in the same style as a human agent. Making this change helps the brand save $100,000 a year and decrease their resolution time by 74%.

💡Pro Tip: Transform your help center into an AI training powerhouse with Gorgias’s help center AI optimization guide. This guide offers actionable tips for making your knowledge base AI-ready.

By using your help center to power AI tools, you’ll improve customer self-service options and lighten the load on your support team. AI-enhanced support delivers faster resolutions, higher customer satisfaction, and a scalable approach to customer service.

Elevate your support strategy with a help center refresh

Refreshing your help center isn’t just about improving customer experience—it’s a game-changer for your entire support strategy. With tools like Gorgias’s Help Center, you can empower customers to self-serve while equipping your team with the resources they need to excel.

In 2025, make your help center the cornerstone of your support operations—and watch the results speak for themselves.

{{lead-magnet-2}}

TL;DR:

• The landscape of QA is moving from manual to AI-powered, where AI can analyze every customer interaction, uncover patterns, and suggest data-driven changes at scale.
• Automating QA allows ticket reviews to be routine. This means customers will always receive high-quality support.
• Every customer interaction is reviewed with AI QA—not just a sample. This gives support leaders full visibility into performance and service quality.
• AI QA saves time and improves agent and Gorgias AI Agent feedback. By automating ticket reviews, agents receive instant, unbiased feedback, and leaders can focus on big-picture CX improvements.

This year, 71% of customer experience (CX) leaders are using AI and automation to handle the holiday shopping season. These tools, including AI agents and email autoresponders, speed up tasks like responding to customers and updating orders.

But answering tickets isn't enough. Responses must also be high-quality, whether from humans or AI. And while customer satisfaction (CSAT) is the standard measure of how successful these interactions are, they have major limits.

CSAT scores don’t tell the full story about whether agents were helpful or if they used on-brand language. These gray areas in quality lead to missed sales, higher return rates, and frustrated customers during peak periods.

AI quality assurance (QA) is changing that. In this article, we’ll see what QA looks like today, how AI can simplify the process, and how CX teams can use tools like Auto QA to improve quality across all conversations.

{{lead-magnet-1}}

Traditional customer support QA is falling by the wayside

Today, QA in customer support is a largely manual responsibility. Customer conversations are reviewed by CX team leads to ensure customer satisfaction and identify areas for agent coaching. Team leads evaluate agent responses against a checklist of best practices, including the proper use of language, product knowledge, consistency, and helpfulness.

However, reviewing tickets takes a long time.

QA is important, but it's hard to prioritize when customers are actively waiting for help with refunds, urgent order edits, or negative reviews. And when CX teams are under-resourced and short-staffed, it’s easy to put QA on the back burner. 

What’s more, as AI plays a bigger role in responding to customers, quality assurance must evolve to ensure the quality of AI-generated responses, not just human responses. 

Over time, the lack of QA in CX can hold back support teams for three reasons:

1. Delayed feedback makes it harder for agents and AI tools to improve.
2. Leaders have less time to train agents and refine workflows.
3. Inconsistent service risks losing customer trust and loyalty.

What is AI-powered QA in CX?

AI-powered quality assurance (QA) uses AI to automate the process of reviewing customer interactions for resolution completeness, communication, language proficiency, and more. 

Instead of team leads spending hours manually sifting through tickets, AI takes over and evaluates how well tickets were resolved by agents.

Shifting this traditionally manual work to an automated process pulls teams out of the weeds and into more beneficial work like speaking to customers and upselling.

With AI QA, routine ticket reviews are not just an optional part of your customer service strategy, they become a permanent part of it. The road to greater customer trust, resolution times, and stronger product knowledge becomes easier.

Read more: Why your strategy needs customer service quality assurance

Why choose AI-powered QA over manual QA? 

Manual QA is like trying to review a handful of tickets during an incoming flood of new customer requests. Team leads can only focus on a small sample, leaving most interactions unchecked. Without complete visibility, creating a standard across all interactions is challenging.

Now, switch over to AI QA. You don’t have to choose between QA duty or answering tickets—QA checks are automatically done. You’ll still need to monitor AI’s performance, but now there’s more time to focus on creating strategies that improve the customer experience.

Here’s how AI QA and manual QA measure up to each other:

7 benefits of using AI quality assurance in CX

AI quality assurance helps CX leaders move beyond manual reviews by offering fast, thorough insights into performance and customer needs. Here are seven key benefits it brings to your team.

1. Improved visibility into customer interactions

AI QA reviews every ticket, giving CX leaders a complete view of agent performance and customer trends. Nothing slips through the cracks, so you can act on real data each and every single time.

What the team wins: Key areas to focus on to improve the customer experience.

What the customer wins: A consistent support experience where their concerns are fully addressed.

2. Instantly identify major customer pain points

Only a third of customers highly trust businesses, and without QA checks in place, that trust only deteriorates.

AI QA feedback can highlight confusing policies or common product issues that lead to unhappy customers. With instant feedback, teams can quickly make changes and create better, consistent customer experiences.

What the team wins: Faster fixes for recurring issues.

What the customer wins: A smoother, frustration-free experience.

3. Faster identification of process gaps

Agents can receive feedback that instantly highlights gaps in workflows or unclear escalation steps. This is an efficient way to resolve issues within the wider team before they become more significant problems.

What the team wins: Process issues are solved quickly.

What the customer wins: Faster resolutions with little to no delays.

4. Standardized scoring for AI and human agents

AI QA evaluates both Gorgias AI Agent and human agent interactions using the same criteria. This creates a level playing field and ensures all customer interactions meet the same quality standards.

What the team wins: Fair evaluations for both AI and human responses.

What the customer wins: High-quality support, no matter who handles the ticket.

5. More time for coaching and training

With less time spent on manual reviews, leaders can dedicate more energy to team development. Training sessions guided by AI insights help agents improve quickly and ensure the team delivers support that aligns with protocols.

What the team wins: More focused skill-building based on data.

What the customer wins: Clearer and more accurate support.

6. Drives continuous knowledge for the entire team

AI QA is helpful for showing agents which areas they need more training on, whether it's being better about using brand voice or polishing up on product knowledge. This leads to better support processes and stronger product understanding across the team.

What the team wins: Better support tactics and product expertise.

What the customer wins: Faster resolutions due to knowledgeable agents.

7. Enhanced customer experience through consistently high-quality support

Since all tickets are reviewed, teams can feel confident they’re delivering high-quality support on a regular basis. Customers get clear, helpful answers, while agents gain insights from every ticket with AI feedback.

What the team wins: Consistent support performance.

What the customer wins: Reliable support they can trust.

How accurate is AI QA?

AI QA analyzes tickets using predefined categories to evaluate how complete and helpful agent responses are. Let’s take a closer look at how it maintains accurate ticket reviews with an AI QA tool like Gorgias’s Auto QA.

It measures multiple metrics

Auto QA evaluates tickets based on three key areas: Resolution Completeness, Communication, and Language Proficiency.

For Resolution Completeness, it checks if all customer concerns were fully addressed. For example, if an agent resolves only one of two issues raised, the ticket is marked incomplete. Tickets where customers resolve issues on their own or don’t respond to follow-ups can still be graded as complete if handled appropriately.

Communication quality is scored on a scale of 1 to 5, assessing clarity, professionalism, and tone. Agents earn higher scores when they provide clear solutions and remain positive throughout the interaction.

Finally, Language Proficiency evaluates whether an agent displayed high proficiency in the language of the conversation. The score considers how well spelling, grammar, and syntax were employed.

Teams can improve AI with their own feedback

Auto QA isn’t set in stone. Team leads can expand on AI-generated feedback by adding their comments. For example, if a resolution is graded as ‘Incomplete,’ a team lead can explain why and provide additional context. This helps clarify the evaluation for the agent and also helps the AI model improve over time.

How to get started with AI quality assurance using Auto QA

Ready to bring the benefits of AI QA to your team? Here’s how to get started with Auto QA:

1. Audit your current QA process to identify gaps. How do you currently review tickets? Pinpoint areas where manual QA falls short, such as inconsistent feedback or missed interactions.
2. Pilot Auto QA with a small team. Introduce Auto QA to a small group of agents to test its impact. This allows you to find out how the new QA process fits into your workflow and how it affects agent performance.
3. Use AI insights to refine processes. Analyze the feedback Auto QA provides to identify process gaps or recurring issues. Use these insights to update your workflow, improve training, and address root causes of customer pain points.
4. Gradually scale adoption across the team. Once the pilot is successful, roll out Auto QA to more agents. Make sure everyone is trained on how to use its insights and integrate the tool into daily operations.
5. Monitor and provide feedback to improve AI accuracy. Review Auto QA’s evaluations to ensure accuracy. Add manual feedback as needed to fine-tune its scoring on future tickets.
6. Measure the impact on performance and satisfaction. Track key metrics like ticket close rates, resolution times, and customer satisfaction scores. Use this data to understand how Auto QA transforms your QA process and drives better results.

Make high-quality responses a standard with Auto QA

AI QA isn’t just about automating ticket reviews — it empowers CX leaders to focus on what truly matters: training and improving processes.

Leave spot-checking and inconsistent application of policies and brand voice in the past. As a built-in feature of Gorgias Automate, Auto QA makes high-quality customer interactions your brand’s standard. 

Book a demo now.

{{lead-magnet-2}}

TL;DR:

• Reflect quickly: Analyze customer service metrics like CSAT, FRT, and ticket volume immediately after BFCM to identify what worked and what didn’t.
• Optimize self-service: Update FAQs and help centers to address gaps revealed in BFCM support inquiries.
• Streamline operations: Audit staffing, inventory, and fulfillment to avoid bottlenecks in future peak seasons.
• Turn insights into action: Use BFCM data to set measurable goals and implement quick wins for success next year.

Nailing customer support during BFCM is all about staying ahead of the game and making smart moves—fast. 

But the real key to success lies in what you do when the rush is over. Treating BFCM as a learning opportunity allows you to refine your customer experience (CX) and set yourself up for an even better performance next year.

Without a plan for what to do after Black Friday, it’s easy to repeat mistakes or overlook key trends that could make all the difference next year.

In this article, we’ll share a simple framework to help you evaluate your BFCM performance and turn insights into actionable steps for long-term CX improvement.

{{lead-magnet-1}}

Key areas to review post-BFCM 

It’s best to reflect on key areas like customer service, tech performance, customer behavior, and operations right after BFCM versus waiting until late next year. 

By taking a closer look now, you can spot what worked, fix what didn’t, and start applying those insights to other big sales events throughout the year—not just BFCM. 

A little effort now = a lot of payoff later!

1. Customer service metrics: Where did your team shine (or struggle)?

By analyzing key metrics, you can identify what worked, where your team excelled, and what areas need improvement to better prepare for future busy seasons. Key metrics include:

• Customer Satisfaction (CSAT): Gauge how happy customers were with their interactions. Look for trends in both positive and negative feedback to pinpoint what delighted or frustrated customers.
• ‍First Response Time (FRT): Assess if your team met expectations for quick responses during peak periods.‍
• Average Resolution Time (ART): Evaluate how efficiently issues were resolved and whether there were any bottlenecks.‍
• Contact Rate: Examine whether there was a surge in inquiries, and uncover why.‍
• Net Promoter Score (NPS): Determine how likely customers are to recommend your brand post-BFCM.‍
• Ticket Volume: Review peak times and common customer issues. This insight can help forecast future support needs and ensure your team is adequately prepared for high-demand events.

Tools like Gorgias’s Ticket Insights can reveal which issues—like discounts, shipping policies, or damaged orders—dominated your support tickets.

For a more comprehensive view, Gorgias’s Support Performance dashboard shows how customer service influenced sales, including tickets converted, conversion ratios, and total revenue. These insights are invaluable for understanding the connection between support efficiency and revenue growth.

Brands like Obvi, a leading supplement company, have leveraged Gorgias to enhance their support strategies.

Obvi serves a large number of shoppers seeking pre-sales guidance to choose the right supplements. By using Gorgias’s Flows and Article Recommendations, they provide instant, automated answers to frequently asked questions directly within Chat.

Here’s how it works:

• Flows offer shoppers a menu of common queries about products and shipping, providing fast answers to top concerns.
• For more specific questions, Article Recommendations scan Obvi’s Help Center articles and share the most relevant answer. For example:some text
  • How do I mix Obvi collagen?
  • Is Obvi vegan?
  • Can I take collagen while pregnant?

To fine-tune their approach, Obvi uses data from their tickets to identify recurring customer questions. By analyzing the gaps between their initial FAQs and real customer inquiries, they adjusted their automated responses to better meet customer needs.

“We thought we knew what our FAQs were, but data from Gorgias was incredibly insightful to understand which FAQs to automate. That's one reason it's really valuable to have our Helpdesk tickets and automation features in one tool.”
‍
—Ron Shah, CEO and Co-founder at Obvi

2. Technical performance: Did your tools hold up under pressure?

While marketing efforts often steal the spotlight, savvy brands know that backend systems are the unsung heroes of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. 

Start by auditing critical areas such as platform downtime, checkout errors, or slow response times. These issues not only frustrate shoppers but can also lead to lost revenue and customer loyalty during your busiest shopping days of the year.

Next, evaluate how well your tools were able to manage peak volumes. Did your helpdesk, CRM, and ecommerce platforms work seamlessly together, or were there gaps in your integrations?

If switching between platforms slowed your team down or caused data silos, consider streamlining your tech stack with an all-in-one CX solution.

For example, conversational AI platforms like Gorgias enable CX teams to consolidate support, sales, and automation into a single tool. Gorgias combines Helpdesk and AI Agent to resolve customer issues efficiently, while Convert supports upselling and increasing customer lifetime value.

A streamlined, integrated platform not only boosts efficiency but also helps your CX team focus on what matters most: delivering exceptional customer experiences.

3. Customer trends and behavior: What did your shoppers really want?

Start by reviewing product demand, buying patterns, and cart-building behaviors. Were there any unexpected customer needs or shifts in preferences? Identifying these trends can help you refine your inventory planning, marketing strategies, and product offerings.

For example, here’s a detailed breakdown of what to look for:

Product demand shifts

Use these insights to adjust inventory planning for future campaigns. Ensure you have sufficient stock of trending products and create promotional bundles for underperforming items.

• Which products outperformed expectations? Were they planned bestsellers or surprise hits?
• Did slow-moving products unexpectedly gain traction, or did top-sellers underperform?

Cart-building behaviors

Tailor future cart-building promotions to encourage higher Average Order Value (AOV). For instance, highlight complementary products or offer discounts on bundles.

• Did customers prefer individual purchases, or did bundling promotions drive higher AOV?
• Were there abandoned cart trends tied to specific products or price thresholds?

Unexpected customer needs

Incorporate these suggestions into your product development or cross-sell strategies. Highlight related products in future campaigns to meet these emerging needs.

• Did reviews or support tickets indicate demand for features, colors, or sizes you didn’t offer?
• Were there inquiries about add-on products or product pairing ideas?

Self-serve helpfulness

If you have an FAQ page or Help Center, evaluate how well it performed. Did customers find the information they needed, or did they still open tickets for common questions? 

Metrics like Article Views, Number of Searches, and Click-Through Rates can show how effectively your self-service resources meet customer needs. 

If customers contact support for information already in your Help Center, it may indicate unclear articles or poor visibility of resources. This means you should rewrite unclear articles, optimize search terms, and ensure Help Center links are prominently displayed across your website and emails.

4. Operational challenges: Where did the stress show up most?

BFCM is a stress test for your operations, and reflecting on how well your systems handled the surge can help you uncover critical areas for improvement. 

Staffing

Start by reviewing your staffing during peak periods. Did your customer service and warehouse teams feel overwhelmed, or were they adequately supported? 

Questions to Ask:

• Were there enough team members to handle the workload?
• Did customer service or warehouse teams experience burnout or delays?

Next Steps:

• Plan staffing schedules around peak demand forecasts.
• Cross-train employees to cover high-pressure roles, such as fulfillment or customer support.
• Offer incentives, like performance bonuses, to encourage seasonal staff retention.

Preparing your team with a more flexible schedule and extra resources for high-demand areas can make all the difference.

Order fulfillment

If order fulfillment workflows slowed down or became error-prone, it may be time to optimize your processes.

Questions to Ask:

• Were there delays in shipping or errors in packaging?
• Did order accuracy or speed decline as volumes increased?

Next Steps:

• Audit fulfillment workflows to identify slow or repetitive steps.
• Invest in automation for picking, packing, and shipping processes.
• Partner with a third-party logistics (3PL) provider if in-house capacity was overwhelmed.

Inventory management

Stockouts or overstock situations during BFCM can directly impact both sales and customer satisfaction.

Questions to Ask:

• Did stockouts or overstock situations impact your Black Friday sales?
• Was inventory tracking accurate during the busiest days?

Next Steps:

• Implement real-time inventory tracking to reduce discrepancies.
• Use demand planning software to improve forecasting for top-selling products.
• Bundle slow-moving inventory with bestsellers in future holiday deals to avoid overstock.

Operational challenges often have a ripple effect on customer experience. By reflecting on these areas—staffing, fulfillment, and inventory—you can identify actionable improvements that streamline operations and create a smoother experience for both your team and your customers.

Building a CX improvement plan post-BFCM

Once you've reviewed the key areas of your BFCM performance, the next step is turning those insights into actionable strategies. Here’s how to build a CX improvement plan that sets you up for long-term success.

Step 1: Document lessons learned before they’re forgotten

Start by centralizing everything you’ve uncovered from your retro. 

Use collaborative tools like Notion, Google Docs, or Trello to organize insights across customer service, tech performance, and operations. 

And don’t just focus on observations—highlight actionable takeaways. For example, instead of noting “high contact rates,” document the underlying causes, like gaps in FAQs or unclear return policies.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the volume of data, let AI do the heavy lifting. Use prompts like these to quickly spot patterns:

• “Analyze the common themes in this ticket data and summarize the top three trends.”
• “Identify recurring customer complaints and suggest improvements to address them.”
• “Provide recommendations to optimize self-service options based on this dataset.”

AI tools can save you time and ensure nothing slips through the cracks as you plan your next steps.

Step 2: Tackle your biggest support pain points

Analyzing challenges in your CX processes can reveal quick wins and long-term improvements. Here are a few common support pain points and how to address them:

High contact rates

A surge in customer inquiries often signals that self-service options aren’t meeting expectations.

Solution: Add or update tools like chat widgets, Help Centers, and post-purchase emails to proactively answer common questions.

Inconsistent response times

This usually points to workflow inefficiencies or a lack of team bandwidth.

Solution: Use automation to prioritize urgent tickets, deflect repetitive inquiries, and ensure smoother workflows.

Low CSAT scores

Frustration with slow resolutions or insufficient empathy often leads to poor satisfaction ratings.

Solution: Invest in empathy training and implement faster resolution strategies, like automating FAQs or integrating sentiment detection tools to flag unhappy customers.

AI escalation issues

While tools like Gorgias’s AI Agent can streamline support, improper setup can lead to automation loops that frustrate customers.

Solution: Define rules for when AI should escalate to a human, feed it more comprehensive data (like updated Help Center articles), and set boundaries for topics it shouldn’t handle.

For example, even with the efficiency provided by their Helpdesk, Obvi found Black Friday and Cyber Monday to be a hectic and stressful period for their small customer support team—just one full-time agent and half of another team member’s time. 

The influx of customer inquiries made it difficult to focus on more complex tickets that could save sales from unhappy customers or convert inquiries into purchases. Instead, their team was bogged down by thousands of repetitive questions, like “Where is my order?”

Automating answers to repetitive questions gave the Obvi team the room to focus on personalized and revenue-driving customer interactions, like engaging with their community of 75,000 women.

“Instantly, our CX team had time to prioritize important matters, like being active in our community of 75,000 women instead of sitting answering emails.”

—Ron Shah, CEO and Co-founder at Obvi

The extra bandwidth helped Obvi drive over 3x the purchases from support conversations compared to previous years. AI Agent also enabled their team to reach inbox zero by 6 pm—during Black Friday week!

By automating 27% of their inquiries, they not only improved their response times but also handled over 150 tickets daily with just 1.5 agents, driving 10x more sales during BFCM. 

Step 3: Focus on quick wins that deliver big impact

Even the smallest changes can deliver a big impact. 

For example, update FAQs based on ticket trends or refine chat flows to reduce repetitive questions. Consolidating your CX tools into an omnichannel helpdesk like Gorgias can also reduce agent workload while delivering consistent customer experiences.

Repetitive inquiries—like shipping updates, return questions, or product FAQs—don’t need to consume your team’s time. Automating these workflows can significantly lighten your team’s load while keeping response times quick.

Gorgias users, for example, can automate up to 60% of support tickets with conversational AI tools like AI Agent, enabling teams to focus on higher-value interactions.

Quick wins aren’t just about streamlining support—they can also drive measurable results. 

For instance, Pajar, a footwear brand, leverages AI Agent to handle common inquiries in English and French. While this is a feature they use year-round, it’s handy during holiday shopping seasons when support teams are under pressure to respond quickly.

This freed up their small team of five agents to focus on complex tickets, achieving impressive results:

• Resolved 45% of queries with automation, surpassing their 30% goal.
• Reduced first response times to just 12 minutes.
• Maintained high satisfaction scores by delivering timely, accurate responses.

With tools like AI Agent and Sentiment Detection, you can automate prioritization for tickets—such as flagging urgent issues or unhappy customers—while still maintaining a personal touch.

Step 4: Level up training and leverage your team’s tools

Peak season often highlights gaps in both team training and CX tools. Addressing these areas not only improves your team’s ability to handle high-pressure situations but also fosters a stronger customer-first mindset across your organization.

Start by leveraging the feedback you’ve collected. Your team has so much data they can review between channels like email, SMS, chat, and social media—both compliments and complaints. You need to be willing to listen to every customer’s needs.

At Love Wellness, customer feedback is treated as a daily priority. 

The team has a dedicated Slack channel for feedback, where team members regularly drop insights from all touchpoints. This collaborative approach helps them get familiar with recurring themes, dissect customer needs, and work together on solutions. 

The Love Wellness team recommends scheduling recurring feedback share sessions with Product or Website teams—or even inviting those teams into Gorgias to create dedicated views for feedback categories like product improvements or website issues.

Beyond tools and processes, training is crucial. Their team also emphasizes the importance of fostering a customer-first mindset at all levels:

Customer service is one of the main ways they build trust with customers, especially in the personal care and women’s health niche. That’s why the Love Wellness team created an immersive customer experience training program that involves everyone—from the company's president to its office manager.

This holistic approach ensures that every team member, regardless of their role, understands the company’s purpose and how their actions contribute to a seamless customer experience. 

Step 5: Prove the ROI of CX to get more resources

Your customer support team isn’t just there to clear tickets—it’s a key driver of revenue, retention, and customer lifetime value (CLV). Yet, too many teams measure success based solely on metrics like response and resolution times. While these are important, they’re only part of the story.

As Zoe Kahn, Manager of Customer Experience and Retention at Chomps, explains:

“Aiming for overly broad goals of ‘surprising and delighting’ customers without a real understanding of how support impacts the whole customer journey or business ROI is a common pitfall. Customer experience, largely driven by the support team, touches every stage of the journey—from pre-sales to post-sales—and directly influences more sales and loyalty.”

To demonstrate CX’s value, it’s crucial to track metrics that reflect your team’s true impact on the business. For example:

• Customer Retention Rate (CRR): How well does your team retain customers over time?
• CSAT Scores: Are your customers satisfied enough to return or recommend your brand?
• Revenue From Support Conversations: How many sales are driven by proactive or reactive support interactions?

By focusing on these KPIs, you’ll incentivize your support team to go beyond answering questions and actively contribute to business goals. This could include suggesting products during conversations, encouraging happy customers to leave reviews, or proactively addressing issues that lead to churn.

Teams using Gorgias have even greater opportunities to prove ROI through tools like the Revenue Statistics dashboard, which tracks metrics like tickets converted into sales, conversion rates, and total revenue driven by support interactions.

“Without knowing how much money your customer experience (CX) drives, you’ll never fully understand your impact on the business or have the data needed to advocate for more resources from leadership.”
‍
—Zoe Kahn, Chomps

Set smarter goals next year

The best way to close out your post-BFCM retro is by setting clear, measurable goals for next year. Use this year’s insights to create actionable targets that enhance your customer support and CX strategy:

• Reduce ticket volume: Implement or improve self-service options like FAQs, chatbots, and Help Centers.
• Decrease response and resolution times: Optimize workflows, invest in automation, or plan for better staffing during peak periods.
• Boost CSAT: Address recurring customer pain points, streamline support processes, and train your team to deliver more empathetic, effective service.

Tools like Gorgias make it easier to turn these goals into reality. With powerful automation, integrated insights, and scalable support solutions, you can transform this year’s lessons into meaningful, lasting improvements.

Start planning now to make next year’s BFCM your smoothest—and most successful—yet!

{{lead-magnet-2}}

TL;DR:

• High talent density means a team where every member is highly skilled and performs at their peak. This creates a positive ripple effect, where talented individuals enhance each other's effectiveness and drive overall success.
• Gorgias maintains high talent density by following three pillars: hire great talent, part ways with non-performers, and nurture your talent pool.
• Train managers to share 100% honest feedback with direct reports. Honest feedback, performance improvement plans, and fair severance ensure a respectful and constructive approach to managing team dynamics.
• Measure talent density with key metrics. These include performance scores over time, cross-evaluation reviews, regrettable attrition rates, and transparent promotions to ensure fairness and improvement.

At Gorgias, we’ve embraced the concept of high talent density, introduced by Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings in No Rules Rules, as a foundation of how we operate. The idea is simple: a team is at its best when every member is highly skilled and performing at their peak.

I’ll walk you through exactly how we’ve built a workplace that prioritizes talent density by breaking down what the concept means, how it shapes our hiring process, and how we keep Gorgias a rewarding environment to grow in.

What is high talent density?

High talent density refers to having a team where each member is highly skilled and performs at their best. When a group consists of top performers, their collective effectiveness increases. Hastings notes, "Talented people make one another more effective."

For example, in a team of five exceptional employees, each individual's high performance elevates the group's overall success. If there is even one underperformer, a team's effectiveness decreases by 30 to 40 percent.

The three pillars of high talent density

We follow three pillars to maintain and grow high talent density. These pillars guide how we build and sustain a team of exceptional performers at Gorgias.

1. Hire Great Talent: We look for people who excel in their roles today and show the potential to grow with the company in the future.
2. Part Ways with Non-Performers: We prioritize honest feedback and offer support for improvement, but we’re not afraid to make changes when necessary.
3. Nurture Your Talent Pool: We invest in our team’s development, ensuring everyone has the tools and opportunities to succeed as the company grows.

To bring this to life, we’ll use an analogy of colors to represent different types of performers in our talent pool:

Let’s take a closer look at how we practice each of these pillars below.

Pillar #1: Hire great talents

Every manager wants to hire someone exceptional, but even with the best intentions, it doesn’t always work out.

To clarify, we’re looking for someone great to do the job now but has the potential to grow and stay strong as the company evolves. 

Here’s how we approach it.

Pay well (i.e. transparently and competitively)

Let’s be upfront: great talent often comes with a higher price tag. 

The first step in building high talent density is offering competitive pay. Exceptional people expect to be compensated for their contributions, and rightly so.

A single outstanding hire, even if paid 50% more than two average employees, often delivers far greater results. 

This is especially true in creative roles, where the impact of a single talent can be worth that of several others. It’s certainly not easy to prioritize compensation when resources are tight, but talented people are an investment — and talent is usually expensive.

Related: How we built an international SAAS salary calculator for our distributed team

Focus on sourcing, not just applicants

Great candidates don’t always come knocking on your door. The best talent is often already employed, not actively looking for a new role. 

To hire the best, we go beyond applications and invest heavily in proactive sourcing.

Use a structured recruiting playbook

At Gorgias, we rely on scorecards and standardized feedback forms to assess every applicant fairly and thoroughly. We also include role-specific assessments or assignments as part of the process. 

While some argue that take-home tasks are no longer standard, we’ve found them invaluable. A strong interview doesn’t always translate into strong performance, and these assignments often reveal critical insights into a candidate’s true capabilities.

Referrals are another piece of the puzzle. A-players tend to know and recommend other A-players. While leveraging referrals, we also keep a close eye on maintaining diversity to make sure everyone gets the same chance.

Pillar #2: Part ways with non-performers

Regularly assess your talent pool

Performance isn’t static. Someone who was a top performer last year might not meet expectations today, especially as the company grows and their role evolves.

To stay objective, we pair performance reviews with bi-yearly cross-evaluation talent reviews. Cross-evaluations provide a broader perspective, helping managers see beyond potential biases and assess whether a top talent has changed in performance quality.

These regular evaluations ensure we’re always aware of who is meeting expectations and who may need support or a more difficult conversation.

Enforce honest feedback with your managers

While Netflix's philosophy is to immediately separate with employees when they underperform, we believe in a more empathetic approach that follows our company’s core value of being 100% honest.

At Gorgias, we train managers to deliver clear, actionable feedback so team members always know where they stand and how they can improve. To us, honesty means being thoughtful, encouraging, and focused on helping people grow. 

We also use Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs) as a tool for growth. We don’t simply view them as compliance tools, but as opportunities for employees to get back on their feet. In fact, 50% of our PIPs result in team members regaining performance.

Provide fair and generous severance packages

Sometimes, despite feedback and coaching, parting ways becomes the best option for both the employee and company. When that happens, we believe in making the transition as respectful and fair as possible.

Offering a strong severance package not only supports employees during their transition but also empowers managers to make tough decisions confidently. It reflects our shared responsibility and ensures we treat people with dignity, even when their time with us comes to an end.

Pillar #3: Nurture your talent pool

Help talent grow alongside the company

When a company grows, employees need to match that pace to keep delivering at a high level. This requires consistent learning and development to meet the challenges of each new stage.

Growth doesn’t happen by accident. As Daniel Coyle explains in The Talent Code, greatness isn’t born; it’s grown through “deep practice.”

To encourage growth, Gorgias managers hold career conversations every six weeks, focusing on the “3Es”: education, exposure, and experience. These discussions identify growth areas, leverage networks, and clarify the steps team members can take to excel.

We also reward our top performers with opportunities beyond financial incentives. From double learning stipends to travel experiences and executive mentorships, these rewards keep our “dark green” talents motivated and engaged.

Read more: Why we don’t increase salaries based on performance

Cultivate a positive and collaborative environment

In the pursuit of high talent density, results are important, but so is maintaining a positive, team-oriented environment.

A top performer with a toxic attitude can harm the environment you’re working hard to build. For that reason, we hire and nurture people who align with our values, show respect for others, and contribute to a collaborative culture. Both the what (talented employees) and the how (exemplary behavior) matter. 

Implement pressure management programs

I believe this is one of the toughest topics when it comes to talent management.

Top performers are eager to work hard and prove their worth. Oftentimes, they approach work intensely and passionately. However, too much intensity can lead to exhaustion. And, of course, tired employees can’t deliver well.

That’s why managing pressure is crucial to maintaining high talent density. Introducing programs and initiatives that support the well-being of your employees helps prevent stress and burnout.

We take a tailored approach to prevent burnout, recognizing that one size doesn’t fit all. Having strong management training and great HRBPs (HR Business Partners) are the most impactful pieces. They help uncover the underlying issues of burnout: lack of vacation time, heavy workload, personal challenges, or misalignment.

Once the issues are clear, we provide the right tools to help. This could include coaching, training, enhanced benefits, or adjusted workloads.

How we measure, refine, and design our talent pool

We use specific metrics to gain insights into the effectiveness of our talent management strategies and refine our approach as needed.

Here are the metrics we track to evaluate talent density:

1. Performance scores over time: We track average performance scores across the company (excluding new hires) to monitor overall talent density.
2. Cross-evaluation reviews: Our biannual talent reviews include cross-evaluations, introducing variables like leadership, learning agility, and drive to ensure a holistic assessment.
3. Regrettable attrition rate: We analyze turnover rates to identify potential issues and address them proactively.
4. Transparent promotions: We’ve developed a promotion process that prioritizes fairness and merit. Managers must document and justify promotions, holding them accountable for consistency and equity.

By regularly tracking these metrics, we can see where we may be falling short — whether that’s being slow to part ways with low performers, struggling to attract great talent, or losing top performers unnecessarily.

Building strong organizational design

The ultimate goal of having strong talent density is to build a well-performing organization.

After each talent review, HRBPs will work hand in hand with managers to refine the organizational chart. They identify opportunities for improvement, such as promoting top talent, adjusting scopes of responsibility, or making changes to strengthen the team.

Ultimately, you should always make sure that your top performers are leading the most critical and top-priority initiatives.

A personal note on the journey to high talent density

In my role as VP of People at Gorgias, I’ve seen how fast growth fuels the resources and opportunities needed to attract and develop exceptional talent. High performers thrive in environments with big goals and fast results, but it’s up to us to create the right conditions for them to succeed.

Sustaining high talent density takes dedication and humility. It means holding ourselves to high standards while being transparent. While we’ve made great strides, there’s always more to learn and refine.

As we continue this journey, let us remain humble, acknowledging that there is always room for growth and improvement.