Happy agents lead to better CX outcomes. When agents genuinely enjoy using their platform, it boosts productivity, morale, and customer satisfaction.
Gorgias makes agents’ lives easier. CX teams at Glossier, Tommy John, and Brunt Workwear unanimously preferred Gorgias over legacy systems.
AI helps teams scale without losing the human touch. By handling basic inquiries, AI gives agents more time for high-impact conversations and personalized support
Agent satisfaction drives business impact. Brands saw improved team efficiency, reduced operational friction, and revenue gains from more focused, empowered agents.
Everyone talks about how important it is for your ecommerce tools to drive business growth, boost productivity, and deliver a high return on investment. But the equally important (yet often overlooked) third layer is how a tool affects the people using it day-to-day.
The hidden costs of sticking to the CX status quo
The moment CX and ecommerce leaders start noticing slipping KPIs, frustrated agents, or rising support costs, they ask themselves a question, “Is it time to look for something new?” Sticking with the same tool might seem easier — no demos, evaluations, migrations, onboarding, or retraining involved.
But ignoring the shortcomings of your current CX platform can snowball into larger issues over time.
When CX agents don’t like the platform they’re working in daily, bigger problems arise:
Agent productivity declines
Morale and employee retention suffer
Operational costs rise
Customer experience takes a hit
Poor data and reporting if agents aren’t using tags or ticket fields correctly
Beyond the thousands of dollars saved in operational costs or hours saved per ticket, Gorgias helps CX agents focus on what they do best — creating the best customer experience possible.
When a platform makes agents’ lives easier, they have more time to focus on the moments that matter, like proactively reaching out to VIPs, sending surprise birthday gifts, or empathetically handling nuanced tickets. Not to mention, they enjoy doing it.
At our annual customer conference, Gorgias Connect, we asked three CX leaders to share their experiences using Gorgias. Aside from the impressive FRTs and CX-generated revenue metrics, one theme stood out — they all mentioned how much their agents enjoyed using Gorgias.
Glossier’s agents have more time to be expert product consultants
Emily Weiss first launched a beauty blog and community, Into the Gloss, in 2010 as a space dedicated to sharing real information, advice, and tips with real people.
This laid the groundwork for Glossier, launching in 2014 with a fresh “skin first, makeup second” philosophy. Amidst the “full glam” era of makeup defined by smoky eyes and bold lips, Glossier’s skincare-oriented approach disrupted the norm.
From the beginning, Glossier has attracted a strong community thanks to its products designed based on community feedback and its social media presence. Today, more than a decade later, the brand has evolved, but its core principles have stayed the same.
As a customer-obsessed beauty brand, it’s no surprise that Glossier takes a thoughtful approach to customer experience.
We sat down with Cati Brunell-Brutman, Head of CX at Glossier, to dive into how the team uses Gorgias to make their lives easier while creating better relationships with customers.
Glossier’s proactive approach to customer experience
How do you approach customer experience at Glossier?
I always like saying customer experience vs. customer service because I think customer service feels like we’re just solving problems in a transactional way. Customer experience is proactive and involves looking at the entire customer journey.
Our team interacts with customers from the moment they first land on the website to when they become repeat users of a product, and eventually, when they become subscribers. There are many opportunities along the way for our team to connect with people, engage in conversations, and make complementary product recommendations.
This was what our founder really wanted this team to be—beauty editors. Everyone on the CX team is an editor (or a product expert), making curated recommendations. My vision for our CX team is to give them more time to lean into that.
Simplifying workflows with AI to empower agents
What are you doing differently now to make sure that your team and your business are more resilient?
My motto for the year is simplify and automate. I don't want anyone on my team to spend their whole day in a Google spreadsheet. So I’m asking questions like, ‘What can I automate? How can I connect tools?’
I really look to my team, especially the newer members, for this, and encourage them to ask, 'Why do we do this?' Because if the answer is because we've always done it that way, that's not a good enough answer for me.
I’m focusing on finding those moments to simplify things so that the team can concentrate on impactful work, such as creating connections and engaging with people. That’s what I really want my team to focus on because it’s what brings value to their work, our customers, and the brand.
How did your team react when you switched to Gorgias from your previous platform?
We actually had our agents weigh in on this. We showed them demos of all the platforms we were considering and had them attend the meetings to speak with the teams.
Then, we ran a poll in Slack and asked the team, ‘If you were making this decision, what platform would you choose?’ All of the agents unanimously voted for Gorgias. So, we’re definitely fans.
How has implementing AI into your CX strategy affected the team?
Throughout the industry, I think people are concerned that there’s going to be a transition to a state where CX is 100% AI, everybody is going to lose their jobs, and customers won’t be able to talk to a person.
But as we've implemented AI at Glossier, we’ve maintained the same team size as when we first started. We just have so much more automation of things like with WISMO tickets, returns, exchanges, and basic tickets that we don’t need a human to answer with macros for six hours straight.
Deeper human-to-human connections powered by better tools
With the additional capacity, what can your team now focus on?
The team is actually able to do more work because they're not dealing with an antiquated technical system, which makes their jobs easier and also saves us money in the long run.
Now, our agents can perform tasks that actually require a human. AI can send out tracking links, and people can do the people work.
We receive a lot of questions about our products, like how to use them or specific recommendations. And that's when we want a person to sit down, look at the customer’s selfie, and do a shade match. Then our editors can ask follow-up questions about what the shopper is looking for and why.
What makes your agents unique, and how does Gorgias help support them?
One of the things that I really love about Glossier is that our editors — our agents — are people, and we have customers who know them by name.
It’s really unique, and they’re almost like internet celebrities within our community. I'll go to our Reddit page and see customers posting screenshots of their conversations with our agents, and other customers will reply saying ‘Oh my gosh, yes!’ or ‘They helped me too!’
Customers will DM us things like ‘This editor recommended a lipstick for me. It was great, I love it. Can that person recommend a blush for me as well?’
Being able to aggregate all those conversations across social media DMs, emails, and chats in one place is invaluable.
Where would your team be without Gorgias?
Having a really bad time in Gmail.
Tommy John found that Gorgias was the perfect fit for its CX team
In 2008, Tom Patterson was a medical salesperson frustrated with ill-fitting undershirts. This problem he faced every day was the catalyst for him to found Tommy John, a dual-gender underwear, loungewear, and apparel company.
Tommy John launched with its flagship product, the Stay-Tucked Undershirt, to solve Tom’s initial struggle that he knew other customers were also facing. Fast-forward a few years, and Tommy John expanded into more categories with innovative underwear product lines
Customer comfort has always been the main priority for Tommy John, embedded in everything from product design to its Best Pair Guarantee. The CX team is responsible for maintaining a customer experience that is just as smooth and seamless as the products they're buying.
Max Wallace, CX Director at Tommy John, shared his experience migrating from a legacy platform to Gorgias and how it impacted his team.
The search for a platform that supported both customers and agents
What motivated you to find a new platform?
We knew we had to seriously explore other options when we were assigned yet another Customer Success Manager on our former platform after having gone through several in a short span. It felt like we were starting from scratch every time, which made it challenging to elevate our CX alongside such a critical partner.
We wanted to do right by our customers and our agents, ensuring they had the reporting and tools they needed, plus more. Gorgias really offered all of those things.
What was most important to you and your team when evaluating helpdesks?
We didn’t want anything that was reinventing the wheel. One platform we looked at wasn’t doing the agents justice by only allowing them to view their own tickets.
We really wanted our agents to have a holistic understanding of the volume we’re receiving, which Gorgias provides. Now they have this fleshed-out understanding of every customer interaction, and that’s been a game-changer. They’ve been loving it.
Gorgias gave agents the tools they needed to thrive
How has Gorgias impacted agent productivity and impact?
We have definitely seen greater speed and productivity. Even something as simple as macro suggestions has helped steer new agents in the right direction. That’s going to be huge during peak seasons, like BFCM.
And the fact that agents can move seamlessly between conversations without losing context means they’re handling more interactions, faster, with less frustration. They feel confident in their workflows, rather than being bogged down in repetitive tasks.
Within two months, using Gorgias’s AI Agent has enabled agents to minimize time-consuming manual tasks and spend more time with high-intent customers, generating over $100,000 in sales.
I’m confident Gorgias will help us achieve our goal of making selling and CX much more integrated. We do want to reward our team for their efforts in driving sales, and we can track conversion rates per agent in Gorgias.
Why was voice integration such a priority for your team?
Before, our agents didn’t have visibility into previous phone calls that other agents had taken. I can't tell you how many times there has been confusion regarding what's going on with the customer because our agents did not have visibility into the customer’s history. We’d have to pull the call recording, pass it along, and by then, the customer would have already been waiting.
So it was essential for us to find a helpdesk that we could use voice with. Now with Gorgias Voice, agents can look back in the timeline, listen to the call, or even read a transcript or AI-generated summary. That’s just been amazing, and they’re loving that.
Tying revenue back to call tickets, where most of our upselling and cross-selling happens, has been another huge win.
Tommy John’s agents unanimously prefer Gorgias
How did agents react after the switch?
The number one thing that validates that we made the right decision is that our agents truly love Gorgias.
Two weeks after going live, we asked, ‘Do you feel you will be more efficient working in Gorgias than our previous platform?’ And it was unanimous — Gorgias, completely. And this was just two weeks in, with everyone still getting their feet wet.
We sent out a survey, and seeing every single person answer in favor of Gorgias told me everything I needed to know about how quickly the team was adapting and how much they preferred the platform.
What has been the CX team’s feedback after using Gorgias for a while?
Gorgias has really paid off for our agents in terms of their efficiency. Being able to transition seamlessly from a phone call to a follow-up email with just one click is amazing. And having all of that in the timeline — phone calls, emails, chats — that can’t be beat.
Brunt Workwear’s team stays engaged by helping more customers each day
Eric Girouard founded Brunt Workwear in 2019 to fill a gap in the market for comfortable, high-quality workwear for skilled tradespeople. He came from blue-collar roots himself, and many of his friends and family also work in the trades.
Eric started the company in his garage, focusing on direct-to-consumer sales. Brunt Workwear aims to create products that aren’t just for tradespeople, but are actually built by them.
The workwear brand incorporates a significant amount of customer feedback into the design process to create products that actually make their lives easier. Brunt Workwear’s commitment to its customers is even more evident in its product naming convention — each product is named after a specific tradesworker.
When we spoke with Ruth Trieger, Director of Customer Experience, she shared how the CX team achieves its goal of making solutions as easy as possible for their busy customers — and why agent satisfaction can’t be overlooked.
How Brunt Workwear makes every customer feel at home
How do you think about the state of CX today?
The best retail or CX advice I’ve ever received is to think of everyone who walks into your store or visits your website as someone entering your home. For every visitor, you will do some basic things, such as taking their coat or offering them something to eat or drink. But if you truly want to make someone feel welcome, you’re going to meet them in a way that aligns with their preferences and makes them feel like they’re a part of something.
When you make someone feel welcome, they build an emotional connection with a brand that far transcends any product. That’s a powerful thing.
As I consider customer experience and the growth of AI, I realize there is a constant need to deliver fantastic experiences while using the right amount of resources. If you can do that while still creating a memorable experience, you have a customer for life.
Making life easier for customers and agents with an intuitive platform
What is your goal when designing experiences for Brunt Workwear’s customers?
Our customer is very busy and very hardworking. They have very little spare time. So if or when something goes wrong, I encourage my team to think, ‘How can we make the solution as easy as possible?’ That’s our goal — to put ourselves in their shoes and reduce friction wherever we can.
AI can handle repetitive questions, allowing our agents to jump in quickly when nuance or empathy is needed most. What matters is making sure we are there for customers in the moments that really count.
How does Gorgias help your team achieve these goals compared to previous platforms you’ve worked with?
I come from a customer service training background, and I am used to teams needing weeks to train someone on a platform. With Gorgias, I was able to navigate the system myself in very little time.
As a young but fast-growing brand, we have to be very nimble and change things quickly. Gorgias enables us to do that with a level of ease I've never experienced in my career, so we’re really grateful for the platform.
I love that our agents can interface with the platform in a way that is very easy, which is good for them. From a productivity and metrics standpoint, if they’re moving easily through a platform, I also know that means they’re able to accomplish more touchpoints with our customers — more phone conversations, more emails, more chats. And that means we are helping more people.
How does improved agent satisfaction tie back to business results?
At the end of the day, if you don’t have a happy, high-functioning team, you have literally nothing in all the world. We have a talented team, and the more customers they interact with, the more likely those people are to stay with the brand. So we see an increase in customer lifetime value when our agents can spend more time with our customers.
Gorgias helps agents move from mountains of tickets to meaningful connections
What additional opportunities does AI open up for your team?
AI is not replacing the human touch; it’s giving us more room to lean into it. It reduces friction so that CX agents can take on higher-value work like running close-the-loop programs, proactively reaching out on the phone, and answering faster.
If a customer is asking, ‘Where is my order?’, I don’t need to take up an agent’s time with that because AI can get them a simple, fast answer. Then, when another customer needs somebody’s time, they’re there because that person isn’t answering a mountain of tickets.
That’s the exciting part, AI handles the repetitive stuff, and our agents get to focus on making real connections.
How has Gorgias enabled you to communicate the value of CX to the broader business internally?
The reporting in Gorgias has allowed us to become a true strategic partner in the business. CX sees everything: what’s working, what’s not, and what customers are asking about. For every new product launch, every campaign, and every change, my team is on the front lines. With Gorgias’s reporting, we can bring that insight back to the rest of the organization and help shape smarter decisions.
What’s been cool is that we’re now part of the feedback loop in a much more meaningful way. Without Gorgias, we would not be able to add the same level of value as a strategic partner. That’s where I see our role continuing to shift — becoming more proactive, faster at serving customers, and a critical business function.
At the end of the day, CX knows what’s working, what isn’t, and how customers are feeling. The more we vocalize that, the better off the entire company is.
Choose a CX platform that your CX team actually wants to use
Happy, empowered agents deliver the kind of experiences that keep customers loyal and businesses growing.
Glossier, Tommy John, and Brunt Workwear show what’s possible when teams have a platform designed for them. More efficiency, more impact, and more human connections. Because when agents love their platform, everyone wins.
Start by cleaning up your Help Center. Update your articles based on last year’s data, using plain language and clear policy details to boost self-service.
Use automations to streamline ticket routing and support efficiency. Set rules for tagging, escalation, and inbox views, so your team can respond faster.
Prep your macros, AI, and staffing plan in advance. Build responses for top FAQs, train AI on the right sources, and forecast agent needs to avoid burnout.
Automate logistics, upselling, and QA to stay ahead. From showing shipping timelines to flagging low-quality responses, automation ensures smooth operations and more revenue during peak season.
Getting ready for that yearly ticket surge isn’t only about activating every automation feature on your helpdesk, it’s about increasing efficiency across your entire support operations.
This year, we’re giving you one less thing to worry about with our 2025 BFCM automation guide. Whether your team needs a tidier Help Center or better ticket routing rules, we’ve got a checklist for every area of the customer experience brought to you by top industry players, including ShipBob, Loop Returns, TalentPop, and more.
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2025 BFCM automation checklist
Tidy up your Help Center
Audit your docs
Review last year’s BFCM data to find your must-have articles
Update your policy details
Edit content using easy-to-understand language
Expedite your ticket routing automations
Set up automated ticket tags
Create an inbox view for each category
Set escalation rules for urgent tickets
Set up mandatory Ticket Fields
Prep your macros and AI agent
Write macros for your top FAQs
Train your AI on the right sources
Define the limits of what AI should handle
Forecast your BFCM staffing needs
Use ticket volume to estimate the number of agents
Plan extra coverage with automation or outsourcing
Run agent training sessions on BFCM protocols
Map out your logistics processes
Negotiate better rates and processing efficiencies
Automate inventory reorder points
Build contingency plans for disruptions
Show shipping timelines on product pages
Maximize profits with upselling automations
Guide shoppers with smart recommendations
Suggest alternatives when items are out of stock
Engage hesitant shoppers with winback discounts
Keep support quality high with QA automations
Automate ticket reviews with AI-powered QA
Track both agent and AI responses
Turn QA insights into coaching opportunities
Tidy up your Help Center
Your customer knowledge base, FAQs, or Help Center is a valuable hub of answers for customers’ most asked questions. For those who prefer to self-serve, it’s one of the first resources they visit. To ensure customers get accurate answers, do the following:
Audit your docs
Review last year’s BFCM data to find your must-have articles
Update your policy details
Edit content using easy-to-understand language
1. Audit your docs
Take stock of what’s currently in your database. Are you still displaying low-engagement or unhelpful articles? Are articles about discontinued products still up? Start by removing outdated content first, and then decide which articles to keep from there.
2. Review last year’s BFCM data to find your must-have articles
Are you missing key topics, or don’t have a database yet? Look at last year’s tickets. What were customers’ top concerns? Were customers always asking about returns? Was there an uptick in free shipping questions? If an inquiry repeats itself, it’s a sign to add it to your Help Center.
3. Update your policy details
An influx of customers means more people using your shipping, returns, exchanges, and discount policies. Make sure these have accurate information about eligibility, conditions, and grace periods, so your customers have one reliable source of truth.
Personalization tip:Loop Returns advises adjusting your return policy for different return reasons. With Loop’s Workflows, you can automatically determine which customers and which return reasons should get which return policies.
Customers want fast answers, so ensure your docs are easy to read and understand. Titles and answers should be clear. Avoid technical jargon and stick to simple sentences that express one idea. To accelerate the process, use AI tools like Grammarly and ChatGPT.
No time to set up a Help Center? Gorgias automatically generates Help Center articles for you based on what people are asking in your inbox.
Princess Polly’s Help Center is powered by Gorgias.
Expedite your ticket routing automations
Think of ticket routing like running a city. Cars are your tickets (and customers), roads are your inboxes, and traffic lights are your automations and rules. The better you maintain these structures, the better they can run on their own without needing constant repairs from your CX team.
Here’s your ticket routing automation checklist:
Tag every ticket
Create views for each category you need (VIP, Returns, Troubleshooting, etc.)
Set escalation rules for urgent tickets
Set up mandatory Ticket Fields
1. Set up automated ticket tags
Instead of asking agents to tag every ticket, set rules that apply tags based on keywords, order details, or message type. A good starting point is to tag tickets by order status, returns, refunds, VIP customers, and urgent issues so your team can prioritize quickly.
Luckily, many helpdesks offer AI-powered tags or contact reasons to reduce manual work. For example, Gorgias automatically detects a ticket’s Contact Reason. The system learns from past interactions, tagging your tickets with more accuracy each time.
This rule auto-tags tickets with “VIP” when customers have spent $1,000 and have ordered more than three times.
2. Create an inbox view for each category
Custom or filtered inbox views give your agents a filtered and focused workspace. Start with essential views like VIP customers, returns, and damages, then add specialized views that match how your team works.
If you’re using conversational AI to answer tickets, views become even more powerful. For example, you might track low CSAT tickets to catch where AI responses fall short or high handover rates to identify AI knowledge gaps. The goal is to reduce clutter so agents can focus on delivering support.
3. Set escalation rules for urgent tickets
Don’t get bogged down in minor issues while urgent tickets sit unanswered. Escalation rules make sure urgent cases are pushed to the top of your inbox, so they don’t risk revenue or lead to unhappy customers.
Tickets to escalate to agents or specialized queues:
Lost packages
Damaged items
Defective items
Failed payments
Open tickets without a follow-up
4. Set up mandatory Ticket Fields to get data right off the bat
Ticket Fields add structure by requiring your team to capture key data before closing a ticket. For BFCM, make fields like Contact Reason, Resolution, and Return Reason mandatory so you always know why customers reached out and how the issue was resolved.
For CX leads, Ticket Fields removes guesswork. Instead of sifting through tickets one by one, you’ll have clean data to spot trends, report on sales drivers, and train your team.
Pro Tip: Use conditional fields to dig deeper without overwhelming agents. For example, if the contact reason is “Return,” automatically prompt the agent to log the return reason or product defect.
Prep your macros and AI agent
Macros and AI Agent are your frontline during BFCM. When prepped properly, they can clear hundreds of repetitive tickets. The key is to ensure that answers are accurate, up-to-date, and aligned with what you want AI to handle.
Write macros for your most common FAQs
Train your AI on the right sources
Define the limits of what AI should handle
1. Write macros for your top FAQs
Customers will flood your inbox with the same questions: “Where’s my order?” “When will my discount apply?” “What’s your return policy?” Write macros that give short, direct answers up front, include links for details, and use placeholders for personalization.
Bad macro:
“You can track your order with the tracking link. It should update soon.”
Good macro:
“Hi {{customer_firstname}}, you can track your order here: {{tracking_link}}. Tracking updates may take up to 24 hours to appear. Here’s our shipping policy: [Help Center link].”
Pro Tip: Customers expect deep discounts this time of year. BPO agency C(x)atalyze recommends automating responses to these inquiries with Gorgias Rules. Include words such as “discount” AND “BFCM”, “holiday”, “Thanksgiving”, “Black Friday”, “Christmas”, etc.
2. Train your AI on the right sources
AI is only as good as the information you feed it. Before BFCM, make sure it’s pulling from:
Your Help Center with updated FAQs and policies
Internal docs on return windows, promos, and shipping cutoffs
Product catalogs with the latest details and stock info
BFCM-specific resources like discount terms or extended support hours
Double-check a few responses in Test Mode to confirm the AI is pulling the right information.
Gorgias AI Agent uses Guidance (your instructions) and knowledge sources in order to perform actions and craft responses.
3. Define the limits of what AI should handle
Edge cases and urgent questions need a human touch, not an automated reply. Keep AI focused on quick requests like order status, shipping timelines, or promo eligibility. Complex issues, like defective products, VIP complaints, and returns, can directly go to your agents.
Pro Tip: In Gorgias AI Agent settings, you can customize how handovers happen on Chat during business hours and after hours.
Forecast your BFCM staffing needs
Too few agents and you prolong wait times and miss sales. Too many and you’ll leave your team burned out. Capacity planning helps you find the balance to handle the BFCM surge.
1. Use ticket volume to estimate the number of agents
Use your ticket-to-order ratio from last year as a baseline, then apply it to this year’s forecast. Compare that number against what your team can realistically handle per shift to see if your current staffing plan holds up.
2. Plan extra coverage with automation or outsourcing
You still have options if you don’t have enough agents helping you out. Customer service agency TalentPop recommends starting by identifying where coverage will fall short, whether that’s evenings, weekends, or specific channels. Then decide whether to increase automation and AI use or bring in temporary assistance.
3. Run agent training sessions on BFCM protocols
Before the holiday season, run refreshers on new products, promos, and policy changes so no one hesitates when the tickets roll in. Pair training with cheat sheets or an internal knowledge base, giving your team quick access to the answers they’ll need most often.
Map out your logistics processes
Expect late shipments, low inventory, and more returns than usual during peak season. With the proper logistics automations, you can stay ahead of these issues while reducing pressure on your team.
Negotiate better rates and processing efficiencies
Automate your reverse logistics
Connect your store, 3PL, and WMS
Automate inventory reorder points
Show shipping timelines on product pages
1. Negotiate better rates and processing efficiencies
Shipping costs add up fast during peak season. Work with your 3PL or partners like Loop Returns to take advantage of negotiated carrier rates and rate shopping tools that automatically select the most cost-effective option for each order.
2. Automate inventory reorder points
To maintain a steady supply of products, set automatic reorder points at the SKU level so reorders are triggered once inventory dips below a threshold. More lead time means fewer ‘out of stock’ surprises for your customers.
3. Build contingency plans for disruptions
Bad weather, delays, or unexpected demand can disrupt shipping timelines. Create a playbook in advance so your team knows exactly how to respond when things go sideways. At minimum, your plan should cover:
Weather disruptions - Do you have a backup plan if carriers can’t pick up shipments due to storms or severe conditions?
Carrier overloads - Which alternative carriers or routes can you switch to if primary partners are at capacity?
Inventory shortages - How will you handle overselling, low stock alerts, or warehouse imbalances?
Demand drop-offs - How will you reallocate inventory if BFCM sales don’t match forecasts?
4. Show shipping timelines on product pages
Customers want to know when their order will arrive before they hit checkout. Add estimated delivery dates and 2-day shipping badges directly on product pages. These cues help shoppers make confident decisions and reduce pre-purchase questions about shipping times.
Pro Tip: To keep those timelines accurate, build carrier cutoff dates into your Black Friday logistics workflows with your 3PL or fulfillment team. This allows you to avoid promising delivery windows your carriers can’t meet during peak season.
Maximize profits with upselling automations
You’ve handled the basics, from ticket routing to staffing and logistics. Now it’s time to go beyond survival. Upselling automations create an end-to-end experience that enhances the customer journey, shows them products they’ll love, and makes it easy to buy more with confidence. To put them to work:
Guide shoppers with smart recommendations
Suggest alternatives when items are out of stock
Engage hesitant shoppers with winback discounts
1. Guide shoppers with smart recommendations
BFCM puts pressure on customers to find the right deal fast, but many don’t know what they’re looking for. Make it easier for them with macros that point shoppers to bestsellers or curated bundles. For a more advanced option, conversational AI like Gorgias Shopping Assistant can guide browsers on their own, even when your agents are offline.
2. Suggest alternatives when items are out of stock
No need to damage your conversion rate just because customers missed the items they wanted. Automations can recommend similar or complementary products, keeping customers engaged rather than leaving them empty-handed.
If an item is sold out, set up automations to:
Suggest similar items like another size, color, or variation of the same product.
Highlight premium upgrades such as a newer model or higher-value version that’s in stock.
Cross-sell and offer bundles to keep the order valuable even without the original item.
Notify customers about restocks by letting shoppers sign up for back-in-stock alerts.
3. Engage hesitant customers with winback discounts
Automations can detect hesitation through signals like abandoned carts, long checkout times, or even customer messages that mention keywords such as “too expensive” or “I’ll think about it.” In these cases, trigger a small discount to encourage the purchase.
You can take this a step further with conversational AI like Gorgias Shopping Assistant, which detects intent in real time. If a shopper seems uncertain, it can proactively offer a discount code based on the level of their buying intent.
Keep support quality high with QA automations
During BFCM, speed alone is not enough. Customers expect accurate, helpful, and on-brand responses, even when volume is at its highest. QA automations help you prioritize quality by reviewing every interaction automatically and flagging where standards are slipping. To make QA part of your automation prep:
Automate ticket reviews with AI-powered QA
Track both agent and AI responses
Turn QA insights into coaching opportunities
1. Automate ticket reviews with AI-powered QA
Manual QA can only spot-check a small sample of tickets, which means most interactions go unreviewed. AI QA reviews every ticket automatically and delivers feedback instantly. This ensures consistent quality, even when your team is flooded with requests.
Compared to manual QA, AI QA offers:
Full coverage: Every ticket is reviewed, not just a sample.
Instant feedback: Agents get insights right after closing tickets.
Consistency: Reviews are unbiased and use the same criteria across all interactions.
Scalability: Works at any ticket volume without slowing down your team.
AI-powered QA helps you review more tickets at a higher quality in comparison to manual QA.
2. Track both agent and AI responses
Customers should get the same level of quality no matter who replies. AI QA evaluates both human and AI conversations using the same criteria. This creates a fair standard and gives you confidence that every interaction meets your brand’s bar for quality.
3. Turn QA insights into coaching opportunities
QA automation is not just about grading tickets. It highlights recurring issues, unclear workflows, or policy confusion. Use these insights to guide targeted coaching sessions and refine AI guidance so both humans and AI deliver better results.
Pro Tip: Pilot your AI QA tool with a small group of agents before peak season. This lets you validate feedback quality and scale with confidence when BFCM volume hits.
Give your ecommerce strategy a boost this holiday shopping season
The name of the game this Black Friday-Cyber Monday isn’t just to get a ton of online sales, it’s to set up your site for a successful holiday shopping season.
If you want to move the meter, focus on setting up strong BFCM automation flows now.
Gorgias is designed with ecommerce merchants in mind. Find out how Gorgias’s time-saving CX platform can help you create BFCM success. Book a demo today.
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We reviewed 13 Shopify live chat apps to help you offer faster support. Get the pros and cons, plus a quick look at features like AI and agent handoffs.
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0 min read . By Holly Stanley
TL;DR:
The best Shopify live chat apps combine AI automation with human support so you can instantly handle common questions and escalate complex issues to a real person.
Try out apps with free trials before you commit, like Gorgias (7-day trial), Tawk.to (free), and MooseDesk (free plan).
Look for key features like automation, helpdesk integration, and chat-to-human handoff to ensure your live chat can scale with your support and sales goals.
Roll out chat gradually instead of enabling it everywhere at once. Start with high-intent pages, add automation, and route questions to the right team to keep things manageable.
Thanks to conversational AI, live chat has become a larger shift toward always-on support for Shopify stores. It improves customer experience, helps drive sales, and boosts retention—all while giving shoppers a faster, more personal way to connect with your brand.
In fact, 82% of online shoppers say they’d talk to a chatbot if it meant avoiding a wait. The challenge? Choosing the right live chat app. With over 1,000 options in the Shopify App Store, the search can feel overwhelming.
That’s why we’ve rounded up the 13 best Shopify live chat apps to help you narrow it down.
Live chat vs. conversational AI—what’s the difference?
Live chat is a way for shoppers to get real-time support from a human agent. The best live chat apps also use automation to handle FAQs, route conversations, or collect details before handing things off to your team.
Conversational AI, on the other hand, goes a step further. Instead of assisting your agents, AI chatbots can carry out entire conversations on their own. They answer questions, recommend products, and resolve issues without human involvement.
Today’s top Shopify live chat tools bring these two worlds together. You get the flexibility of human-led support when it matters most, plus AI agents that scale your availability and keep response times low.
Best live chat apps for Shopify in 2025
Gorgias
Zendesk
tawk.to Live Chat
O: WhatsApp Chat, Contact Form
Chatra Live Chat
Re:amaze Live Chat
Tidio
LiveChat
Shopify Inbox
Formilla Live Chat
eDesk Live Chat
Jotform AI Chatbot & Live Chat
Moose: AI Chatbot & Live Chat
App
Pricing
Helpdesk Integration
Automation and AI
Handoffs to Humans
Ease of Setup
Language Localization
Gorgias
$10/mo (7-day trial)
✅ Native helpdesk
Rules, macros, AI Agent, Shopping Assistant
✅ Smooth routing to agents
Easy, no coding
✅
Zendesk Chat
$49/agent/mo (14-day trial)
✅ Zendesk Support Suite
Macros, triggers, chatbots in higher tiers
✅ Handoffs supported
Steeper learning curve
✅
Tawk.to
Free (branding removal extra)
❌
Basic auto-responses, no advanced AI
✅ Transfer supported
Easy, no coding
✅
O: WhatsApp Chat, Contact Form
Free plan + paid tiers (from $2.99/mo)
❌ No native helpdesk
Basic automation & preset welcome messages
✅ Via your linked messaging apps
Easy, one-click install & widget setup
✅
Chatra
$31/mo (free plan available)
❌
Typo correction, chatbots (not advanced AI)
✅ Manual transfer
Easy, no coding
✅
Re:amaze
$29/mo (14-day trial)
✅ Full helpdesk
Chatbots, rules, macros, workflows
✅ Integrated with helpdesk
Easy, no coding
✅
Tidio
$29/mo (free plan available)
❌
Automation flows, AI chatbot templates
✅ Transfers to agents
Easy, no coding
✅
LiveChat
$16/mo (14-day trial)
✅ via LiveChat + integrations; not Shopify-native helpdesk
Chatbots (via add-ons)
✅ Handoffs supported
Easy, no coding
✅
Shopify Inbox
Free
❌ Limited to Shopify Inbox/Ping
No advanced AI, basic chat only
✅ Manual transfer
Requires Ping app install
❌
Formilla
$17.49/mo (15-day trial)
❌
Basic automation rules, no advanced AI
✅ Manual transfer
Easy, app install
❌
eDesk Live Chat
$69/agent/mo (14-day trial)
✅ eDesk helpdesk
Limited automation, no advanced AI
✅ Manual transfer
Easy, app install
❌
Jotform AI Chatbot & Live Chat
Free (100 convos); Paid $39/mo
❌
AI chatbot trained on store data, integrations with Slack/WhatsApp
✅ Smooth transitions
Easy, no coding
✅
Moose (MooseDesk)
Free plan; Paid tiers available
✅ Unified helpdesk inbox
AI chatbot, FAQ builder, auto-translate
✅ Integrated handoffs
Easy (PWA, no coding)
✅
1. Gorgias
Gorgias is the best customer experience platform for ecommerce merchants. It provides you with all the features you need to create an incredible customer support experience, improve team performance, and increase sales.
One of Gorgias’s most noticeable features is its tight integration with ecommerce platforms, including Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce. Hence, Gorgias can pull relevant data like order tracking numbers, last order details, loyalty points, etc., from your Shopify dashboard right to your helpdesk.
Another exciting feature of Gorgias chat is Shopping Assistant, a conversational AI tool that helps support teams increase sales on their website. Using your Shopify catalog, AI can recommend, upsell, and offer tailored discounts at scale so every chat conversation is maximized.
Offers a conversational AI tool that supports and sells
Fantastic customer support team
Why it may not be for you:
No free plan
Pricing: Basic plans start at $10/mo. A 7-day free trial is available.
2. Zendesk
Developed by Zendesk, Zendesk Chat is a live chat app for Shopify stores. It allows you to communicate with customers over your Shopify storefront, mobile apps, and popular messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, Twitter, and Line.
If you’re a Zendesk customer using the Team plan or above, you can use Zendesk Chat for free.
Standout features:
It’s a good choice if you're using Zendesk Support Suite
Supports all essential features of a typical live chat app
Gather customer feedback via chat ratings
Share files like screenshots, product guides, or GIFs with customers
Why it may not be for you:
Non-user-friendly interface and steep learning curve for beginners
Expensive pricing plans for Shopify store owners
A lot of technical errors when installing and using the app
Bad customer support team
Not suitable for ecommerce businesses
Pricing: Starting from $49 per agent per month. A 14-day free trial is available.
3. tawk.to Live Chat
Tawk.to Live Chat is an agent-centric chat application for Shopify stores. The best thing about this app is it’s 100% free—there’s no limit to the number of agents, chat volumes, or sites you can add widgets to.
Standout features:
Supports 27 languages
Easy to set up, free forever, and secure
Available on PC, macOS, iOS, and Android
Why it may not be for you:
Many features are not user-friendly
Need to pay a small fee to remove the “Powered by Tawk.to” branding
The customer support team isn’t always responsive
Pricing: Free
4. O: WhatsApp Chat, Contact Form
O: WhatsApp Chat, Contact Form makes it easy for shoppers to reach you through the channels they already use, like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, and Instagram. Instead of building out a complex live chat system, it focuses on providing a simple, customizable widget that connects directly to your preferred messaging platforms.
Standout features:
Integrates with 20+ messaging channels
Customizable chat button and widget design
Contact form option for capturing customer details when agents aren’t available
Targeting rules to show/hide the widget on specific pages or devices
Why it may not be for you:
Doesn’t offer advanced automation or AI-powered chat
Lacks ticket management and deep helpdesk integrations
Pricing:
Free plan available. Paid plans start at $2.99/month
5. Chatra Live Chat
Chatra Live Chat claims to help you “sell more, answer questions, and alleviate concerns to help visitors place an order.” It also allows you to view a shopper's cart contents in real-time to identify the most valuable customers and provide tailored assistance.
Standout features:
Support a free forever plan
Provide useful live chat features like typo correction and group chats
Why it may not be for you:
Most advanced features aren’t available in the free plan
Lack of customization options
Pricing: Starting from $31 per month. A free plan is available.
6. Re:amaze Live Chat
Re:amaze is a helpdesk, live chat, ticketing, chatbot, and FAQ for small, medium, and enterprise businesses. It allows you to handle support tickets across channels, including emails, live chat, Facebook pages, Messenger, Twitter, Instagram, SMS, VOIP, and WhatsApp.
Reamaze Live Chat aims to help you support customers faster by chatting with them in real-time. It offers many features that are similar to Gorgias’ and other live chat apps.
Standout features:
Multi-store support
Can send products to customers in chat
Flexible pricing, no contract
Why it may not be for you:
User interface is a bit outdated and not user-friendly
Macros and rules need improvement
Pricing: Starting from $29 per month. A 14-day free trial is available.
7. Tidio
With approximately 900 reviews, Tidio Live Chat is currently the highest-rated live chat app on the Shopify App Store. Tidio merges live chat, bots, and marketing automation to provide you with a comprehensive live chat app.
Standout features:
Rich widget customization options
Many automation and bot templates
Multiple languages supported
Why it may not be for you:
Shallow integration with Shopify and other ecommerce platforms
Pricing plans are a bit high for Shopify merchants
Pricing: Starting from $29 a month. A free plan is available.
8. LiveChat
LiveChat is a messaging app that offers many unique features for its live chat service. It can integrate with most customer relationship management (CRM) tools like Zendesk and ecommerce platforms like Shopify.
Standout features:
Chat window loads instantly and is easy to use
Clean and well-designed user interface
Why it may not be for you:
Not optimized for Shopify since LiveChat is also a CRM
Pricing: Starting from $16 per month. A 14-day free trial is available.
9. Shopify Inbox
Shopify Inbox is Shopify’s native live chat function that allows you to have real-time conversations with customers visiting your Shopify store. It’s an extension to the messaging capabilities already available within Shopify Ping.
Note that all your chats are managed in Shopify Ping. Shopify also asks your customers to provide a phone number or email address in order to start a chat with you. Their information will be added to your Customer list in Shopify or matched to an existing customer.
Standout features:
Clean and intuitive interface
Free forever
Why it may not be for you:
A bit complicated for beginners to install the app
To use Shopify Chat, you must use Shopify Ping on your desktop (shopifyping.com) or install it on an iOS, iPad, or Android device to receive and respond to messages.
Pricing: Free
10. Formilla Live Chat
Formilla Live Chat offers free live chat and premium services for your Shopify store. You can use this app to chat with your visitors live if they have any questions or need support from your store.
Standout features:
Easy and simple to use
Connects with customers quickly
Why it may not be for you:
Many features locked behind higher plans
Lack of rules and automation
Pricing: Starting from $17.49 per month. A 15-day free trial is available.
11. eDesk Live Chat
eDesk is a comprehensive customer helpdesk designed for ecommerce. It helps you create a positive experience for customers across your marketing channels: email, live chat, social media, and online store.
Standout features:
Clean and intuitive user interface
Good customer service team
Why it may not be for you:
Pricing plans are steep for Shopify merchants
Not optimized for ecommerce
Lack of essential live chat features
Pricing: Starting from $49 per month. A 14-day free trial is available.
12. Jotform AI Chatbot & Live Chat
Jotform AI Chatbot & Live Chat lets you provide 24/7 support with an AI-powered chatbot that integrates directly into your Shopify store. The app automatically trains on your store’s data to answer FAQs, track orders, and even recommend products, while still allowing live chat when a human touch is needed.
Standout features:
AI trained on your store’s data
Multi-language support (English, German, French, Spanish, and more)
Integrations with WhatsApp, Messenger, Slack, and Google Drive
Why it may not be for you:
Advanced features only available on paid tiers
More complex than simple live chat apps
Pricing: Free plan available (includes up to 100 monthly conversations). Paid plans start at $39/month with higher limits.
13. Moose: AI Chatbot & Live Chat
Moose: AI Chatbot & Live Chat (MooseDesk) brings live chat, helpdesk, and omnichannel messaging into one unified tool built for Shopify. With AI-powered automation and support across chat, email, WhatsApp, and social, it's engineered to help you respond faster — without leaving your dashboard.
Standout features:
Trained on your store data (FAQs, products, etc.)
Central inbox for live chat, email, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, and more
Multilingual support and built-in FAQ/self-service features
Why it may not be for you:
Because it’s a newer tool, some merchants report quirks or missing native mobile app (it's built as a Progressive Web App currently)
Push notification behavior and instant alerts can vary depending on device settings
Pricing: Free
How to roll out live chat without slowing down support
The benefits of live chat are real, but only if you roll it out with a plan. Too often, brands turn it on everywhere and suddenly face a flood of new tickets their team can’t keep up with. The result is often longer wait times and frustrated customers.
The key is to treat live chat as both a support and sales channel. That means leaning on automation to handle the quick, repetitive stuff, and reserving agent time for higher-value conversations.
Here’s how to strike the right balance:
Start with automation: Use chatbots to answer FAQs, collect order details, or qualify sales leads before passing them to a human.
Set smart routing rules: Direct pre-sales questions to your sales team, and post-purchase issues to support, so customers reach the right person faster.
Limit availability at first: Roll out chat during peak hours or on high-intent pages (like product or checkout) to control volume.
Layer in human support: Keep agents available for complex or high-stakes conversations where personal service matters most.
By combining humans with automation, you’ll give customers the instant responses they expect, without creating another backlog for your team.
Turn conversations into conversions with the right app
There’s no single Shopify live chat app that works for every store. Each brand has its own support needs, sales goals, and team workflows—which means the “best” tool depends on what you’re trying to achieve.
The smartest approach is to test a couple of the apps above and see which one fits your business best. The right live chat tool should do three things: improve customer satisfaction, make your team’s job easier, and contribute to your bottom line.
The new Gorgias Helpdesk puts powerful AI, real-time insights, and effortless support tools right at your team’s fingertips.
By Christelle Agustin
0 min read . By Christelle Agustin
TL;DR:
Get instant context with Ticket Summaries. Jump into any conversation without digging through past messages or tabs.
Organize tickets and customers with Ticket and Customer Fields. Attach properties to tickets and customers to see the whole picture, then turn it into reportable data.
Support global customers with real-time translations. Engage in natural conversations in your customer’s language without paying for another tool.
Resolve urgent issues with Priority Scoring. Rank tickets by importance, so high-value or sensitive issues don’t get overlooked.
Onboard quickly with in-house migration. Whether you’re coming from Zendesk or Richpanel, Gorgias handles the move for you.
We recently unveiled the latest upgrades to Gorgias Helpdesk during Moments that Matter: Meet the Modern Helpdesk.
The event was hosted by Bora Shehu, VP of Product Design, with updates from John Merse (VP of Product), Fraser Bruce (Senior Solutions Consultant), Nicole Simmen (Senior Manager, Customer Implementation), and a customer story from Michael Duran (Operations Manager, Authentic Brands).
From quality of life improvements to brand new features, here’s what’s waiting for you in Gorgias.
Watch the full presentation here:
Support faster with built-in ticket summaries
Agents shouldn’t have to dig for context. Every conversation now comes with Ticket Summaries. Whether an agent has jumped into a ticket mid-conversation or is dealing with a new customer, these AI-generated summaries tell the whole story in no time.
We’ve also given the Customer Timeline a makeover. Now, you can glance at past tickets and order updates in one clean view. Plus, a dedicated Order View lets agents dive into past purchases without leaving the ticket or opening a new tab.
View a customer’s conversation history on the Customer Timeline.
Enrich your data with detailed ticket and customer properties
Agents have always had visibility into customer history, but now that context is easier to act on.
Ticket Fields automatically tags tickets with AI-detected reasons, whether that’s shipping questions or product feedback, to help organize your conversations more effectively.
Then, add in another layer of data using Customer Fields (in beta) to note whether you’re speaking to a longtime, VIP customer or a customer with a history of high returns.
All of this data can be funneled into your ticket reports, making it easier for your team to discover new insights about your products, support quality, and more.
Provide each customer with a Customer Field label to enhance context and streamline customer segmentation.
Speak every customer’s language with instant translations
Taking your brand global doesn’t have to mean hiring a whole new team or spending extra on a localization tool. AI-powered translations (in beta) will soon be available on the helpdesk.
Finally, your team will be able to support customers in any language in real-time. Customers write in their native language, agents respond in theirs, and the exchange feels natural on both sides.
Instant AI translations let agents and customers interact in their preferred language without external tools.
Never miss urgent tickets with Priority Scoring
How many times has an urgent ticket been buried at the bottom of your inbox? The new Priority Scoring system prevents that by automatically labeling tickets as Low, Normal, High, or Critical based on your Rules.
For example, you might label a negative Facebook comment with threatening sentiment as ‘High,’ or bump high-value shoppers to the top with a ‘Critical’ label. This ensures your team always sees the conversations that need the most attention, so no sensitive issue slips through the cracks.
Shape every call journey with the new IVR flow builder
Now in beta, our flow-based IVR (interactive voice response) system lets teams on Gorgias Voice build customized call journeys for every type of conversation. Route customers through interactive menus, segment them based on their data, or direct them to voicemail, and schedule SMS follow-ups and callbacks.
To match agent availability, you can set business hours per phone number and per channel across storefronts. Teams also have more flexibility with ring strategies (ring available agents all at once or one at a time), wrap-up time between calls, and faster availability refreshes.
With Gorgias Voice, you can select which team receives inbound customer calls, how the call is routed, and the ringing behavior.
Stay on top of every goal with custom dashboards
We understand that CX teams need more than surface-level KPIs—they need to know what’s actually driving performance, revenue, and retention.
With Dashboards, you can build reports focused on CX data you care about, from agent performance to product return trends. Then, filter by store or sub-brand to zoom in on the details each team is responsible for.
We’re also introducing the Human Response Time metric to show how quickly your team responds to escalations from AI Agent. This gives you a clear sign of what issues require human attention, how fast they’re resolved, and whether you need to adjust staffing.
Effortless, in-house migration for new joiners
Leave the moving to us—we nowmanagemigrations in-house. Depending on your plan, our Implementation team will transfer emails, customers, macros, and more for you. Combined with 99.99% uptime, switching platforms is smoother, faster, and more reliable than ever.
For accelerated performance, consider our 50-in-50 implementation program, which aims to resolve 50% of your ticket volume using AI Agent within 50 days.
Enterprise customers receive a dedicated Enterprise CSM, optimization workshops, and 24/7 support to get the most out of Gorgias from day one.
What’s coming next
Our teams are hard at work changing the landscape of customer experience. Here’s what’s on the Gorgias Product Roadmap:
Cleaner, minimal interface. We’re giving our UI a new look to reduce clutter and highlight key information, making conversations front and center.
Detailed order view. Quickly view past purchases and make order updates without opening new tabs or interrupting your workflow.
Shop right in chat. Soon, product photos, descriptions, and even customer reviews will be shown directly in Gorgias Chat, so shopping experiences are as frictionless as possible.
Scheduled CSV exports. Prove the value of CX with automated exports, perfect for stakeholders, whether they use Gorgias or not.
New integration with Assembled Workforce Management. Our partnership will help you leverage Gorgias ticket data to optimize forecasting and agent scheduling.
Role-based access control. Decide which dashboards, views, conversations, and settings can be accessed by each user role.
Okta single sign-on. Let your team sign in to Gorgias using the same authentication service you use for the rest of your tech stack.
The future of support starts with your helpdesk
Our latest helpdesk updates make it easier than before to create memorable customer moments.
As Bora Shehu, our VP of Product Design, said, “We hope that the tools we’re building help you spend less time on robotic work, and more time on impactful human work that grows your businesses through the power of conversations.”
If you’re not on Gorgias yet and want to see what’s possible, book a demo today.
Bring the fitting room online with AI sizing tools, fit finders, and at-home try-ons that cut returns and boost shopper confidence.
By Alexa Hertel
0 min read . By Alexa Hertel
TL;DR:
58% of fashion shoppers “bracket” orders—buying multiple sizes and returning what doesn’t fit. This drives high return rates, increased costs, and customer frustration.
70% of returns are due to sizing issues. Nearly half of shoppers abandon carts over inconvenient returns.
Leading solutions include: AI-powered fit tools, 3D visualizations that show scale and model stats, “fit finder” tools, at-home fitting experiences, and AI-powered customer support.
Brands that replicate the fitting room online gain higher retention, lower costs, and stronger sustainability.
Sizing has long been a friction point for ecommerce fashion shoppers.
Without the ability to try items on, 58% of shoppers resort to "bracketing"—ordering multiple sizes of the same piece and returning what doesn’t fit.
While it gives customers a temporary fix, it ultimately creates frustration for them and logistical headaches for brands.
The result is rising return rates, higher costs, and wasted resources. To break this cycle, ecommerce brands need to rethink how they guide shoppers toward the perfect fit. The good news is that many brands are already showing the way by using AI-powered tools and smarter product experiences to replicate the fitting room from the comfort of home.
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Returns are getting unsustainable
Recent data highlights just how severe the return challenge has become for fashion and apparel retailers:
46% of shoppers have abandoned a purchase because return methods were inconvenient.
Fashion and apparel brands get twice as many return requests than any other industry.
According to Gorgias data, 70% of returns are due to sizing confusion.
“Will this fit me?” is one of the top reasons customers contact support.
In addition, rapidly rising concerns around sustainability and climate change, as well as heightened awareness around over-consumption, are prompting consumers to make changes in their purchasing habits.
Brands who prioritize well-fitting, long-lasting pieces and reduce carbon footprints and the amount of clothing diverted to landfills by lowering returns can actually benefit from a strategic edge.
“Those who choose to approach sustainability with a long-term mindset even while battling short-term problems will be rewarded with more efficient business operations and a competitive advantage,” writes McKinsey in its State of Fashion 2025 report.
Effective sizing solutions for ecommerce brands
Most brands already have size charts, but shoppers don’t want to measure themselves, or find those charts to be inaccurate.
When shoppers lack confidence in choosing the right fit, they either abandon their carts or rely on bracketing, both of which lower profitability and customer trust.
Forward-looking fashion and apparel brands are solving sizing issues by using tools for a more intuitive shopping experience. This ultimately helps them build loyalty, increase retention, and reduce returns.
Implement AI-powered body measurement tools
Rather than purely providing static size charts on your website, opt for AI-generated personalized fit recommendations instead.
Zalando provides size recommendations based on what’s in a customer’s cart.
The brand flags whether an item is true to size or not. It also offers the ability for customers to see recommendations based on logged fit-based return reasons, past purchases, and other clothing items that fit them well.
Zalando also launched a body measurement feature in 2023 where shoppers can actually scan themselves for more accurate size advice.
Zalando uses machine learning to predict customer sizes by scanning customer photos.
Show size and scale in product photos
As AI grows in proficiency, there are more tools than ever to help shoppers visualize product scale and fit.
For example, accessory shop LeSportsac uses Tangiblee, a product experience tool, to help customers understand scale and what fits inside each bag.
LeSportsac helps shoppers visualize the capacity of their bags with a 3D visualization tool by Tangiblee.
Performance hunting gear shop KUIU takes another approach. It uses a photo-based layering guide, so shoppers can see how the size and fit look with multiple layers on a model. Different model stats shown within product photography give contextual sizing cues.
KUIU visualizes size and fit with full body photos of models in their clothes, including model height and clothing sizes.
Sleep shop Cozy Earth takes a similar route, stating model height and size on product photos.
Cozy Earth's product photos include the model's height and clothing size.
Introduce “fit finder” tools
Some brands are helping shoppers pick the right size with interactive quizzes based on factors like height, weight, and the sizes of other clothing items that fit well. SuitShop is among those brands using a Fit Finder quiz on its website.
SuitShop offers a fit finder quiz to match customers to their perfect suit size.
Similarly, Psycho Bunny leverages the AI tool True Fit as a size finder on product pages.
Psycho Bunny uses True Fit to provide recommendations that match customer measurements.
Bring the fitting room home
Ergonomic shoe brand Orthofeet eliminates sizing qualms altogether by including customizable inserts inside each box. Fitting spacers ensure a snug fit and arch enhancement for those who need it, helping shoppers get comfortable shoes that fit.
Orthofeet assures customers about sizing by including removable spacers in all orders.
Jonas Paul Eyewear shares the “try it on at home” approach, offering a free or low-cost home try-on kit.
Jonas Paul sells home try-on kits to bring the sizing experience to customers.
Leverage AI-powered customer support
Gorgias Shopping Assistant helps brands meet that need by delivering human-like guidance at scale, giving shoppers instant answers that feel personal.
For example, VESSEL uses Shopping Assistant in chat to provide real-time support on sizing and inventory, helping customers choose with confidence. By addressing fit questions directly, Shopping Assistant reduces returns and builds trust at the point of purchase.
Gorgias Shopping Assistant helps a customer find women’s golf gloves.
Similarly, outdoor clothing retailer Arc‘teryx provides an “ask me anything” AI chat where shoppers can confirm any questions they have around fit or sizing.
Arc'teryx uses AI to answer questions about their Atom Hoody.
The future for ecommerce size guides
Sizing for ecommerce fashion and apparel brands has become a business-critical challenge. With 70% of returns tied to fit issues and nearly half of shoppers abandoning purchases over inconvenient returns, brands that replicate the fitting room online stand to gain a competitive advantage.
From Zalando’s 10% reduction in size-related returns to VESSEL’s use of AI-powered chat, the path is clear: investing in smarter size chart solutions pays off with higher retention, lower costs, and stronger sustainability.
The brands that provide fitting room-level experiences online now will set themselves apart from the rest.
Book a demo to see how Gorgias, the leading conversational commerce platform, helps fashion brands cut returns, drive sales, and deliver fitting-room level experiences online.
On average, 15% of interactions were resolved with automation
Experts predict that 2024 will focus on strategic planning, optimized AI use, more real-time communication, and amplifying the voice of CX within companies
This year, we witnessed customer service teams from 16,140 brands support over 77 million shoppers and millions of tickets with Gorgias.
As we turn to a new chapter, we want to spotlight how six of the top-performing industries delivered customer service in 2023.
From food to fashion, we’ll see how quickly agents answered questions, then discover what customers were asking, and learn from experts about what customer experience trends to expect in the new year.
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Support teams resolved tickets in 2.5 business days
Step into the ecommerce world, where you’ll find a vibrant population of merchants, each with their own niche and groups of loyal customers. Together, they generated $1.45 billion in revenue in 2023.
Of course, this would not have been possible without the grit of customer service teams and their dedication to customer satisfaction.
Support teams across 20 industries answered customer inquiries within one business day and solved them in two and a half, resulting in very satisfied shoppers. Impressively, 15% of interactions were fully automated and resolved on average.
Here are the average industry support stats:
First response time: 7.6 hours
Resolution time: 18.6 hours
CSAT score: 4.5/5
From food to fashion: a cross-industry glance at support statistics
The most popular ecommerce industries — Apparel and Fashion, Health, Wellness, and Fitness, Cosmetics, Food and Beverage, Consumer Goods, and Luxury Goods and Jewelry — were the top performers.
Using exclusive Gorgias data, we’ll look at how support teams from these industries handled tickets. Then, we’ll gain expert insight into the ecommerce experience in 2023, and how experts predict it will change in the coming year.
Apparel and Fashion strutted with a 4.5/5 CSAT score
Our first stop is the bustling market of Apparel and Fashion. We’re all familiar with how tricky online clothes shopping can be. Most likely due to issues with sizing and style, support teams mainly dealt with inquiries about:
Shipping status
Returns
Refunds
Yet, despite receiving the highest number of customer tickets among the six industries, Apparel and Fashion brands kept customers happy. They responded within one business day and resolved issues within two, with 15% of interactions being resolved with automation.
Here are their stats compared to the overall industry average:
First response time: 8 hours (+0.4 hours)
Resolution time: 17 hours (-1.6 hours)
CSAT score: 4.5/5
According to Loop, over 50% of their merchants now charge for certain returns, including fees for exchanges and returns for store credit. This change aligns with consumer preferences, as their report shows 70% of shoppers are willing to pay for premium, convenient experiences, a trend already embraced by half of these customers.
Cancellations and returns were Health, Wellness, and Fitness’ biggest hurdles
The next stop on our tour is the thriving Health, Wellness, and Fitness industry.
Unfortunately, brands in this sector had a challenging year keeping up with unpleasant tickets about:
Shipping status
Subscription cancellations
Refunds
Perhaps support teams could have automated more than 15% of interactions to handle these repetitive tickets better. But despite their slower-than-average first response time, customers were still pleased with the support experience:
First response time: 9 hours (+1.4 hours)
Resolution time: 18.3 hours (-0.3 hours)
CSAT score: 4.5/5
Expert Insights: Amanda Kwasniewicz, the VP of Customer Experience at women’s wellness brand Love Wellness, highlights that personalized customer service has been a key trend of 2023. She’s observed that customers now expect to receive personal recommendations during their shopping journeys.
Cosmetics enhanced support with 18% automation
Now, take a peek at the fast-growing Cosmetics industry, and you’ll see how eager customers were to check out the hype around both small businesses and celebrity brands.
Given the boom of influencer marketing for these highly personal products, customers often inquired about:
Shipping status
Feedback
Damaged orders
To solve these tickets, support teams automated 18% of interactions and attained faster times than average:
First response time: 7 hours (-0.6 hours)
Resolution time: 15.8 hours (-2.8 hours)
CSAT score: 4.5/5
Food and Beverage served it fresh with a 5-hour first response time
Getting hungry? This year, the growing appetite for Food and Beverage in the ecommerce world was unmistakable. Beef jerky or freshly squeezed fruit juice, customers savored their snacks. But it also didn’t stop them from being tough critics.
The main issues raised to Food and Beverage support teams revolved around:
Shipping status
Feedback
Damaged products
Luckily, they cut down their first response time by automating 15% of interactions — nearly three hours faster than average:
First response time: 5 hours (-2.6 hours)
Resolution time: 17.2 hours (-1.4 hours)
CSAT score: 4.5/5
Expert insights: Zoe Kahn, former Manager of CX & Retention at Chomps and now Owner of Inevitable Agency, saw inventory issues as a major challenge of 2023. The complexity of inventory logistics is difficult for consumers to understand, leading to higher outreach from customers wondering when items would be back in stock. "Quieting those concerns is really difficult," Zoe notes. However, after witnessing inventory issues over the last few years, Zoe realized that "it's inevitable that inventory problems will happen because of how challenging the logistics of selling a product are."
Consumer Goods has CSAT down pat with a 4.6/5
There’s a lot to explore in the all-encompassing Consumer Goods industry. You’ll find brands that sell everything from sustainable water bottles and furniture to everything else in between, like dog toys and mystery subscription boxes.
While Consumer Goods brands only automated 14% of interactions, their resolution time was two hours faster than the industry average, resulting in the happiest customers among the six industries:
First response time: 8 hours (+0.4 hours)
Resolution time: 16.4 hours (-2.2 hours)
CSAT score: 4.6/5 (+0.6)
The top tickets Consumer Goods brands received were about:
Shipping status
Damaged orders
Customer feedback
Expert Insights: Ren Fuller-Wasserman, the Director of Experience at TUSHY, notes that the impact of the macroeconomic climate was among the top challenges faced in 2023. “As there's talk of recession and inflation, people are really looking for products that provide added value,” she says.
Our partner Okendo, a growth marketing platform that has worked with well-known brands like SKIMS and Rhode, notes that tech stack consolidation has been the top priority in 2023. They saw that merchants who used a multifaceted product with app integrations resulted in a 15x return on investment.
Luxury Goods and Jewelry polished interactions with 28% automation
Our final stop is at the small gem of an industry, Luxury Goods and Jewelry. Making sure their pricey wares arrived to customers safely was the top priority. That’s why the top questions support teams received were in regard to:
Shipping status
Discount requests
Damaged orders
Out of all the industries, Luxury Goods and Jewelry brands automated the most interactions at 28%, which certainly helped to shorten response and resolution times:
First response time: 6 hours (-1.6 hours)
Resolution time: 17.1 hours (-1.5 hours)
CSAT score: 4.4/5 (-0.1)
Expert Insights: Caela Castillo, Director of CX at Jaxxon, advises preparing early for BFCM but being flexible to change. She notes, “Sometimes you need a different perspective,” acknowledging that agents are valuable resources to gain customer insights, especially when it comes to planning new customer service strategies.
How to prepare for ecommerce in 2024 (according to experts)
It’s been a fruitful year of expediting the traditionally slow support process. However, with greater strides made in AI technology, ecommerce has only scratched the surface of providing accelerated service.
We interviewed ecommerce experts who saw the rise and fall of trends in 2023 and are ready to use their learnings to make the new year better.
Here are the top four actions ecommerce companies should take in 2024.
1) Identify business goals to adapt to new tech
We’re constantly fed an endless stream of new technology, which can be a distraction to business goals. That’s why the CTO of ecommerce agency Novatize, Pierre-Olivier Brassard, highly recommends planning a robust strategy first. Clear business goals will help teams pick the best tools — not the other way around.
2) Maximize the use of AI to streamline support
Customer service management platform TalentPop saw AI as the top CX trend of 2023. They foresee late adopters using AI next year, while early adopters will focus on optimization. To get ahead of the game, TalentPop recommends that support teams research all AI options since CX will only become more saturated with AI tools.
Brandon Amoroso, Founder & President at Electriq and Co-founder at SCALIS observed similar trends. In 2023, many CX teams implemented more self-service options for customers. Going into 2024, Brandon notes that a “continual integration of AI into the entire customer experience” is likely.
3) Offer real-time communication options
As social shopping gains traction, marketing platform Yotpo predicts customers are going to look for more real-time communication with brands. In fact, HubSpot reports a 45% year-over-year surge in using social media DMs for customer service. Therefore, using tools that enable interactions through DMs or text, like Yotpo SMS, will be a crucial strategy in the upcoming year.
4) Amplify the voice of the customer
Amanda Kwasniewicz, VP of Customer Experience at Love Wellness, advises CX leaders to ensure their contributions are recognized. Kwasniewicz notes that support teams often know the business better than any other department. "Beat the CX drum loudly. If you're not in the room, find a way in the room," she stresses.
Helpdesk automation uses both AI and automation to handle recurring tasks and reduce manual work done by agents
Using an automated helpdesk results in better customer satisfaction, decreased ticket volume, and higher revenue
Ensure your automated helpdesk has features like chat, one-click answers, an order management portal, and article recommendations
The top helpdesk automation solution is Gorgias, an automated helpdesk made for ecommerce merchants at all levels
Customer service helpdesks are essential for managing customer conversations, but support teams are looking to increase efficiency beyond being organized. Answering customer questions is the easy part for agents — the main challenge lies in making manual tasks like typing up responses faster. This is where helpdesk automation comes in.
The top helpdesks have automation features that solve issues without agents needing to sift through complex documents or advanced settings. Helpdesks shouldn’t only streamline the customer experience, they should also simplify the process of delivering that service.
This guide will explore the benefits of helpdesk automation, pinpoint the must-have features of a helpdesk, and highlight the leading automated helpdesks. By the end, you’ll be ready to put helpdesk automation into action and trim out the extra tasks from your workflow.
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What is an automated helpdesk?
An automated helpdesk is a customer service tool that uses automation and AI to synthesize customer messages from various channels. The goal of automated helpdesks is to handle repetitive tasks, like categorizing and routing support tickets, so agents have fewer manual tasks to do.
The Gorgias Helpdesk is an example of an automated helpdesk made especially for ecommerce merchants. Notable features include:
Rules. Processes, such as ticket tagging or rerouting, are automatically activated when certain conditions are met.
Macros. Pre-written response templates that can be reused for recurring customer interactions like WISMO requests.
Inbox. Omnichannel communication is prioritized with email, SMS, voice, and social media messages in one inbox.
Quick Responses. Automated one-click Q&A interactions on Chat.
Flows. Interactive Chat conversations powered by automation.
Why more companies are adopting helpdesk automation
Helpdesks are brilliant tools by themselves but truly shine once combined with customer service automation. The time saved from automation leads to a significant drop in resolution times, and a boost in CSAT scores and revenue. Let’s take a closer look.
Resolve customer issues instantly
If you run an online store, you’re familiar with replying to the same messages about your shipping policy, returns, and products day in and day out. The beauty of helpdesk automation is how it handles frequently asked questions with self-service resources, like a knowledge base, that are available 24/7 and allow customers to get instant answers outside of business hours.
Give your agents bandwidth to focus on trickier tickets
When you remove copy-pasting answers from your customer service responsibility list, support agents get time back to engage with high-value shoppers who are either loyal customers or at risk of churning. With more time to focus on complex tickets, response times will be faster, and customers happier.
Drive more revenue by turning questions into sales
Automation is a proven way to drive more revenue, not just a quick fix to smooth out the wrinkles in your support workflow. Working with 30 brands, Gorgias found that brands that automated 30% of their customer support tended to generate around 8.7% of their companies' revenue.
6 key automation features your helpdesk needs
Automation is common in many helpdesk software, but the key is to focus on how the automation features can speed up support tasks.
Below are six essential automation features a helpdesk should have.
1) Chat
What is it? A website chat window for customers to get automated or real-time answers. The chat window’s visibility can differ on each webpage.
The manual task it replaces: Exiting the brand website and using a different channel (like email or social media) just to contact a brand’s support.
Why is it important? If the process of getting help is too complicated, customers are forced to switch to competitors with simpler solutions. But when you provide a clear way to receive support, customers get faster responses, are better informed, and more inclined to make a purchase.
The best part about Chat is it gives shoppers the option to either receive a quick, automated answer or chat with an agent if they prefer real-time assistance.
Success story with Gorgias:RevAir implemented Chat and increased response times by 93% and revenue to $76k per quarter.
2) Quick Responses
What is it? One-click question-and-answer scenarios that occur in Chat. Quick Responses are not powered by a chatbot and use pre-set answers to reply to users.
The manual task it replaces: Responding to frequently asked questions (FAQs)
Why is it important? Quick Responses is your solution to 24/7 support when agents aren’t available. Giving customers a low-stakes method of asking questions lets them experience a more pleasant and low-pressure shopping journey.
Success story with Gorgias: ALOHAS nearly tripled growth by automating 83% of support with Chat and Quick Responses.
3) Order Management
What is it? An in-chat order portal that lets customers track, cancel, and return their orders without contacting a support rep.
The manual tasks it replaces: Resolving where is my order? tickets, order return and cancellation requests
Why is it important? Customers who ask order-related questions typically have one of two goals: to track the status or change the status of their order. Basically, order management tickets aren’t unique and can be easily handled by automation. When you provide answers to your customers’ top priority (their purchase), you deflect a ticket from entering your inbox while improving customer satisfaction.
Success story with Gorgias:Topicals implemented Chat to reduce returns and ended up deflecting 69% of tickets from manual agent intervention.
What is it? Promotional messages in Chat that activate when visitors interact with your website.
The manual tasks it replaces: Spending money and time finding new customers, promoting storewide discounts and sales, upselling and cross-selling
Why is it important? Finding new customers is more expensive than retaining the ones you already have. Chat Campaigns acts as a virtual salesperson, making sure sales, promotions, and products are getting the attention they need. Even when agents are offline, Chat Campaigns work overtime to capture every visitor, effectively reducing cart abandonment, website bounce rate, and lost sales.
Success story with Gorgias:Glamnetic’s exit intent Chat Campaigns increased sales by 49%.
5) Autoresponders
What is it? AI processes that declutter your email inbox of spam and easily answered inquiries
The manual tasks it replaces: Deleting spam emails, answering WISMO tickets, sending tracking links, and processing refund requests
Why is it important? Autoresponders handle routine inquiries such as order status or refund requests. This improves customer service response times and frees you up to focus on more complex issues that require a human touch. You can also gain insights into the effectiveness of your automation strategies with Autoresponders, allowing you to monitor what customers need more or less of.
Success story with Gorgias:Stoov leveraged insights from ticket information and increased CSAT to 4.9 with 10% cost savings.
6) Article Recommendations
What is it? An AI-powered recommendation tool that resolves questions with relevant Help Center articles
The manual task it replaces: Responding to product-specific inquiries
Why is it important? Answering product questions can get long, especially if agents are manually typing the same explanations and instructions over and over again. By offloading this repetitive and laborious task to AI, customers receive consistent and detailed answers, while agents focus on resolving one-of-a-kind tickets.
Article Recommendations combines the knowledge power of AI and your own Help Center to give customers accurate and personalized solutions. This allows curious shoppers to receive complete information about your brand and products since articles can include images, videos, and links.
Success story with Gorgias:TUSHY gained 25% in revenue from leveraging pre-sales education including the use of Article Recommendations.
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The top 6 automated helpdesk options
Within the diverse range of available options, there are five standout helpdesk platforms renowned for their remarkable features: Gorgias, Zendesk, Kustomer, Freshdesk, Help Scout, and Shopify Inbox. Let’s take a closer look at what each helpdesk offers.
1) Gorgias
Price: Starts at $50/month; billed per ticket
Best features: The only ecommerce-focused helpdesk, powerful and easy-to-use automation features
As more businesses rely on ecommerce platforms to offer their products, Gorgias stands out as the best helpdesk for merchants at all levels. Gorgias offers seamless integration with major ecommerce platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and Magento and centralizes customer data and conversations within the platform.
Combining it with the AI-powered Gorgias Automate makes it a top contender for customer support teams seeking to streamline the customer experience and maximize the power of automated workflows. Gorgias Automate checks off all the boxes with foundational features like Quick Responses, Order Management, Chat Campaigns, Autoresponders, and Article Recommendations.
2) Zendesk
Price: Starts at $49/month; billed per user
Best features: Designed for enterprise companies, advanced reporting capabilities
Zendesk is favored by enterprise-level businesses for its excellent multi-channel support and strong reporting features like real-time data views and customizable dashboards.
However, while its specialty is raising customer satisfaction, users report dissatisfaction with Zendesk’s very own customer service due to unresponsiveness and difficulties with subscription changes. Despite these drawbacks, Zendesk's configurability makes it a valuable tool for larger businesses aiming to optimize their customer service operations.
3) Kustomer
Price: Starts at $89/month; billed per agent
Best features: Interface is easy to navigate, ability to add internal notes to tickets
Kustomer shines in organizing data and managing customer interactions. Though it may not fully meet the needs of ecommerce-based businesses, its strengths in streamlining support processes stand out. Users have noted some drawbacks such as a complicated search engine and limited mobile functionality. However, if a straightforward ticketing system is what you need, Kustomer may be the right fit.
4) Freshdesk
Price: Starts free for up to 10 agents; billed per agent
Best features: Includes a free plan, innovative collaboration features for convenient ticket assignment
If you're a SaaS business, Freshdesk is a great pick, excelling in basic ticket management. Its ability to integrate seamlessly with non-ecommerce applications like Salesforce and Jira makes it valuable for tech companies. Large ecommerce stores, on the other hand, might find Freshdesk's features somewhat limited.
Freshdesk's solid ticket management system, coupled with its user-friendly interface, makes it a top choice for SaaS businesses.
5) Help Scout
Price: Starts at $20/month; billed per user
Best features: Intuitive user interface, extensive knowledge base and documentation features
Help Scout excels in managing inbound customer emails with its feature-rich toolset. Recent enhancements like help docs and video embedding have improved its functionality. However, workflow automation still needs improvement and can lead to unintended mass email responses.
The limitation of features like real-time chat on higher-tier plans and subpar support experiences are its weaknesses, but its streamlined email support and knowledge management make Help Scout a strong option for teams that rely on email support.
6) Shopify Inbox
Price: Free for Shopify users
Best features: Native Shopify helpdesk solution for Shopify merchants, user-friendly interface
Shopify Inbox is favored by Shopify store owners for its excellent customer communication and user-friendly interface. Users appreciate its ability to centralize conversations and enhance customer engagement, which is great for brand-new merchants.
However, some find the initial learning curve challenging, with concerns over limited reporting features and inconsistent message notifications. Nevertheless, its cost-effectiveness and efficient customer engagement tools make Shopify Inbox a great pick for customers who don’t want to leave the Shopify environment.
Gorgias is the ultimate automated helpdesk for ecommerce
Gorgias stands out as the only helpdesk designed explicitly for ecommerce businesses. Boasting an incredible 4.3/5 stars on Shopify, it offers unparalleled integration with major ecommerce platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce. Its suite of features is powered by advanced AI, streamlining ticket and order management, support workflows, and customer communication.
For ecommerce businesses looking to elevate their customer support experience, look no further than Gorgias. To see how Gorgias can transform your customer service, book a demo today.
Key customer service techniques for agents include understanding customer issues, using positive language, thoroughly understanding products, adapting to different communication styles, and setting clear expectations.
Key techniques for support leaders include providing agents with enriched customer data, building a library of templates, specializing agents in specific channels or issues, and training the entire organization to be customer-first.
Gorgias offers features such as automated responses, self-service options, live chat for pre-sales support, and integrations with other tools to enhance customer service.
Amid the barrage of social media ads, email campaigns, and influencer endorsements that consumers navigate weekly, PWC highlights that 73% of people see customer experience as a pivotal factor in their buying decisions.
The techniques today’s customer service teams use are the foundation for those excellent experiences.
Below, learn five key customer service techniques for agents and four for CS leaders.
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9 customer service techniques for agents, leads, and managers
Here are five essential techniques for agents to provide great customer service.
Effective techniques for agents to enhance customer service
To deliver good customer service, agents should first aim to understand customers’ issues at the beginning of each interaction. Then, they can leverage other tactics like reframing statements and setting clear expectations.
1) Get an understanding of the issue before you start the interaction
Every customer service encounter is unique and should be approached with a fresh perspective. Here’s how to make sure you understand the customer’s issue before diving into problem-solving mode:
Active listening: Context is key. Start every conversation by allowing the customer to feel heard by giving them the space to fully express their concerns before making any recommendations.
Review previous interactions: Skim past customer interactions to gain context. Tools like Gorgias streamline this process by integrating data across multiple channels, offering a comprehensive customer history at a glance.
Ask clarifying questions: Politely ask for more details if the customer’s problem isn’t immediately clear.
Avoid assumptions: Never assume you know the issue before the customer fully explains it, even if it seems familiar.
Empathy: Demonstrate understanding and concern for the customer’s issue to empathize with them.
2) Maintain a positive and uplifting tone in your communication
The words we choose in customer service can significantly impact the tone of an interaction.
Psychology professor Albert Mehrabian conducted insightful research on communication and found a fascinating breakdown: only 7% of a message's meaning is derived from the actual words spoken, while a much larger portion, 38%, is understood through tone. Meanwhile, body language proves to be the most influential factor, accounting for 55% of how the message is interpreted.
Since all customer conversations for ecommerce brands happen via chat, email, or on the phone (not face-to-face), agents can’t rely on body language. This means tone of voice becomes even more important for agents to get right.
How can you maintain positive language?
1️⃣ First, avoid negative words: “can't,” “won't,” or “don't” can often be reframed in a positive manner. Swap them for phrases like "I understand," "I'm here to help," and "Let's see what we can do," which are much more reassuring to customers.
2️⃣ Second, aim to be solution-oriented. Focus on potential solutions or next steps rather than dwelling on the problem.
3) Develop a comprehensive knowledge of the products or services
What happens when a recent customer sends an email asking about how to fix a broken part from the product they purchased from you, and your agents don’t know enough about it to help?
Or, if your skincare line recently underwent a formula change that your agents get asked about, but they aren’t sure what was changed and how it alters the performance of your products?
Knowledge of the products you’re selling is critical for accurately informing customers and managing their expectations.
💡 Our recommendation: Encourage a culture of sharing by creating feedback loops across the entire organization. The product team should communicate product details and capabilities, marketing teams should share information about customer behavior, and support teams should share the pain points they hear from customers.
Plus, when one agent learns something new about a product, such as an undocumented use case or a common customer complaint, sharing this insight with fellow agents can enrich everyone with deeper product knowledge.
4) Adapt your communication style to suit different customers
Every customer comes with a unique set of expectations and comfort levels, making flexibility in your communication skills a key skill for customer service agents.
Whether you’re talking on the phone or messaging the customer on Instagram, you can match a customer’s preferred style byrecognizing customer profiles.
Pay attention to cues that suggest how each customer prefers to interact. Some customers are straight to the point, desiring quick, factual information with minimal fuss.
Others might appreciate a more personable and reassuring approach, especially if they're dealing with a stressful issue.
Take it from Deja Jefferson, CX and Consumer Insights Manager at Topicals: “I ensure that customer service provided by Topicals not only exhibits empathy when issues arise but should be seamlessly integrated throughout the entire transaction process. Our priority is to ensure that our customers feel fully supported at every step.”
If you use Gorgias Helpdesk to manage your customer support channels, you’ll easily be able to see historical conversations with customers to give you an idea of their preferred communication style. You can also leverage sentiment detection, a Gorgias feature that automatically detects the tone of voice the customer is using. Using sentiment detection, you can also prioritize support tickets based on customers' urgent needs.
5) Establish clear expectations with customers
Managing customer expectations is a delicate balance. You don’t want to overpromise services, but you also don’t want customers to feel like you aren’t able to help them.
The balance? Be optimistic about solving their issues, but equally crucial not to promise more than can be delivered. Here's how to set realistic expectations:
Be transparent: When a resolution might take some time, communicate this to the customer, providing a realistic timeline. It's better for a customer to be pleasantly surprised by an early resolution than frustrated by a late one.
Keep commitments achievable: Assure the customer that what you know can be delivered within the set constraints.
Follow up: If you've provided a timeframe, check back in with the customer within this period. If there’s a delay, communicate it promptly—customers will appreciate the update even if it's not the news they were hoping for.
Acknowledge limitations: If a request falls outside the scope of what the company can provide or if there are factors beyond your control, it’s better to be upfront about it. Honesty goes a long way in maintaining a respectful and professional relationship with customers.
The truth is, you won't always have the answers customers want to hear. But being clear and honest with them can help them grasp why things are the way they are.
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Techniques for leads and managers
Effective leadership in customer service hinges on empowering agents with the right tools and strategies to excel in their roles.
Considering that 78% of customers will switch to a competitor after multiple bad customer service experiences, it’s important for your team to be well-equipped for success.
Let’s talk about how to do that.
1) Provide agents with enriched customer data
For customer service teams to excel, they require more than just basic customer information. Leads and managers can empower their teams by providing enriched customer data, leading to more personalized and efficient service.
A helpdesk software will make this easy — if it offers a range of integrations. This is an essential feature to look for because you want your helpdesk to mesh with your existing tech stack. Here’s why: agents need access to data beyond a customer’s name. Integrations are the only way a helpdesk can pull in this additional context.
We’re talking about past orders, historical conversations, engagement info, and conversion metrics into comprehensive customer profiles. This will help agents get a holistic view of the customer, paving the way for tailored interactions.
Bonus tip: Beyond your helpdesk, share any feedback you hear from customers with the rest of the team. Integrating your helpdesk with a tool like Slack can make this easy, and it’s one way the Love Wellness team actions quickly on the advice from customers:
“We have a channel in Slack dedicated to customer feedback. Dropping in feedback is part of the team’s daily and weekly responsibilities, which helps them get really familiar with all of the content.
“It also allows our team to dissect them and collaborate on how we can improve. You could also schedule recurring feedback share sessions with the Product or Website teams, or even invite them directly into Gorgias (at no extra cost) and create a dedicated view for product feedback, website feedback, and so on.”
—Amanda Kwasniewicz, VP of CX at Love Wellness
2) Create a library of templates to streamline agent responses
Templates are a big help for customer support teams, especially those who are strapped for time (which, let’s be honest, that’s 99% of them).
Two types to build include:
Standard responses for common queries: Develop and include a set of pre-written answers tailored to frequently asked questions and routine issues. This ensures quick, consistent, and accurate responses to customer queries.
Scenario-specific templates: Different situations call for different responses. Having templates specifically designed for complaints, product inquiries, returns, and other common scenarios can guide agents to handle each situation with the appropriate tone and information.
Gorgias offers dynamic, reusable answers, so your agents can build a template of canned responses for all your FAQs. These are easily accessible for agents to swiftly locate and use when replying to customers.
If you want some tips on how to craft these templated responses, check out this article with tips for responding to frustrated customers for a good start.
3) Specialize agents in specific channels or issues
Just as every customer is unique, so too is every communication channel. Providing specialized training for agents in their chosen channels — be it phone, email, social media, or live chat — ensures they are not just familiar but highly skilled in navigating the nuances of these platforms.
But you can take this one step further by encouraging agents to become connoisseurs of specific product lines or types of issues. This deep dive into a particular area enables them to provide not just answers but insights, elevating the customer experience from good to great.
However, remember that specialization doesn’t mean working in silos. It's still crucial for specialized agents to also have a broad understanding across all areas.
💡 Tip: With Gorgias, you can auto-assign tickets to an agent based on issue or channel. This way, you’re routing tickets to agents who can best help every customer.
4) Promote a customer-first mindset across the entire organization
A tip that we love from Amanda Kwasniewicz at Love Wellness is the idea that to truly excel in customer service, a customer-first mentality needs to be woven into the very fabric of your organization.
This goes beyond the customer service department and includes everyone, from the C-suite to the front lines.
She suggests organizing workshops that paint the picture of the crucial role a customer-centric approach plays in every department. These sessions should highlight how each team member's contributions echo in the symphony of customer satisfaction.
“At Love Wellness, we believe that every single team member plays a vital role in creating a haven of care and understanding. That’s why we created an immersive customer experience training program that involves each and every one of us, including the president of the company and even our office manager!” she said.
Additional resources to support customer service teams
For those who are eager to dive deeper into the world of customer service and sharpen their skills even further, Gorgias offers a treasure trove of resources.
Whether you’re starting from scratch or looking to refine your expertise, these materials are designed to enhance your understanding and execution of top-tier customer service:
Customer Service Terms: A comprehensive glossary to get you fluent in the language of customer service.
Customer Service Phrases: This collection of key phrases can help guide your communication towards more positive and impactful interactions.
Customer Service Skills:An outline of the essential skills every customer service professional should master, for any situation.
Customer Service Tips: A series of actionable tips that can be implemented to improve your customer service delivery immediately.
Customer Service Email Templates: Save time and maintain consistency with a variety of templates that cover common customer service scenarios.
Each of these resources is designed to instruct and inspire your customer service team to exceed expectations and create memorable customer experiences.
Enhance agent support with Gorgias
Exceptional customer service isn't just about the right words; the helpdesk tool you use is equally important to enhance efficiency and deliver exceptional service.
Gorgias is tailored to provide such support with innovative features that streamline your customer service processes. Let’s review a few in detail:
Automate responses with reusable Macros
Macros are pre-scripted customer service templates that accelerate response times by using automation to tackle those repetitive but essential customer inquiries that come in droves. Think of them as pre-made customer service scripts.
Often called ‘empty-calorie tickets,’ queries like “Where is my order?” don't require personalized responses and can be time-consuming if handled manually. Automating responses to these repetitive questions frees your agents to focus on more complex issues.
Here are some other times when Macros help:
Welcome emails: A friendly and informative welcome message can set a positive tone for the customer relationship.
Order status updates: For updates on transactions, shipping, and delivery, a Macro can provide customers with the information they need promptly.
Refund confirmations: When processing refunds, a clear and courteous Macro can assure customers that their request has been handled.
Customer loyalty messages: Keep your loyal customers engaged with updates and rewards information through efficient Macro communication.
Enable customers to find answers themselves
A staggering 88% of customers prefer to find answers independently, according to Statista. This tells us that the modern customer values autonomy, which is why self-service options are key.
Self-service options are resources for customers to get the answers they need without contacting an agent. These include FAQ pages, help centers, chat widgets, and interactive quizzes.
Here’s how each self-service option can benefit you:
FAQ page: Centralizes customers’ most commonly asked questions on one page to prevent your inbox from being filled with the same questions.
Help center: Larger in scope than an FAQ page or contact center, a Help Center is a database of detailed resources like articles and how-to videos to help customers learn more about your brand and product.
Chat: Chat can turn into a self-service option with the implementation of Quick Responses, or preset conversations that can answer customers without a live agent.
Interactive quiz: A fun self-service addition to online stores that carry highly specialized products, like skincare, health supplements, and apparel.
Here’s a great example from BrüMate, which uses a product finder quiz in its customer knowledge base:
Use live chat for pre-sales support
Live chat has become an indispensable tool for connecting with customers in real-time. Some inquiries present a great opportunity to sell a specific product, which Olipop shows here:
Live chat impact on sales and customer satisfaction is notable: 86% of live chat engagements end with a satisfied customer, and adding live chat to your website has been linked to a 12% improvement in conversions.
Gorgias live chat is designed to integrate seamlessly with the leading platforms for ecommerce customer support. It allows you to manage live chat tickets alongside those from email, phone, and social media, providing a unified interface to serve your online customers more effectively.
Chat campaigns can trigger when certain conditions are met (like visiting/dwelling on a certain page or being a repeat shopper). You can hit these targeted shoppers with personalized product recommendations or provide a unique discount code.
To sum it up: You're not only addressing customer needs in real-time with live chat but also creating opportunities to influence purchasing decisions positively.
Integrates your helpdesk with the rest of your tech stack
This extensive range means that Gorgias can likely connect with whatever tools you use to manage your ecommerce business, creating a streamlined workflow for your customer service agents.
The real win with these integrations? They let your agents get super personal with support.
When an agent pulls up a ticket, they’re able to see everything they need to know— past buys, loyalty points, you name it. This means they can give spot-on help that feels really tailored to each customer, cutting down on all that back-and-forth and making the whole experience smoother.
“Having quick access to previous order info in the helpdesk is super convenient and helps us turn our support agents into sales people.”
—Ian Anderson, Operations Manager @ mnml
Boost revenue through improved customer satisfaction
When it comes to turning satisfied customers into sales, Gorgias users are living proof of the potential.
Take Kirby Allison, for instance, who saw a 23% uptick in conversions after automating 30% of their customer support tickets. Or consider TUSHY, influencing a whopping 25% of their sales through Gorgias Convert.
These success stories highlight a clear message: customer service strategy isn’t just about problem-solving but about creating opportunities.
Ready to see the difference a proactive customer-first approach can make for your bottom line? Give Gorgias a try.
Consumers are increasingly multi-screen and multi-channel. From desktop to mobile to tablet, they interact with businesses through Instagram DMs, Facebook Messenger, emails, support chat, and even phone calls.
Though omnichannel customer service lays a valuable foundation, communicating effectively as a brand involves weaving marketing, sales, and customer service into a cohesive omnichannel communication strategy.
An omnichannel communication approach makes it easier to talk to customers in a personal way, helping drive sales and keep customers loyal.
This article explores how centralizing communications offers your team — from marketing and sales reps to support staff — the tools and insights they need for a consistent customer experience.
By doing so, you don’t just react to customer needs; you anticipate them, opening avenues for proactive engagements that positively impact both relationships and revenue.
Omnichannel communication: an overview
Omnichannel communication is a customer-centric approach that integrates different methods of communication and business channels into a unified, seamless experience for prospective and existing customers.
Omnichannel communication goes beyond just offering multiple avenues for customer interaction; it creates a seamless and integrated experience across all touchpoints.
How omnichannel works
Omnichannel communication focuses on three key facets—data unification, fluidity of customer interactions, and data-driven insights. By focusing on these key tenets, omnichannel communication moves beyond being a buzzword to a strategic approach that places the customer at the center of your business operations. This strategy allows retailers to deliver an experience that is consistent, contextually relevant, and highly personalized.
Data unification
Centralizing customer data from various digital channels like email, social media, and in-store interactions enables a more consistent and personalized experience. Also, it serves as the foundation for customer profiles. These profiles are critical for delivering targeted offers, rewards, and personalized service to shoppers.
Fluidity of customer interactions
Customers don’t experience channels; they experience your brand. They want to transition effortlessly between online chats, phone calls, and physical visits and have a conversation pick up right where it left off. This seamlessness is particularly beneficial for ecommerce retailers, who can use these channels to provide real-time updates such as stock availability or order status, enhancing customer satisfaction and reducing friction.
Data-driven insights
Turn data into actionable insights. By analyzing integrated data across platforms, you can discern valuable patterns in customer behavior and preferences, allowing you to continuously refine your marketing strategies and improve the overall shopping experience.
Omnichannel communication moves beyond being a buzzword to a strategic approach that places the customer at the center of your business operations.
Omnichannel communication in action
While the concept sounds promising, how does it manifest for a single brand?
Graza excels at omnichannel communication, offering its customers a seamless and enriched experience across various touchpoints.
Using Gorgias Live Chat, they provide real-time customer support, resolving queries when customer service reps are online. As an alternative, their customer service email channel serves as both a satisfaction tool and a means for personalized marketing, sending targeted offers.
On social media platforms — like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram — they respond to customer inquiries and engage the community with educational content about their single-origin olive oils.
Graza captures customer emails through Gorgias Chat's offline hours feature.
Graza's Instagram profile
This multi-layered approach ensures that every interaction is not just a transaction but an opportunity to deepen the relationship. The outcome is higher customer satisfaction and increased brand loyalty, leading to repeat purchases and a more robust bottom line.
Omnichannel communication vs. multichannel communication
We’re in a platform renaissance: retailers now have many ways to connect with customers.
However, not all channel strategies are created equal. Understanding the differences between omnichannel and multichannel approaches is critical to developing a communication plan that meets customer expectations.
Data integration sets omnichannel apart
Both omnichannel and multichannel strategies use multiple channels for customer engagement. Omnichannel takes it a step further by integrating data across these platforms. This provides cohesive and personalized customer experiences, rather than fragmented interactions that are often the result of multichannel approaches.
Customer continuity is a hallmark of omnichannel
An omnichannel strategy focuses on offering a seamless customer experience across all touchpoints, whereas multichannel often treats each channel as an isolated silo. This can result in a disjointed and less satisfying journey for customers who hop from one channel to another, asking the same question to different customer service reps.
Instant communication and real-time interaction
Omnichannel doesn’t just collect data; it leverages real-time analytics. This level of insight can drive data-driven decision-making, which is generally absent in multichannel strategies. This makes multichannel less effective for optimizing customer engagement and marketing efforts.
More tech setup for better communication
To make an omnichannel strategy work, you need strong tech systems that bring together data and tasks from different channels. While this may cost more at first compared to simpler multichannel setups, the benefit is happier customers and smoother day-to-day running of your business.
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Different channels to focus on
In the retail landscape, multiple channels connect your brand and your customers. To harness the full power of an omnichannel strategy, you need to focus on integrating different types of customer service and specific channels that offer different advantages for customer engagement.
Selecting the right mix of channels allows you to meet your customers where they are and offer them a consistent and seamless brand experience. Keep in mind that different communication channels have different customer expectations. According to data collected by Gorgias from over 12,000 ecommerce brands, here are the average response times for different communication channels:
Email
Below average: 1 day
Average:12 - 24 hours
Above average: Under 4 hours
Stellar: Under 1 hour
Social media
Below average: 1 day
Average:12 - 24 hours
Above average: Under 4 hours
Stellar: Under 15 minutes
SMS
Below average: 1 hour
Average: 10 minutes
Above average: Under 5 minutes
Stellar: Under 1 minute
Live chat
Below average: 1 hour
Average: 10 minutes
Above average: Under 5 minutes
Stellar: Under 1 minute
With that in mind, here are some channels to consider including in your own omnichannel communications strategy:
Email
Email remains a powerful tool for businesses to speak to customers, allowing for targeted marketing campaigns tailored to specific customer segments. Personalized follow-up emails are also critical for nurturing long-term customer relationships and encouraging repeat purchases.
SMS
SMS is an increasingly effective channel for businesses, offering real-time customer engagement. Targeted SMS campaigns can reach specific customer groups with timely offers and updates, while personalized follow-up messages help sustain long-term relationships and promote repeat business.
Social media
Platforms like Facebook and Instagram facilitate immediate customer engagement and provide a wealth of data on customer preferences and behavior. This data can be integrated into your larger omnichannel strategy to refine marketing campaigns and product offerings.
Live chat
Live chat offers real-time, on-site customer support, which can drastically improve conversion rates. Resolving customer queries and concerns in real time removes barriers to purchase and enhances customer satisfaction.
Mobile app
A dedicated mobile app can be a hub for personalized promotions and a streamlined shopping experience. A well-designed app can significantly boost customer engagement, build loyalty, and even integrate with your in-store experiences.
In-store experience
Physical stores are not just about sales; they offer tactile and immediate experiences that are challenging to replicate online. They also provide opportunities for cross-promotion with online channels, making a thoughtful in-store experience a vital part of a cohesive omnichannel strategy.
Phone support
Even in the digital age, phone support retains its value. According to a report, 43% of consumers favor non-digital customer service methods, such as in-person consultations or phone calls. Many customers prefer the immediacy and personal touch of voice support, especially for resolving complex queries or deciding about high-ticket items.
The impact that an omnichannel strategy can have on your company
Implementing an omnichannel strategy has far-reaching implications for your business, affecting everything from customer engagement to your bottom line. Here, we delve into how this integrated approach can drive revenue, increase customer loyalty, and offer other pivotal advantages for your ecommerce business.
Boost brand awareness and reach
A solid omnichannel strategy amplifies brand awareness by offering unified messaging across all customer touchpoints, whether social media, email, or in-store interactions.
This consistency strengthens brand recognition and facilitates customer engagement as they know what to expect from your brand. This multi-pronged strategy, leveraging both digital and traditional channels, ensures you’re where your customers are.
Parade, an undergarment brand committed to comfort and inclusivity, maintains a solid social media presence that includes customer support on platforms like Instagram and Facebook. Using Gorgias tools, Parade offers customers a seamless omnichannel communication experience.
Parade integrates their Facebook messages to Gorgias for a smooth omnichannel experience.
Drive more revenue
Omnichannel communication isn’t just about convenience — it’s a revenue multiplier. Customers who feel understood and valued across all touchpoints are more likely to become repeat buyers. This is achieved by harnessing data for personalization and ensuring consistent, real-time communication. Here’s how:
Personalized offers. Tailoring offers to individual customer behavior increases both engagement and spending.
Seamless interaction. Providing consistent and timely responses across channels boosts customer trust and satisfaction, further fueling revenue growth.
Earning customer loyalty is about creating brand advocates through consistently exceeding expectations. Exceeding expectations across all channels fosters a sense of reliability and trust in your brand. Here’s how:
Brand credibility. By delivering a consistent and high-quality experience across all touchpoints, your brand becomes a trusted name that customers gravitate back to.
Immediate support. Real-time support minimizes customer wait times and leads to higher satisfaction and positive reviews.
Enhanced loyalty programs. Managing loyalty programs with unified data allows tailored rewards based on individual customer behavior, increasing lifetime value.
Bychari boosts brand trust through omnichannel communication
BYCHARI is a luxury jewelry brand established in 2012, known for its unique and modern handmade pieces designed for women who desire luxury while appreciating simplicity. The brand excels in omnichannel communication, offering a variety of customer touchpoints, including a contact form, live chat powered by Gorgias, calls, and emails.
To empower customers 24/7, especially when live support is unavailable, BYCHARI also provides self-service options like comprehensive FAQs, and uses Gorgias Flows to automate tasks such as order tracking and management.
BYCHARI’s contact page includes a contact form and Gorgias Chat.
Optimize marketing efficiency
Centralized data and analytics make your marketing campaigns smarter and more efficient. When you understand your customers’ behaviors and preference across channels, your targeting becomes dynamic and your messaging more personalized. Here’s how:
Clearer ROI tracking. Aggregating data from multiple channels into one dashboard sharpens your view of ROI, enabling quicker strategy adjustments.
Channel-specific insights. Detailed analytics help pinpoint which channels are driving customer conversion and engagement more effectively.
Efficient personalization. Using cross-channel data, both customer service and marketing teams can tailor their interactions, saving time while boosting customer engagement.
Enhance customer data analysis
A holistic view of customer data from multiple touchpoints uncovers insights that can drive quick, informed decisions. This rich data not only refines marketing efforts but also helps product teams tailor their offerings. Here’s how:
Actionable insights. Integrated analytics convert behavioral patterns into actionable tactics for sales and marketing adjustments.
Improved customer segmentation. Comprehensive data allows for more precise customer categorization, enabling highly targeted campaigns.
Maximized impact. This granular level of data enhances the effectiveness of each customer interaction, contributing to long-term business success.
How to create an omnichannel communication strategy
An omnichannel communication strategy can transform customer engagement and drive meaningful business results. This section will guide you through the essential steps for crafting a practical omnichannel approach that aligns with your retail goals.
1) Measure engagement across channels
Understanding your customer’s journey begins with measuring engagement across multiple channels. Use analytics tools to capture key metrics such as click-through rates and time spent on various pages, providing a quantitative foundation for your omnichannel communication strategy. By comparing these performance metrics, you gain insights into which channels are most effective in capturing and holding customer attention.
While these analytics can offer a comprehensive view of customer activity on marketing platforms, don’t overlook support channels. Platforms like Gorgias can measure engagement metrics within customer support, supplementing your overall data collection. Gorgias Support Performance serves as a control center for tracking key metrics such as ticket volume and agent activity, offering actionable insights to improve customer experience and measure engagement across various platforms.
Combining this support data with your broader analytics will provide a fuller understanding of customer engagement, equipping you to refine your omnichannel strategy.
2) Focus on brand voice and values in employee training
Employee training ensures that your omnichannel communication strategy reflects your brand’s voice and values. Developing a robust employee training program can instill these crucial elements in all customer-facing personnel, setting the stage for consistent brand representation. Real-life scenarios can serve as effective teaching tools, guiding employees on maintaining branding consistency during interactions, whether via email, social media, or SMS.
Given that companies evolve, your training materials must keep pace with any shifts in brand messaging or objectives. Regular updates to these resources can help your support team adapt to changes and continue to offer an aligned and cohesive customer experience across all touch points.
Don’t miss our article on customer service training, which provides 15 valuable activities your team can try to improve customer interactions.
3) Centralize customer data
When creating an effective omnichannel communication strategy, the importance of centralizing customer data can’t be overstated. A CRM system aggregating customer information from various touch points into one database is invaluable. It brings together disparate data and provides an integrated view of customer interactions, helping your team make data-driven decisions.
To realize the full potential of this centralized approach, ensure your CRM seamlessly integrates with all communication channels your company uses, enabling real-time data updates. Data from customer support platforms like Gorgias can then be merged with the information in your CRM, enhancing the quality and depth of the customer profiles that drive your omnichannel strategy.
4) Foster interdepartmental collaboration
Effective omnichannel communication necessitates collaboration that extends beyond the confines of individual departments. One approach is to conduct regular cross-departmental meetings where teams can share and discuss customer data insights. This guarantees everyone is on the same page about customer behaviors and needs, contributing to a holistic customer engagement strategy.
All departments should be aligned to respond more cohesively to customer needs. Amanda Kwasniewicz, the VP of Customer Experience at Love Wellness, ensures that her team collaborates broadly by having an internal communication channel for discussing customer concerns.
“We have a channel in Slack dedicated to customer feedback,” she says. “Dropping in feedback is part of the team’s daily and weekly responsibilities, which helps them get familiar with the content. It also allows our team to dissect them and collaborate on how we can improve.”
Establish a feedback loop, particularly with customer service, to continually share frequently encountered customer issues and trends. This feedback can catalyze improving products, services, and customer communication strategies.
5) Deliver personalized messages on customers’ channels of choice
Elevate your omnichannel strategy by tailoring your communications to the specific channels your customers prefer. Leveraging your centralized customer data, identify which channels—email, social media, or in-app notifications—are most effective for reaching your audience. Then, craft personalized messages that are not generic but informed by customer behavior and past interactions.
Continuously monitor how well personalized customer service resonates with your customers by tracking engagement metrics such as click-through and open rates. Equally important is collecting and analyzing customer feedback to understand the qualitative impact of your efforts. Based on these insights, make necessary adjustments to your messaging strategy, ensuring it remains aligned with customer preferences and behavior.
6) Harness automation to interact with customers 24/7
According to a report from Statista, 88% of consumers anticipate that brands will offer self-service support options. Automation is vital for maintaining a 24/7 connection with your customers. Implement chatbots on your website and social media channels to answer frequently asked questions immediately, enhancing user experience and satisfaction through proactive customer service.
Employ customer experience automation tools like Gorgias Automate to configure automated Flows for common customer queries. Fable, a brand dedicated to elevating dining experiences with premium dinnerware, utilizes Automate to provide round-the-clock customer service. Their automated flows are designed to swiftly answer common customer queries, such as active discounts and return procedures, ensuring customers can always find the information they need.
Fable uses Gorgias Quick Responses in their chat widget to provide automatic answers to the most common customer questions.
Create an omnichannel customer experience with Gorgias
Despite the benefits of a unified approach to customer communication, a 2022 report found that only 12% of digital platforms are “highly integrated.” Gorgias can be your key partner in achieving an omnichannel communication strategy, offering core helpdesk capabilities designed to seamlessly integrate customer interactions across multiple channels. Gorgias ensures that you meet and exceed customer expectations while driving revenue.
Data enrichment for agents communicating with customers
Gorgias equips agents with enriched customer profiles, pooling data from different channels — including social media, voice, and SMS — to provide context during interactions. This feature allows for quicker, more accurate support, as agents don’t have to switch between each communication platform to gather customer history.
A centralized hub to manage customer interactions
Gorgias is a one-stop hub, consolidating communications from email, chat, social media, and more, enabling easier management and response. The centralized system facilitates proactive support, which can directly impact sales by addressing customer concerns before they abandon their shopping carts.
Tools to customize branding in different channels
Gorgias allows you to maintain consistent branding by customizing the look and feel of your customer support channels. This ensures that no matter the channel, customers always have a uniform omnichannel experience that reinforces brand identity and trust.
Cupcakes and Cashmere, founded by Emily Schuman in 2017, has gained a devoted following for its curated jewelry, loungewear, and home goods. To extend this trust and cohesiveness into customer support, the brand uses Gorgias, its chat widget color-matched to the brand’s palette, ensuring a visually seamless and engaging user experience across its website.
Cupcakes and Cashmere streamlines the chat experience by coordinating the Gorgias chat widget with their brand's colors.
Explore Gorgias for omnichannel communication solutions
If you’re focused on streamlining customer interactions across various channels, consider exploring what Gorgias offers. With features that centralize communication, enrich agent information, and ensure brand consistency, Gorgias aims to make the omnichannel communication strategy more manageable and effective for ecommerce retailers.
Take a closer look to see how these capabilities could fit into your existing operations and customer engagement efforts. To learn more about Gorgias, book your demo today.
To maximize email as a support channel, use it as a stepping stone to faster channels.
Email allows for longer, more detailed responses and is accessible on all devices.
To effectively use email, use contact forms instead of listing an email address, funnel customers to faster channels when possible, prioritize tickets by topic and urgency, use templates for consistency, enrich emails with customer and order information, and supplement emails with self-service resources.
As of June 2022, 64% of US customers prefer email when contacting brands, so it’s clear why email is a mainstay in customer support programs. Even still, the Internet’s snail mail can sometimes translate to a slow and negative experience.
So, how do you maximize email as a customer service channel? You use it as a stepping stone to point customers to faster support channels.
Email is simply the medium; the resources are your answer. From including Help Center articles in your emails to replacing a raw mailto link with a user-friendly contact form, we’ll present plenty of ways to transform email into an efficient support channel.
The good and bad of email as a customer service channel
Like all channels, email has its benefits and weaknesses, but you can’t rely on it alone. Here’s what you can expect from email as a customer service channel.
The good 👍
Email is a commonly preferred channel for customers
It would be unwise to skip offering email support when more than half of customers prefer it over social media. Email support provides a vital bridge to connect with customers, especially if you’re a DTC business that can't engage with your shoppers in person.
Email allows for longer, more detailed responses to inquiries
Email can illustrate solutions for customers with embedded links, images, and attachments — something instant channels like social media DMs and SMS would handle with more difficulty.
For example, look below at Dr. Squatch’s eyecatching promotional email. Their use of multiple high-quality images, call-to-action buttons, social links, and logos proves how email can accommodate the most elaborate messages.
Milled
Email is accessible
If you have a digital footprint, email is almost always a requirement. You need it when creating a new account or when contacting people. It’s even accessible on all devices. Email’s prevalence means customers will expect online stores to offer email support at the very least.
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The bad 👎
Email tends to be a slower channel
The average first response time for email is 7 hours and 34 minutes. While most people tolerate how slow email is, it still doesn’t make for the best customer service experience. Urgent customer questions about product defects or bank account issues require rapid responses that other channels are better suited for.
Email inquiries can be challenging to categorize and prioritize
Email allows for more creative liberty than other messaging channels but also has downsides. Since customers are free to format their own subject lines and messages, the responsibility of sorting through your inbox is on your agents.
The problem here isn’t just about maintaining a clean workspace but ensuring urgent messages like angry customer emails aren’t overlooked due to a messy inbox.
How to use email as part of your customer support program
Support teams often feel their inbox is an obstacle course rife with concerned customers and a flood of recurring questions. Luckily, there’s a solution: use a customer service helpdesk that can consolidate email and other support tickets to keep your inbox and support team at bay.
Here’s how to effectively use email as a support channel with a helpdesk like Gorgias.
Don’t list an email address — use contact forms instead
Why? To maintain organization 🗂️ and increase service quality ✨
Plainly leaving your email address on your contact page can be intimidating for customers. What should they put in the subject line? Will they actually get a reply back? Since this contact method has practically no guidelines, you’ll want to set parameters to make reaching out more approachable.
How? Do away with a raw email link and use a contact form. Contact forms provide structure to emails. Thanks to step-by-step guidance through drop-down menus and required fields, you can sort emails even before they reach you.
Topicals’ Contact Us page only contains a contact form with fields for customer name, email, a drop-down menu for the contact reason and a field to attach files.
💡 Tip: We recommend that merchants don't direct customers to an email address for support. Instead, use a contact form to intake email support. Contact forms are superior because messages get structural data that helps customer service agents categorize and prioritize incoming tickets.
How? Let’s say a panicked customer wants to reverse duplicate charges on their credit card ASAP. This interaction could take multiple back and forths spanning several business days. Instead, you can reap the benefits of voice support, SMS or WhatsApp by directing them to your phone number.
“Being able to organize and divert tickets internally, having a good FAQ, making sure that you're actually solving the problems instead of putting band-aids on them, all goes into [reducing] resolution time.” —Zoe Kahn, Manager of CX & Retention at Chomps
Prioritize tickets by topic and urgency
Why? To maintain organization 🗂️ and increase customer retention 🤝
A common customer service mistake is treating tickets on a first-come-first-serve basis. This can lead to more unhappy customers because some tickets are less urgent than others. This is where prioritization can be effective.
How? First, categorize incoming tickets with Gorgias Rules and Tags. Do this by determining the conditions for which tickets should be tagged with an “Urgent” tag. For example, emails containing the word “cancel” will be tagged “Urgent.” Now your most high-value tickets will be solved and your loyal customers won’t need to worry.
You can set up a Gorgias Rule to detect emails about order cancellations and automatically tag them as “Cancel Order.”
How to prioritize unsatisfied customers: Set up a Rule to identify and auto-tag customer complaints as Urgent so you can turn their day around with exceptional customer service.
Use templates to create a consistent standard of service
Why? To increase service quality ✨ and enforce brand voice 🗣️
Being an advocate for personalized customer service doesn’t mean automation needs to be off-limits. Automation can and should be your best friend.
Automating customer service reduces response times and standardizes service quality. Automation can also capture data from customer interactions, letting support teams make data-driven improvements to their operations.
How? Use Macros (pre-written sample emails) to immediately answer questions about common topics, such as shipping information, return policies, and product-specific questions. Macros are a convenient way to compose professional messages, like customer apology emails, while allowing agents to add a personal touch.
Why? To increase customer satisfaction 👍 and service quality ✨
The biggest challenge about sending emails as a business is striking a balance between valuable and bothersome. It’s not only about crafting attractive promotional emails but making even the most mundane “Your order has shipped!” emails pop with purpose.
How? Integrate your ecommerce platform of choice, whether it’s Shopify, BigCommerce, or Magento (Adobe Commerce), with Gorgias. You can view customer information from your chosen platform in the Customer Sidebar and extract the data to automatically populate emails.
Create a Macro for order status emails that includes a customer’s Shopify data like tracking number and URL.
Supplement emails with self-service resources
Why? To increase customer satisfaction score 👍 and reduce ticket volume 🔻
In ecommerce, a self-service resource is any resource that answers customer issues without talking to an agent. They include a Help Center (or knowledge base), FAQs, or automated chat widgets.
How? Create a Help Center with linkable articles that can be inserted into customer support emails. This is especially useful for new customers who may want to ask several frequently asked questions. A Help Center effectively acts as technical support, while freeing up agents to deal with more unique tickets.
The beauty brand, Glamnetic, created a Help Center full of articles that customer service reps can link to in their emails.
A successful customer support program should maximize self-service options to minimize manual effort.
Metrics to track your email performance
How well are you serving your customers through email? The answer lies in measuring how quickly you accomplish support tasks like opening and closing a ticket. But it's not only about speed. Tracking metrics is invaluable for troubleshooting gaps in your customer service operations.
Here are three metrics that can shed a light on how well your customer support team is using email.
Average first response time
Average first response time is the average time it takes for your customer service team to send the first response to a customer after receiving a request.
🔻 What slows it down: Inadequate staffing, lack of automation, and poor prioritization
➕ How to improve it: Use automation like Rules, Tags, Macros, and more self-service options
Average resolution time
Average resolution time refers to the average amount of time it takes to resolve or address a specific issue or request, typically measured in hours or days.
🔻 What slows it down: Inefficient process, disorganized inbox, and complex issues
➕ How to improve it: Reroute tickets to faster channels like voice, and build self-service options like a Help Center
First contact resolution rate
First contact resolution rate or FCR rate measures the rate of resolving a customer inquiry within the first interaction. An excellent FCR rate indicates that your support team is well-trained to be able to solve issues efficiently.
➕ How to improve it: Add more self-service options, ensure agents are given complete information on product/service knowledge and resolution techniques
[Callout] How to calculate FCR: Total number of requests resolved with one interaction in a single time period / the total number of requests in the same time period
Manage email — and all your other channels — with Gorgias
Email is stronger when combined with other channels — no one knows this better than multitasking expert Gorgias.
As a powerful helpdesk tool, Gorgias offers omnichannel support and powerful automation features like Macros and Rules that make managing email effortless. You can even supercharge Gorgias with integrations to ecommerce apps like Shopify, Yotpo, and Shipbob to keep you focused on delivering support without distractions.
Ready to bring in a crowd of happy customers? Book a demo now.
Today, 80% of customers say the experience a company provides is just as necessary as its products or services. Conversational customer support can provide more memorable experiences that keep shoppers engaged long-term.
And, conversational customer support doesn’t demand an endless investment of personal time. With the right tools and strategies, you can exceed customer expectations.
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What is conversational customer service?
Conversational customer support is an interactive approach to assisting customers with their queries and concerns. This communication style uses a range of channels, including live chat, messaging apps, chatbots, and even voice support, to engage customers in interactive and often real-time conversations across the customer journey.
The goal is to create a friendly and genuine interaction, which in turn enhances customer satisfaction, builds brand loyalty, and fosters long-term relationships with their customers. Consumers who rate a company's service as "good" are 38% more likely to recommend that company (according to the Qualtrics XM Institute).
Advantages of conversational customer service vs. traditional
When you walk into a physical store, you expect the staff to be knowledgeable, friendly, and ready to assist you.
The same principle applies to online shopping. However, traditional customer support often involves shoppers searching across a website for a contact center to make a phone call, where they’re then placed on long holds while waiting to contact a real human.
Conversational customer support, on the other hand, offers immediate responses, operates 24/7, and uses natural language processing for a more efficient and convenient customer experience. In return, businesses see the following benefits:
Faster responses, anytime, anywhere
Today's customers expect rapid responses. According to Hubspot research, 2/3 of customers expect a reply in under 10 minutes. Embracing a conversational approach and automating your customer support channels can help you meet these expectations.
One way to achieve this is with Gorgias Automate, which allows you to offer 24/7 support and can answer up to 60% of your most repetitive tickets with a 0-second response time.
More personalized experiences, more profits
Personalization is one of the most important pillars of conversational service. But “personalization” has become a bit of a blanket statement over the years, so what does it actually mean?
Personalized customer support is about assisting customers based on their specific needs, preferences, and history with a business. It goes beyond generic responses and addresses customers on a personal level by using relevant data like purchase history and intent-based engagement.
That’s why it’s crucial to use a support platform that can pull relevant information about customers from the rest of your ecommerce tech stack (CRM, marketing automation, logistics), making it easier to automate tailored responses and give your agents all of the context they need to help customers efficiently.
Excellent customer service = more revenue
Conversational customer service isn’t just good for improving customer satisfaction scores; it’s also excellent for your bottom line. McKinsey research has shown that improving the customer experience has increased sales revenues by 2-7% and profitability by 1-2%.
Customers at Gorgias often see this kind of success. For example, skincare brand Topicals increased sales by 78% using conversational customer support. Specifically, the brand uses Quick Response Flows to automate answers to common questions, such as:
How should I use the Faded Serum?
Where do you ship?
How do I apply to the Ambassador Program?
How do I find the right products for my skin type?
All of this takes place within a self-service chat. These chat flows also guide shoppers to additional helpful resources in Topicals' Help Center or product pages. If a customer still has unanswered questions, a customer support agent can take over the conversation and chat with them directly.
Cost efficiency through automation
Businesses often avoid personalized support due to perceived cost and time constraints. However, providing personalized service can actually increase customer loyalty and boost revenue.
Automation, intelligent responses, and customer knowledge bases abstract away the tedious, repetitive questions support teams get daily. This frees up their time, allowing them to focus on driving conversions through pre-sales support and building strong customer relationships.
Take Stoov, the Dutch company known for its innovative heating cushions. A conversational approach to customer support helped Stoov achieve 10% in cost savings.
Thankfully, automation has come a long way since its earlier days. (We all remember those generic, one-size-fits-all answers that clearly came from a robot.)
Some helpdesks like Gorgias offer more interactive automation, which provides personalized answers based on customer inputs and key phrases.
Multichannel accessibility
Conversational customer service can be seamlessly deployed across various communication channels, including websites, mobile apps, messaging apps, and social media platforms.
Taking a cross-channel approach means businesses (and their customers) aren’t limited to a single mode of communication. Instead, they can engage with customers across various channels, catering to diverse preferences and enhancing overall convenience.
Again—offering customer support across various channels doesn’t have to be challenging to manage.
Gorgias pulls in customer conversations from channels like email, SMS, Messenger, WhatsApp, and more to view and respond to customers in a single dashboard. Omnichannel communication demonstrates a company’s commitment to being present and responsive wherever their customers may be.
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6 conversational customer service channels
As you know, one size doesn't fit all when it comes to customer service. Every shopper has their preference, so a blend of automated assistance and human touchpoints is necessary for exceptional customer support.
Let’s talk about six key channels to leverage.
1) Live chat
Live chat is like having a helpful assistant available at the click of a button. It involves instant, text-based communication between a customer and a live support agent, accessible through a website or messaging platform.
This approach provides immediate assistance, helps resolve issues promptly, and adds a personalized touch to customer interactions.
One of our favorite examples is from Princess Polly. In its live chat widget, Princess Polly highlights several FAQs upfront. These are based on the most common questions the support team gets and help customers be more self-serve. Plus, it’s easy for the customer to get in touch with a live agent if they still need support.
2) Phone support
Phone support is the classic, tried-and-true method of customer service. Customers can call the business directly to seek assistance, ask questions, or resolve issues. Interaction happens in real-time with live human agents, creating a direct and personal connection.
Did you know an annual study on buyer behavior shows that 59% of consumers prefer the traditional medium of phone calls to reach customer support representatives?
In other words—yes, shoppers still use phone support, and it can be beneficial for you to offer it.
You can also manage phone support with the rest of your channels under one roof using Gorgias. For example, Try The World, a gourmet subscription service, uses live chat, email, and phone support as its three primary support channels.
"Another big time-saver is the fact that chats, emails, and phone calls are united under one customer view. This way, when a customer calls, we immediately see previous conversations with them." - Amanda, Customer Support Manager, Try The World
After switching to Gorgias as its helpdesk to centralize all support queries, the team also integrated the helpdesk with Chargify and Shopify to pull in subscription and order data. All this information is readily available for each support agent — whether they’re providing support via phone or live chat.
This approach transformed Try The World’s efficiency — as a result, the team increased ticket handling from 80 to 120 per day while reducing response time to just one business day.
3) SMS and WhatsApp
Messaging apps like SMS and WhatsApp have become integral parts of our daily communication. Both of these channels are helpful for brands that want to offer “on-the-go support.”
While these two channels are great for marketing purposes, they’re also perfect support channels. Think about it: SMS always has the highest open rates and is one of the most convenient ways for shoppers to connect with the brands they love.
As a support channel, you can complement your SMS marketing efforts. A good example of this is from Printfresh. The Printfresh team uses SMS often to share updates with customers. Customers can also use the same number to text the brand back and ask any support-related questions.
4) Email support and ticketing systems
While not instant like live chat, email and ticketing systems allow customers to submit inquiries or issues, which support agents address in an organized manner. Automated responses and ticket tracking enhance the efficiency of this method.
You may be wondering, how is email support conversational? First off, conversational support doesn’t always have to be in real-time.
Sometimes, providing well-thought-out, detailed responses via email or tickets can be equally effective, allowing customers to digest information at their own pace.
When you’re pairing these responses with personalized information (perhaps you already know the customer’s size, preferred tastes, or skin type), you’ll be able to respond effectively and guide customers through their decision-making.
Love Your Melon uses this approach with customer service email and social media support. Pulling Shopify variables into Gorgias, the team enables Macros to streamline personalized responses.
Aside from using usual variables in canned responses, such as the requester's name, email, or the support agent’s name, Macros allow users to add information pulled from Shopify. These order-specific variables include the order ID, the tracking URL of the last order, the delivery status, the shipping address, and many others.
With this single strategy, Love Your Melon can answer 25% of tickets automatically, reducing response time from 10 minutes to a few seconds.
5) Social media support
For the most part, social media support is straightforward: it involves engaging with customers through social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
You can take this strategy one step further by responding to comments on these channels—all under the same roof that you handle other conversations.
Shinesty uses Gorgias to address their Facebook ad comments. And since they’re using automated responses to answer common questions, the customer support team has more time to get creative with responses to social comments (which has driven more conversions for the brand).
The best part? Your CS team doesn’t all have to share a single login anymore 😉
“The Facebook ad commenting has been very interesting. People have been converting right there, thanks to a simple social interaction.” - Cody Szymanski, Customer Experience Manager, Shinesty
6) Self-serve portals
Customer knowledge bases might not involve direct human interaction, but they provide customers with a conversational interface to find information, troubleshoot problems, or access FAQs independently.
These portals are designed to be user-friendly and intuitive, empowering customers to find solutions on their own.
Tools like Gorgias’ Quick Responses via Gorgias Automate or article recommendations in live chat enhance the conversational aspect, allowing self-service portals to feed into chat interactions and make the experience even more engaging.
BrüMate's Help Center is a good one to get inspiration from. BrüMate addresses two common customer queries at the top of the page: returns policy and product compatibility, ensuring quick answers without scrolling.
In case customers aren’t on the knowledge base, the same FAQs are featured in the brand’s live chat. These direct customers to answers immediately, but they can still reach out to talk to someone directly if they need to.
“We have a great help center that attracts tens of thousands of monthly visitors who are then redirected back to the main site and in this circular motion where we don't want those customers to drop off." —Colin Waters, Director of Customer Experience at The Feed & former Associate Director of Customer Experience at BrüMate
Implement conversational customer service in 7 steps
Now that you know it’s easier to manage conversational customer support with the right tools, here are seven steps to implement this strategy without extra effort from your team.
1) Centralize customer interactions with a helpdesk
Surprisingly, more brands than you realize are handling support by logging in and out of multiple channels. Imagine how much time you would save if you could see every email, phone call, comment, and ticket under one roof.
The first step to conversational customer support is setting up a helpdesk. Centralizing customer interactions allows your team to view message histories across all channels in one unified interface.
With over 65+ integrations across the ecommerce tech stack, Gorgias gives teams a comprehensive view of customer interactions and data, eliminating guesswork and enhancing efficiency.
2) Automate repetitive queries
Save your agents from repetitive typing. Apply automation tools like rules to share templated responses (called Macros in Gorgias) across support channels, speeding up responses and ensuring consistency.
And even after responding, you can automate more actions in your workflow. This could be to assign a ticket to an agent, add tags, or even cancel/refund an order right away.
Here’s an example of a Macro being used by the Darn Good Yarn team.
3) Prioritize urgent tickets automatically
Not all customer issues are equal. To solve this, implement rules that automatically prioritize urgent or important tickets. By prioritizing different issues, you enhance customer satisfaction and demonstrate your commitment to resolving the most important concerns promptly.
For example, if you’re in the midst of a busy holiday season, you’ll want to prioritize tickets like address change requests over others.
4) Route tickets based on agent specialization
Do you have a list of VIP customers? Or agents who specialize in certain products or support channels over others?
Prioritizing tickets based on agent specialization is one way to increase efficiency so your agents can use their expertise to help shoppers quickly. This also enhances problem-resolution efficiency.
Consider creating dedicated views that consolidate inquiries so specific agents see only what’s relevant to them.
5) Empower agents with rich customer data
According to Salesforce research, 63% of consumers expect businesses to know their unique needs and expectations.
By equipping your agents with valuable insights into customer history and preferences, your agents can personalize interactions and foster meaningful conversations.
Gorgias pulls in customer information like past order history, support tickets, social media comments, or subscription status. Agents can see all of a customer's past history with a brand in one place when they’re talking with them. This allows support teams to get the full picture of every customer they’re chatting with.
6) Provide proactive pre-sales support and engagement
One way to be conversational in your customer support is to anticipate customer needs and reach out proactively. That means sharing self-service resources like a help center or FAQ page. It also means addressing pre-sales questions that might be blocking them from making a purchase or making the right purchase.
BrüMate accomplishes this by featuring an interactive product finder quiz in its customer knowledge base:
BruMate's help center
7) Make it easy for customers to engage with agents
Remember, offering conversational support is only effective if it's easy for customers to reach out.
You can do this by prominently featuring support CTAs across your site, from product pages to emails and footer links. Every transactional email can subtly highlight how to reach support, ensuring customers know how and when to engage.
Make customer support conversational with Gorgias
Conversational customer service bridges the gap between face-to-face interactions and online transactions. But it’s not just about addressing customer concerns; it's about creating meaningful connections and positive experiences, which are essential for customer retention and brand advocacy.
A key part of a conversational support strategy is simplifying the complexity of handling multiple channels. Every customer interaction and data point needs to live under one roof. Otherwise, it’s too difficult for teams to manage.
This is exactly what Gorgias does. We don’t want brands to have to settle for ordinary customer experiences. Your support is your foundation, and it should be easy to manage.
Customer experience automation (CXA) can enhance revenue and increase customer satisfaction.
CXA platforms convert manual tasks into automatic processes, improving customer service operations.
Implementing CXA improves ROI, resolves issues faster, and delivers personalized experiences at scale.
Real-world examples show how automation can improve customer experience and boost conversions.
The thought of automating repetitive customer service tasks has likely crossed your mind. But often, that consideration is followed by a train of concerns: Will automation eliminate personal touch?Will it reduce the quality of customer service? Will it replace human agents?
In reality, customer service automation (CXA) can enhance your revenue and increase customer satisfaction.
Read on to learn more about CXA and get four easy ways to automate. We'll also share a story of how one company successfully implemented CXA and gained 23% more conversions.
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What is customer experience automation (CXA)?
Customer experience automation (CXA) refers to the process of automating and enhancing the interactions that customers have with a business. It involves using automation tools like a helpdesk, Macros, Rules, and artificial intelligence to automate various aspects of customer engagement, from pre-sales and support to the post-purchase stage.
What is a customer experience automation platform?
A customer experience automation platform is a tool that can convert manual customer experience tasks into automatic processes. CXA platforms aim to alleviate the workload of human customer service agents while optimizing customer service operations.
Gorgias, for instance, is a leading example of a CXA platform, offering a wide range of powerful features, such as:
Efficient ticket triage
Automated responses across various channels
Automated order management
Automated emails
Smart Article Recommendations via Chat and email
Powerful integrations with ecommerce platforms
The impact that CXA can have on your customer experience (and bottom line)
Implementing CXA is not just about lightening your team's workload, it's a transformative strategy that greatly influences how customers interact with and perceive your brand. CXA ensures that your team can focus on more intricate interactions, resulting in an improved ROI, increased customer loyalty, and offering personalized experiences at scale.
Improve ROI for your support & experience teams
Customer service agents who have poor impressions of their companies say they don’t have all the tools they need to do their job. Factors like clunky software and insufficient training and processes all contribute to their experience, which, in turn, affects the overall customer experience.
The solution is to equip agents with powerful tools, like CXA, that will make their jobs easier and your customers’ experiences more enjoyable. Automation and an improved customer service ROI go hand in hand, leading to faster and more profitable customer experiences.
Help customers resolve issues faster
One of the immediate benefits of CXA is faster resolution times. With automation handling routine tasks like resolving where is my order (WISMO) requests and answering pre-sales questions, agents have more time to attend to complex support tickets and meet customer expectations with precise answers.
Deliver more personalized experiences at scale
Most automation skeptics fear losing the human touch once you bring automation into the picture. However, the reality is quite the opposite. A comprehensive CXA strategy allows support teams to express their brand voice and personality through adjustable features like pre-written templates or Macros. If your CXA platform restricts you from customizing default responses, you should find a tool that can adapt to you and your customers.
CXA in action: 4 easy ways to use automation to improve the customer experience
Now that we've covered the theory, it's time for your support team to implement CXA. Below are the top four ways to quickly incorporate customer experience automation using Gorgias Automate. We'll provide details on each feature, offer tips to get the most out of them, and showcase examples of how these strategies have worked for actual merchants.
1) Use Quick Responses to give customers instant answers to simple questions
Quick Responses are predefined replies automatically triggered when customers ask specific questions in Chat.
When to use: For teams who receive a daily flow of frequently asked questions that require them to copy and paste the same responses.
Activate Order Management in Chat by going to Automate -> Channels.
Tips:
Quick Responses are best for answering FAQs that have straightforward answers and don’t need elaborate explanations
Infuse your brand messaging and vocabulary into your Quick Responses to maintain natural interactions with shoppers
Always provide a route back to live support channels through email, live chat, phone, SMS, or social media in case customers need more assistance
Real-world results: The stationery company Ohh Deer achieved an impressive average 4.95 CSAT score and generated about $12,500 per quarter after implementing Gorgias Chat alone.
2) Use Tags and Rules to organize and prioritize customer tickets
Take advantage of efficient ticket triage by using Tags and Rules to ensure the most important tickets are addressed and complex tickets are routed to your most knowledgeable agents.
When to use: If urgent tickets (billing issues, product defects, and inquiries from returning customers) are getting buried in your inbox, you have a low retention rate, a high churn rate, or your inbox is disorganized.
This Rule tags tickets from less than two days ago with an “Urgent Order Edit” tag if the message contains the keywords “order/change,” “change,” or “edit.”
Tips:
Create “Urgent” and “Not Urgent” Tags to establish a streamlined prioritization process for agents to follow
Use Rules to direct complex tickets to more experienced agents so you avoid compromising resolution times and customer satisfaction
Create a Rule to remind agents to follow up on customers who have recently contacted your contact center
Real-world results: Drinkware brand BrüMate cut down their first response time from 5 hours to 1 minute and 30 seconds and drove $9M in revenue after they made use of Chat Campaigns and a Help Center (Gorgias’s customer knowledge base).
Colin Waters, BrüMate’s former Associate Director of Customer Experience, highlights that organizing Tags and Macros by their proper names keeps team onboarding running smoothly. He adds, “I'm very steady with naming conventions. I mean, my team must hate it. But anybody could come in and figure out what it all means without having a doctorate in CX."
3) Automate the order management, tracking, and returns process
Order management, including order creation, tracking, returns, and exchanges, is one of the aspects of customer service that is best suited to automation because of its repetitive nature.
When to use: If you get an influx of WISMO tickets and/or return-related inquiries in your inbox or need to streamline your order workflow.
With Gorgias Automate, customers can track, return, and cancel their orders within Chat.
Tips:
Enable tracking, returning, and canceling in Chat to allow customers to quickly check their orders
Automate order status notification emails to trigger after hitting milestones in the entire customer journey, such as order confirmations, order delivery, and post-purchase customer feedback requests
Integrate Loop Returns with Gorgias to automate your returns process and create a returns portal
Real-world results:Jaxxon includes their Return Policy in Chat via Quick Responses and maintains an easily accessible Return Portal. By maximizing their self-service resources, they brought in a staggering 46% more in revenue.
Jaxxon makes their return policy easy to find by adding a Quick Response for it in Chat.
4) Use AI to recommend Help Center articles
Your articles shouldn’t only be found in your Help Center; make the most out of your resources by sharing them on multiple channels like Chat and email. Making your articles widespread gains you two benefits: an educated customer base and faster resolution times.
When to use: If you have a high return rate and negative customer reviews or sense a lack of understanding from your customers about your product.
You can create Chat Campaigns to educate browsing shoppers and direct them to a product quiz or Help Center articles.
Tips:
Insert Help Center articles into customer communications to build anticipation and proactively address issues
Create Chat Campaigns to automate the customer education process, offering targeted information and support
Scenarios where you can use chat campaigns: holidays and limited-time offers, for customers browsing high-value products, at checkout to reduce cart abandonment
Real-world results: After creating Chat Campaigns that displayed welcome discounts and toilet compatibility checkers to shoppers, TUSHY achieved an impressive 25% increase in revenue and improved customer satisfaction. They also brought their bounce rate down by 37%.
Success story: How Kirby Allison boosted conversions by 23% with CXA
If the previous real-world examples weren’t enough to convince you about automation’s integral role in CX, here’s another success story.
Kirby Allison, a luxury garment care business, struggled to handle a growing volume of repetitive and time-consuming tasks. Surviving on a minuscule two-person customer support team, they were drowning in tickets outside business hours.
Once they enlisted the help of Automate, it was a weight off their shoulders. Gorgias’s multifunctional Chat provided 24/7 support with Quick Responses, self-service Order Management, and Article Recommendations.
Immediately, Kirby Allison saw a 46% increase in sales, a 23% increase in conversions, and drastically reduced response times.
If you want to make huge successes easy wins — take the first step towards transforming your customer service and book a Gorgias Automate demo today.
It’s true that a great customer experience is key to winning happy customers — but to keep a pulse on customer satisfaction, you need to dig a little deeper.
To understand the quality of a customer’s experience with your brand, you need to track Customer Effort Score (CES). This metric lets you evaluate your customer service efforts by tracking the level of effort a shopper must exert to fix an issue with your customer support team.
In this article, you’ll learn exactly how to track and monitor CES, as well as how to optimize your support strategy to minimize customer effort as much as possible.
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What is Customer Effort Score (CES)?
Customer Effort Score (CES) is a way ecommerce brands can accurately measure how much effort a customer has to exert in order to interact with your support resources.
This metric is relevant to any interaction a shopper might have that touches your customer support strategy, like:
Talking with a rep through Live Chat
Navigating a return
Answering tricky product questions
Canceling an order in progress
The easiest way to measure customer effort score is by sending customers a survey after their interaction with customer success ends. In this survey, ask them to rate their service experience on a 1-10 point scale.
We’ll dive into the details behind how to create a survey to measure the amount of effort your customers take shortly.
Why customer effort is the key to customer loyalty
No shopper wants a high-effort experience. According to The Effortless Experience, 96% of high-effort customer experiences drive a customer to be disloyal to your brand — making retention nearly impossible.
Clearly, it's worth the effort to make life a little easier for your customers — doing so will convince many of them to shop with your brand again.
When you calculate your customer effort score, you’re able to keep a pulse on exactly what it takes to create seamless experiences that lead to increased loyalty. The metric is a strong predictor of customer retention and can help identify pain points in your customer support strategy.
A quick-start guide to measuring CES with surveys
As we mentioned earlier, you can measure customer effort by sending customers a customer effort survey.
In this survey, customers are asked to rate their experience with customer support on a Likert scale from “less effort” to “a lot of effort”.
Let’s walk step-by-step through how to build a CES survey and how to send them to your customers. Then, we’ll look at how to interpret results once you’ve compiled enough data.
When to send a CES survey
You can send a CES survey immediately after any customer interaction, like post-purchase.
To zoom in even more on customer effort, consider only sending a CES survey once a shopper has a service interaction with your support strategy, like chatting with a live agent, visiting a self-service portal, or clicking through an interactive FAQ page.
This way, you’re able to get an accurate idea of how easy, or how frustrating, your support touchpoints are.
How to create a CES survey
A CES survey typically has one simple question that asks, “How easy was it to solve your problem today?”
Every brand tracks responses a little differently, using a scaled system. Here’s a few examples of different kinds of scales you can choose from:
Word-based scale
A word-based scale lets respondents share their experience by choosing a word or phrase ranging from “very easy” to “very difficult.”
Sentiment scale
A sentiment scale gives customers the option to share their experience using angry, happy, or sad faces to depict the emotion they felt while seeking support from your brand.
Numerical scale
A numerical scale lets customers share their experience using a scale of 1 to any number of your choosing. Some brands like a scale of 1 to 10, while others prefer scales of 1 to 5.
No matter what thresholds you set, 1 should always be the lowest, meaning the worst, and your end number should be the highest, meaning the best.
It's important to note that no option is better than another. The survey type you choose all depends on your shop’s needs.
Some brands might also ask an open-ended question as a follow-up so customers can share specific details about their experience.
You can send a CES survey question through email, SMS, or a similar channel to customers who recently reached out to your support team.
Of course, you can send a customer effort score question manually, but it takes precious time away from your reps who are busy handling active tickets. Automating the process means your agents can focus on more meaningful work, like following up with disgruntled shoppers.
Gorgias integrates with Delighted to provide easy-to-use survey templates to automatically distribute customer surveys, including for CES. Once a customer makes a purchase, it triggers Gorgias to automatically send a customer effort score survey to that customer.
How to calculate your CES score
Like many other customer service metrics, you want to calculate your average CES in order to get a snapshot view of how most customers perceive their experience with your support resources.
If you want to calculate customer effort manually, start by tracking response data from your CES surveys over a given period of time.
The timeframe all depends on your goals. You can look at a month, quarter, half-year, etc. Ultimately, it's more important to be consistent with the timeframes you measure. That way, you can accurately track how your CES changes over time.
Once you’ve collected enough data, plug it into this simple formula:
Divide the number of customers who agree the interaction was easy by the total number of responses.
To put it in actual numbers, if 100 people responded to your CES survey, and the total sum of their scores amounts to 800, that means your CES score is 8 (out of 10).
What drives a high CES?
Like most other customer service metrics, there is no such thing as a standardized “perfect” benchmark for customer effort.
That’s because it all goes back to your brand and its goals. What makes sense for your customer effort might not translate to another ecommerce shop.
As a general rule of thumb, when it comes to CES you want your score to be as high as possible.
A high CES shows that your support strategy is clear cut and that customers have to exert minimal effort to have their problems resolved. Conversely, a low CES means customers find their experiences with your support resources arduous — putting your brand at risk of a high churn rate.
The best way to drive a high CES is to provide a painless and straightforward experience. If your CES isn’t quite as high as you’d like it to be, start by asking yourself these questions:
How many touchpoints did the customer have before their issue was resolved?
How long did it take for an agent to respond to a customer ticket?
Are all your links up-to-date for important self-service options like a knowledge base, forum, or FAQ?
Do you agents have access to the resources they need to make well-informed decisions?
From there, you can look into ways to optimize your support strategy to boost your customer effort score.
How to improve your Customer Effort Score
To improve your customer effort score, you need to build pathways to make it as easy as possible for customers to find the answers they’re looking for. That means decreasing the number of steps it takes for a customer to complete a task and optimizing your first response time.
Clearly, it’s worth the effort to optimize your customer experience.
Let’s look at some of the easiest ways ecommerce brands can lower their CES using functions commonly found in helpdesks.
1) Build out a thorough knowledge base
A knowledge base is a portal, of sorts. It connects your shoppers to both sales and customer service so they can make an empowered purchasing decision.
The beauty of a knowledge base is that is goes way beyond just a static library of articles.
BrüMate's Help Center is a learning environment where customers can go to in-depth knowledge about their products.
2) Lean on self-service
Customers might not reach out to your agents immediately.
Offering more self-service options also means you can deflect low-priority tickets so your agents can focus on solving more challenging customer issues.
We’ve already discussed a popular self-service option: knowledge bases. Here are some other examples of what customer self-service might look like:
FAQ page: Answer your customers’ most frequently asked questions with key information like operating hours, product availability, pricing, return policy, basic troubleshooting, and more.
Forums: Build community among your shoppers and encourage them to talk to each other about their experiences so that they can empower themselves to resolve low-effort problems.
On-demand webinars: Educate your customers with step-by-step tutorials about your brand’s products. Record webinars so that you can publish them as evergreen content on your website for customers to access anytime.
In-product tutorials: Give customers step-by-step instructions in the moment its needed. In-product tutorials are effective at helping customers get value out of your product quickly.
3) Harness automation
Many of the tickets your agents handle are repetitive.
Sure, tracking a customer’s order is important, but automation can handle these kinds of straightforward questions for your team.
In customer service, automation likely won’t replace your hardworking support reps. Rather, automation can work with your teams to improve workflows and optimize communication with your customers by tackling redundant manual work.
4) Auto-prioritize tickets to reduce response times
Assigning ticket priorities is a best practice to empower your team to become more efficient. But you could spend all day on this task alone.
Ticket prioritization is another useful form of automation, assigning low-, medium-, and high-value to every incoming request. This way, your team can handle the higher-priority issues first.
Macros are another form of automation that optimize a customer support team’s workflow.
Macros are pre-written, automatic responses to incoming customer requests.
Gorgias Macros automatically pull customer data into your messages, like name, order number, and shipping addresses. This makes for a more efficient conversation and helps customers get to a resolution with minimal effort for both the customer and the agent.
Other important customer experience metrics to consider
Customer effort is a big slice of the pie when it comes to monitoring your customer experience, but it can’t show the whole picture on its own.
We recommend bolstering your CES efforts with additional metrics in order to add helpful context to your customer support strategy.
Plus, it gives you a better look into the customer’s journey, so you can see how shoppers experience your brand — and give you ideas for how to boost satisfaction and drive loyalty.
Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)
Customer satisfaction score (CSAT) is a metric to measure your customer base’s level of satisfaction with their experience.
The metric is one of the most important measurements your support team can track. Satisfied customers are the key to unlock loyalty, reviews, and referrals, along with returning customers that boost revenue for your brand.
With Gorgias, you can automatically send a customer satisfaction survey after each interaction with customer support:
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a commonly tracked metric that lets you learn how likely your customers are to recommend your brand to their friends and family.
This metric likely correlates closely with your CES. A customer who has had a great experience is likely to want to hype you up to their networks, versus a customer who had to put in a ton of effort to resolve an issue.
If you optimize your NPS, there’s a good chance your CES will also improve — which can lead to more repeat customers and a boost in customer loyalty.
Ecommerce Churn Rate
Ecommerce churn rate is the percentage of lost customers your business sees over a given period of time.
This metric is similar to Customer Churn Rate (CCR), which is typically measured by SaaS or subscription-based B2B companies. These companies can easily see when a customer cancels their subscription, making this data easy to monitor.
Ecommerce, or online stores, can measure churn rate by looking at negative customer feedback, like a high CES, in order to identify customers at risk for churn.
Gorgias: Your ecommerce helpdesk to lower Customer Effort Score
A helpdesk like Gorgias has the power to immediately optimize your customer service team — which, as we’ve learned, directly impacts the effort a customer has to exert with your brand.
Because Gorgias has purpose-built automation features like Chat, Macros, and ticket prioritization, it can empower your customers to find a resolution to their problems as fast as possible.
