

TL;DR:
Your AI sounds like a robot, and your customers can tell.
Sure, the answer is right, but something feels off. The tone of voice is stiff. The phrases are predictable and generic. At most, it sounds copy-pasted. This may not be a big deal from your side of support. In reality, it’s costing you more than you think.
Recent data shows that 45% of U.S. adults find customer service chatbots unfavorable, up from 43% in 2022. As awareness of chatbots has increased, so have negative opinions of them. Only 19% of people say chatbots are helpful or beneficial in addressing their queries. The gap isn't just about capability. It's about trust. When AI sounds impersonal, customers disengage or leave frustrated.
Luckily, you don't need to choose between automation and the human touch.
In this guide, we'll show you six practical ways to train your AI to sound natural, build trust, and deliver the kind of support your customers actually like.
The fastest way to make your AI sound more human is to teach it to sound like you. AI is only as good as the input you give it, so the more detailed your brand voice training, the more natural and on-brand your responses will be.
Start by building a brand voice guide. It doesn't need to be complicated, but it should clearly define how your brand communicates with customers. At minimum, include:
Think of your AI as a character. Samantha Gagliardi, Associate Director of Customer Experience at Rhoback, described their approach as building an AI persona:
"I kind of treat it like breaking down an actor. I used to sing and perform for a living — how would I break down the character of Rhoback? How does Rhoback speak? What age are they? What makes the most sense?"
✅ Create a brand voice guide with tone, style, formality, and example phrases.
Humans associate short pauses with thinking, so when your AI responds too quickly, it instantly feels unnatural.
Adding small delays helps your AI feel more like a real teammate.
Where to add response delays:
Even a one- to two-second pause can make a big difference in a robotic or human-sounding AI.
✅ Add instructions in your AI’s knowledge base to include short response delays during key moments.
Generic phrases make your AI sound like... well, AI. Customers can spot a copy-pasted response immediately — especially when it's overly formal.
That doesn't mean you need to be extremely casual. It means being true to your brand. Whether your voice is professional or conversational, the goal is the same: sound like a real person on your team.
Here's how to replace robotic phrasing with more brand-aligned responses:
|
Generic Phrase |
More Natural Alternative |
|---|---|
|
“We apologize for the inconvenience.” |
“Sorry about that, we’re working on it now.” (friendly) |
|
“Your satisfaction is our top priority.” |
“We want to make sure this works for you.” (friendly) |
|
“Please be advised…” |
“Just a quick heads up…” (friendly) |
|
“Your request has been received.” |
“Got it. Thanks for reaching out.” (friendly) |
|
“I will now review your request.” |
“Let me take a quick look.” (friendly) |
✅ Identify your five most common inquiries and give your AI a rewritten example response for each.
One of the biggest tells that a response is AI-generated? It ignores what's already happened.
When your AI doesn't reference order history or past conversations, customers are forced to repeat themselves. Repetition can lead to frustration and can quickly turn a good customer experience into a bad one.
Great AI uses context to craft replies that feel personalized and genuinely helpful.
Here's what good context looks like in AI responses:
Tools like Gorgias AI Agent automatically pull in customer and order data, so replies feel human and contextual without sacrificing speed.
✅ Add instructions that prompt your AI to reference order details and/or past conversations in its replies, so customers feel acknowledged.
Customers just want help. They don't care whether it comes from a human or AI, as long as it's the right help. But if you try to trick them, it backfires fast. AI that pretend to be human often give customers the runaround, especially when the issue is complex or emotional.
A better approach is to be transparent. Solve what you can, and hand off anything else to an agent as needed.
When to disclose that the customer is talking to AI:
For more on this topic, check out our article: Should You Tell Customers They're Talking to AI?
✅ Set clear rules for when your AI should escalate to a human and include handoff messaging that sets expectations and preserves context.
We're giving you permission to break the rules a little bit. The most human-sounding AI doesn't follow perfect grammar or structure. It reflects the messiness of real dialogue.
People don't speak in flawless sentences every time. We pause, rephrase, cut ourselves off, and throw in the occasional emoji or "uh." When AI has an unpredictable cadence, it feels more relatable and, in turn, more human.
What an imperfect AI could look like:
These imperfections give your AI a more believable voice.
✅ Add instructions for your AI that permit variation in grammar, tone, and sentence structure to mimic real human speech.
Human-sounding AI doesn’t require complex prompts or endless fine-tuning. With the right voice guidelines, small tone adjustments, and a few smart instructions, your AI can sound like a real part of your team.
Book a demo of Gorgias AI Agent and see for yourself.
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TL;DR:
You’ve chosen your AI tool and turned it on, hoping you won’t have to answer another WISMO question. But now you’re here. Why is AI going in circles? Why isn’t it answering simple questions? Why does it hand off every conversation to a human agent?
Conversational AI and chatbots thrive on proper training and data. Like any other team member on your customer support team, AI needs guidance. This includes knowledge documents, policies, brand voice guidelines, and escalation rules. So, if your AI has gone rogue, you may have skipped a step.
In this article, we’ll show you the top seven AI issues, why they happen, how to fix them, and the best practices for AI setup.
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AI can only be as accurate as the information you feed it. If your AI is confidently giving customers incorrect answers, it likely has a gap in its knowledge or a lack of guardrails.
Insufficient knowledge can cause AI to pull context from similar topics to create an answer, while the lack of guardrails gives it the green light to compose an answer, correct or not.
How to fix it:
This is one of the most frustrating customer service issues out there. Left unfixed, you risk losing 29% of customers.
If your AI is putting customers through a never-ending loop, it’s time to review your knowledge docs and escalation rules.
How to fix it:
It can be frustrating when AI can’t do the bare minimum, like automate WISMO tickets. This issue is likely due to missing knowledge or overly broad escalation rules.
How to fix it:
One in two customers still prefer talking to a human to an AI, according to Katana. Limiting them to AI-only support could risk a sale or their relationship.
The top live chat apps clearly display options to speak with AI or a human agent. If your tool doesn’t have this, refine your AI-to-human escalation rules.
How to fix it:
If your agents are asking customers to repeat themselves, you’ve already lost momentum. One of the fastest ways to break trust is by making someone explain their issue twice. This happens when AI escalates without passing the conversation history, customer profile, or even a summary of what’s already been attempted.
How to fix it:
Sure, conversational AI has near-perfect grammar, but if its tone is entirely different from your agents’, customers can be put off.
This mismatch usually comes from not settling on an official customer support tone of voice. AI might be pulling from marketing copy. Agents might be winging it. Either way, inconsistency breaks the flow.
How to fix it:
When AI is underperforming, the problem isn’t always the tool. Many teams launch AI without ever mapping out what it's actually supposed to do. So it tries to do everything (and fails), or it does nothing at all.
It’s important to remember that support automation isn’t “set it and forget it.” It needs to know its playing field and boundaries.
How to fix it:
AI should handle |
AI should escalate to a human |
|---|---|
Order tracking (“Where’s my package?”) |
Upset, frustrated, or emotional customers |
Return and refund policy questions |
Billing problems or refund exceptions |
Store hours, shipping rates, and FAQs |
Technical product or troubleshooting issues |
Simple product questions |
Complex or edge‑case product questions |
Password resets |
Multi‑part or multi‑issue requests |
Pre‑sale questions with clear, binary answers |
Anything where a wrong answer risks churn |
Once you’ve addressed the obvious issues, it’s important to build a setup that works reliably. These best practices will help your AI deliver consistently helpful support.
Start by deciding what AI should and shouldn’t handle. Let it take care of repetitive tasks like order tracking, return policies, and product questions. Anything complex or emotionally sensitive should go straight to your team.
Use examples from actual tickets and messages your team handles every day. Help center articles are a good start, but real interactions are what help AI learn how customers actually ask questions.
Create rules that tell your AI when to escalate. These might include customer frustration, low confidence in the answer, or specific phrases like “talk to a person.” The goal is to avoid infinite loops and to hand things off before the experience breaks down.
When a handoff happens, your agents should see everything the AI did. That includes the full conversation, relevant customer data, and any actions it has already attempted. This helps your team respond quickly and avoid repeating what the customer just went through.
An easy way to keep order history, customer data, and conversation history in one place is by using a conversational commerce tool like Gorgias.
A jarring shift in tone between AI and agent makes the experience feel disconnected. Align aspects such as formality, punctuation, and language style so the transition from AI to human feels natural.
Look at recent escalations each week. Identify where the AI struggled or handed off too early or too late. Use those insights to improve training, adjust boundaries, and strengthen your automation flows.
If your AI chatbot isn’t working the way you expected, it’s probably not because the technology is broken. It’s because it hasn’t been given the right rules.
When you set AI up with clear responsibilities, it becomes a powerful extension of your team.
Want to see what it looks like when AI is set up the right way?
Try Gorgias AI Agent. It’s conversational AI built with smart automation, clean escalations, and ecommerce data in its core — so your customers get faster answers and your agents stay focused.
The best in CX and ecommerce, right to your inbox

TL;DR:
Customer education has become a critical factor in converting browsers into buyers. For wellness brands like Cornbread Hemp, where customers need to understand ingredients, dosages, and benefits before making a purchase, education has a direct impact on sales. The challenge is scaling personalized education when support teams are stretched thin, especially during peak sales periods.
Katherine Goodman, Senior Director of Customer Experience, and Stacy Williams, Senior Customer Experience Manager, explain how implementing Gorgias's AI Shopping Assistant transformed their customer education strategy into a conversion powerhouse.
In our second AI in CX episode, we dive into how Cornbread achieved a 30% conversion rate during BFCM, saving their CX team over four days of manual work.
Before diving into tactics, understanding why education matters in the wellness space helps contextualize this approach.
Katherine, Senior Director of Customer Experience at Cornbread Hemp, explains:
"Wellness is a very saturated market right now. Getting to the nitty-gritty and getting to the bottom of what our product actually does for people, making sure they're educated on the differences between products to feel comfortable with what they're putting in their body."
The most common pre-purchase questions Cornbread receives center around three areas: ingredients, dosages, and specific benefits. Customers want to know which product will help with their particular symptoms. They need reassurance that they're making the right choice.
What makes this challenging: These questions require nuanced, personalized responses that consider the customer's specific needs and concerns. Traditionally, this meant every customer had to speak with a human agent, creating a bottleneck that slowed conversions and overwhelmed support teams during peak periods.
Stacy, Senior Customer Experience Manager at Cornbread, identified the game-changing impact of Shopping Assistant:
"It's had a major impact, especially during non-operating hours. Shopping Assistant is able to answer questions when our CX agents aren't available, so it continues the customer order process."
A customer lands on your site at 11 PM, has questions about dosage or ingredients, and instead of abandoning their cart or waiting until morning for a response, they get immediate, accurate answers that move them toward purchase.
The real impact happens in how the tool anticipates customer needs. Cornbread uses suggested product questions that pop up as customers browse product pages. Stacy notes:
"Most of our Shopping Assistant engagement comes from those suggested product features. It almost anticipates what the customer is asking or needing to know."
Actionable takeaway: Don't wait for customers to ask questions. Surface the most common concerns proactively. When you anticipate hesitation and address it immediately, you remove friction from the buying journey.
One of the biggest myths about AI is that implementation is complicated. Stacy explains how Cornbread’s rollout was a straightforward three-step process: audit your knowledge base, flip the switch, then optimize.
"It was literally the flip of a switch and just making sure that our data and information in Gorgias was up to date and accurate."
Here's Cornbread’s three-phase approach:
Actionable takeaway: Block out time for that initial knowledge base audit. Then commit to regular check-ins because your business evolves, and your AI should evolve with it.
Read more: AI in CX Webinar Recap: Turning AI Implementation into Team Alignment
Here's something most brands miss: the way you write your knowledge base articles directly impacts conversion rates.
Before BFCM, Stacy reviewed all of Cornbread's Guidance and rephrased the language to make it easier for AI Agent to understand.
"The language in the Guidance had to be simple, concise, very straightforward so that Shopping Assistant could deliver that information without being confused or getting too complicated," Stacy explains. When your AI can quickly parse and deliver information, customers get faster, more accurate answers. And faster answers mean more conversions.
Katherine adds another crucial element: tone consistency.
"We treat AI as another team member. Making sure that the tone and the language that AI used were very similar to the tone and the language that our human agents use was crucial in creating and maintaining a customer relationship."
As a result, customers often don't realize they're talking to AI. Some even leave reviews saying they loved chatting with "Ally" (Cornbread's AI agent name), not realizing Ally isn't human.
Actionable takeaway: Review your knowledge base with fresh eyes. Can you simplify without losing meaning? Does it sound like your brand? Would a customer be satisfied with this interaction? If not, time for a rewrite.
Read more: How to Write Guidance with the “When, If, Then” Framework
The real test of any CX strategy is how it performs under pressure. For Cornbread, Black Friday Cyber Monday 2025 proved that their conversational commerce strategy wasn't just working, it was thriving.
Over the peak season, Cornbread saw:
Katherine breaks down what made the difference:
"Shopping Assistant popping up, answering those questions with the correct promo information helps customers get from point A to point B before the deal ends."
During high-stakes sales events, customers are in a hurry. They're comparing options, checking out competitors, and making quick decisions. If you can't answer their questions immediately, they're gone. Shopping Assistant kept customers engaged and moving toward purchase, even when human agents were swamped.
Actionable takeaway: Peak periods require a fail-safe CX strategy. The brands that win are the ones that prepare their AI tools in advance.
One of the most transformative impacts of conversational commerce goes beyond conversion rates. What your team can do with their newfound bandwidth matters just as much.
With AI handling straightforward inquiries, Cornbread's CX team has evolved into a strategic problem-solving team. They've expanded into social media support, provided real-time service during a retail pop-up, and have time for the high-value interactions that actually build customer relationships.
Katherine describes phone calls as their highest value touchpoint, where agents can build genuine relationships with customers. “We have an older demographic, especially with CBD. We received a lot of customer calls requesting orders and asking questions. And sometimes we end up just yapping,” Katherine shares. “I was yapping with a customer last week, and we'd been on the call for about 15 minutes. This really helps build those long-term relationships that keep customers coming back."
That's the kind of experience that builds loyalty, and becomes possible only when your team isn't stuck answering repetitive tickets.
Stacy adds that agents now focus on "higher-level tickets or customer issues that they need to resolve. AI handles straightforward things, and our agents now really are more engaged in more complicated, higher-level resolutions."
Actionable takeaway: Stop thinking about AI only as a cost-cutting tool and start seeing it as an impact multiplier. The goal is to free your team to work on conversations that actually move the needle on customer lifetime value.
Cornbread isn't resting on their BFCM success. They're already optimizing for January, traditionally the biggest month for wellness brands as customers commit to New Year's resolutions.
Their focus areas include optimizing their product quiz to provide better data to both AI and human agents, educating customers on realistic expectations with CBD use, and using Shopping Assistant to spotlight new products launching in Q1.
The brands winning at conversational commerce aren't the ones with the biggest budgets or the largest teams. They're the ones who understand that customer education drives conversions, and they've built systems to deliver that education at scale.
Cornbread Hemp's success comes down to three core principles: investing time upfront to train AI properly, maintaining consistent optimization, and treating AI as a team member that deserves the same attention to tone and quality as human agents.
As Katherine puts it:
"The more time that you put into training and optimizing AI, the less time you're going to have to babysit it later. Then, it's actually going to give your customers that really amazing experience."
Watch the replay of the whole conversation with Katherine and Stacy to learn how Gorgias’s Shopping Assistant helps them turn browsers into buyers.
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TL;DR:
Rising customer expectations, shoppers willing to pay a premium for convenience, and a growing lack of trust in social media channels to make purchase decisions are making it more challenging to turn a profit.
In this emerging era, AI’s role is becoming not only more pronounced, but a necessity for brands who want to stay ahead. Tools like Gorgias Shopping Assistant can help drive measurable revenue while reducing support costs.
For example, a brand that specializes in premium outdoor apparel implemented Shopping Assistant and saw a 2.25% uplift in GMV and 29% uplift in average order volume (AOV).
But how, among competing priorities and expenses, do you convince leadership to implement it? We’ll show you.
Shoppers want on-demand help in real time that’s personalized across devices.
Shopping Assistant recalls a shopper’s browsing history, like what they have clicked, viewed, and added to their cart. This allows it to make more relevant suggestions that feel personal to each customer.
The AI ecommerce tools market was valued at $7.25 billion in 2024 and is expected to reach $21.55 billion by 2030.
Your competitors are using conversational AI to support, sell, and retain. Shopping Assistant satisfies that need, providing upsells and recommendations rooted in real shopper behavior.
Conversational AI has real revenue implications, impacting customer retention, average order value (AOV), conversion rates, and gross market value (GMV).
For example, a leading nutrition brand saw a GMV uplift of over 1%, an increase in AOV of over 16%, and a chat conversion rate of over 15% after implementing Shopping Assistant.
Overall, Shopping Assistant drives higher engagement and more revenue per visitor, sometimes surpassing 50% and 20%, respectively.

Shopping Assistant engages, personalizes, recommends, and converts. It provides proactive recommendations, smart upsells, dynamic discounts, and is highly personalized, all helping to guide shoppers to checkout.
After implementing Shopping Assistant, leading ecommerce brands saw real results:
Industry |
Primary Use Case |
GMV Uplift (%) |
AOV Uplift (%) |
Chat CVR (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Home & interior decor 🖼️ |
Help shoppers coordinate furniture with existing pieces and color schemes. |
+1.17 |
+97.15 |
10.30 |
Outdoor apparel 🎿 |
In-depth explanations of technical features and confidence when purchasing premium, performance-driven products. |
+2.25 |
+29.41 |
6.88 |
Nutrition 🍎 |
Personalized guidance on supplement selection based on age, goals, and optimal timing. |
+1.09 |
+16.40 |
15.15 |
Health & wellness 💊 |
Comparing similar products and understanding functional differences to choose the best option. |
+1.08 |
+11.27 |
8.55 |
Home furnishings 🛋️ |
Help choose furniture sizes and styles appropriate for children and safety needs. |
+12.26 |
+10.19 |
1.12 |
Stuffed toys 🧸 |
Clear care instructions and support finding replacements after accidental product damage. |
+4.43 |
+9.87 |
3.62 |
Face & body care 💆♀️ |
Assistance finding the correct shade online, especially when previously purchased products are no longer available. |
+6.55 |
+1.02 |
5.29 |
Shopping Assistant drives uplift in chat conversion rate and makes successful upsell recommendations.
“It’s been awesome to see Shopping Assistant guide customers through our technical product range without any human input. It’s a much smoother journey for the shopper,” says Nathan Larner, Customer Experience Advisor for Arc’teryx.
For Arc’teryx, that smoother customer journey translated into sales. The brand saw a 75% increase in conversion rate (from 4% to 7%) and 3.7% of overall revenue influenced by Shopping Assistant.

Because it follows shoppers’ live journey during each session on your website, Shopping Assistant catches shoppers in the moment. It answers questions or concerns that might normally halt a purchase, gets strategic with discounting (based on rules you set), and upsells.
The overall ROI can be significant. For example, bareMinerals saw an 8.83x return on investment.
"The real-time Shopify integration was essential as we needed to ensure that product recommendations were relevant and displayed accurate inventory,” says Katia Komar, Sr. Manager of Ecommerce and Customer Service Operations, UK at bareMinerals.
“Avoiding customer frustration from out-of-stock recommendations was non-negotiable, especially in beauty, where shade availability is crucial to customer trust and satisfaction. This approach has led to increased CSAT on AI converted tickets."

Shopping Assistant can impact CSAT scores, response times, resolution rates, AOV, and GMV.
For Caitlyn Minimalist, those metrics were an 11.3% uplift in AOV, an 18% click through rate for product recommendations, and a 50% sales lift versus human-only chats.
"Shopping Assistant has become an intuitive extension of our team, offering product guidance that feels personal and intentional,” says Anthony Ponce, its Head of Customer Experience.

Support agents have limited time to assist customers as it is, so taking advantage of sales opportunities can be difficult. Shopping Assistant takes over that role, removing obstacles for purchase or clearing up the right choice among a stacked product catalog.
With a product that’s not yet mainstream in the US, TUSHY leverages Shopping Assistant for product education and clarification.
"Shopping Assistant has been a game-changer for our team, especially with the launch of our latest bidet models,” says Ren Fuller-Wasserman, Sr. Director of Customer Experience at TUSHY.
“Expanding our product catalog has given customers more choices than ever, which can overwhelm first-time buyers. Now, they’re increasingly looking to us for guidance on finding the right fit for their home and personal hygiene needs.”
The bidet brand saw 13x return on investment after implementation, a 15% increase in chat conversion rate, and a 2x higher conversion rate for AI conversations versus human ones.

Customer support metrics include:
Revenue metrics to track include:
Shopping Assistant connects to your ecommerce platform (like Shopify), and streamlines information between your helpdesk and order data. It’s also trained on your catalog and support history.
Allow your agents to focus on support and sell more by tackling questions that are getting in the way of sales.
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TL;DR:
While most ecommerce brands debate whether to implement AI support, customers already rate AI assistance nearly as highly as human support. The future isn't coming. It's being built in real-time by brands paying attention.
As a conversational commerce platform processing millions of support tickets across thousands of brands, we see what's working before it becomes common knowledge. Three major shifts are converging faster than most founders realize, and this article breaks down what's already happening rather than what might happen someday.
By the end of 2026, we predict that the performance gap between ecommerce brands won't be determined by who adopted AI first. It will be determined by who built the content foundation that makes AI actually work.
Right now, we're watching this split happen in real time. AI can only be as good as the knowledge base it draws from. When we analyze why AI escalates tickets to human agents, the pattern is unmistakable.
The five topics triggering the most AI escalations are:
These aren’t complicated questions — they're routine questions every ecommerce brand faces daily. Yet some brands automate these at 60%+ rates while others plateau at 20%. The difference isn't better AI. It's better documentation.
Take SuitShop, a formalwear brand that reached 30% automation with a lean CX team. Their Director of Customer Experience, Katy Eriks, treats AI like a team member who needs coaching, not a plug-and-play tool.
When Katy first turned on AI in August 2023, the results were underwhelming. So she paused during their slow season and rebuilt their Help Center from the ground up. "I went back to the tickets I had to answer myself, checked what people were searching in the Help Center, and filled in the gaps," she explained.
The brands achieving high automation rates share Katie's approach:
AI echoes whatever foundation you provide. Clear documentation becomes instant, accurate support. Vague policies become confused AI that defaults to human escalation.
Read more: Coach AI Agent in one hour a week: SuitShop’s guide
Two distinct groups will emerge next year. Brands that invest in documentation quality now will deliver consistently better experiences at lower costs. Those who try to deploy AI on top of messy operations will hit automation plateaus and rising support costs. Every brand will eventually have access to similar AI technology. The competitive advantage will belong to those who did the unexciting work first.
Something shifted in July 2025. Gorgias’s AI accuracy jumped significantly after the GPT-5 release. For the first time, CX teams stopped second-guessing every AI response. We watched brand confidence in AI-generated responses rise from 57% to 85% in just a few months.
What this means in practice is that AI now outperforms human agents:
For the first time, AI isn't just faster than humans. It's more consistent, more accurate, and even more empathetic at scale.
This isn't about replacing humans. It's about what becomes possible when you free your team from repetitive work. Customer expectations are being reset by whoever responds fastest and most completely, and the brands crossing this threshold first are creating a competitive moat.
At Gorgias, the most telling signal was AI CSAT on chat improved 40% faster than on email this year. In other words, customers are beginning to prefer AI for certain interactions because it's immediate and complete.
Within the next year, we expect the satisfaction gap to hit zero for transactional support. The question isn't whether AI can match humans. It's what you'll do with your human agents once it does.
The brands that have always known support should drive revenue will finally have the infrastructure to make it happen on a bigger scale. AI removes the constraint that's held this strategy back: human bandwidth.
Most ecommerce leaders already understand that support conversations are sales opportunities. Product questions, sizing concerns, and “just browsing” chats are all chances to recommend, upsell, and convert. The problem wasn't awareness but execution at volume.
We analyzed revenue impact across brands using AI-powered product recommendations in support conversations. The results speak for themselves:
It's clear that conversations that weave in product recommendations convert at higher rates and result in larger order values. It’s time to treat support conversations as active buying conversations.
If you're already training support teams on product knowledge and tracking revenue per conversation, keep doing exactly what you're doing. You've been ahead of the curve. Now AI gives you the infrastructure to scale those same practices without the cost increase.
If you've been treating support purely as a cost center, start measuring revenue influence now. Track which conversations lead to purchases, which agents naturally upsell, and where customers ask for product guidance.
We are now past the point where response time is a brand's key differentiator. It is now the use of conversational commerce or systems that share details and context across every touchpoint.
Today, a typical customer journey looks something like this: see product on Instagram, ask a question via DM, complete purchase on mobile, track order via email. At each step, customers expect you to remember everything from the last interaction.
The most successful ecommerce tech stacks treat the helpdesk as the foundation that connects everything else. When your support platform connects to your ecommerce platform, shipping providers, returns portal, and every customer communication channel, context flows automatically.
A modern integration approach looks like this. Your ecommerce platform (like Shopify) feeds order data into a helpdesk like Gorgias, which becomes the hub for all customer conversations across email, chat, SMS, and social DMs. From there, connections branch out to payment providers, shipping carriers, and marketing automation tools.
As Dr. Bronner’s Senior CX Manager noted, “While Salesforce needed heavy development, Gorgias connected to our entire stack with just a few clicks. Our team can now manage workflows without needing custom development — we save $100k/year by switching."
As new channels emerge, brands with flexible tech stacks will adapt quickly while those with static systems will need months of development work to support new touchpoints. The winners will be brands that invest in their tools before adding new channels, not after customer complaints force their hand.
Start auditing your current integrations now. Where does customer data get stuck? Which systems don’t connect to each other? These gaps are costing you more than you realize, and in the future, they'll be the key to scaling or staying stagnant.
Post-purchase support quality will be a stronger predictor of customer lifetime value than any email campaign. Brands that treat support as a retention investment rather than a cost center will outperform in repeat purchase rates.
Returns and exchanges are make-or-break moments for customer lifetime value. How you handle problems, delays, and disappointments determines whether customers come back or shop elsewhere next time. According to Narvar, 96% of customers say they won’t repurchase from a brand after a poor return experience.
What customers expect reflects this reality. They want proactive shipping updates without having to ask, one-click returns with instant label generation, and notifications about problems before they have to reach out. When something goes wrong, they expect you to tell them first, not make them track you down for answers.
The quality of your response when things go wrong matters more than getting everything right the first time. Exchange suggestions during the return flow can keep the sale alive, turning a potential loss into loyalty.
Brands that treat post-purchase as a retention strategy rather than a task to cross off will see much higher repeat purchase rates. Those still relying purely on email marketing for retention will wonder why their customer lifetime value plateaus.
Start measuring post-return CSAT scores and repeat purchase rates by support interaction quality. These metrics will tell you whether your post-purchase experience is building loyalty or quietly eroding it.
After absorbing these predictions about AI accuracy, content infrastructure, revenue-centric support, context, and post-purchase tactics, here's your roadmap for the next 24 months.
Now (in 90 days):
Next (in 6-12 months):
Watch (in 12-24 months):
The patterns we've shared, from AI crossing the accuracy threshold to documentation quality, are happening right now across thousands of brands. Over the next 24 months, teams will be separated by operational maturity.
Book a demo to see how leading brands are already there.
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TL;DR:
Customer service phrases are the building blocks of great support conversations. The right words can de-escalate tension, build trust, and turn routine interactions into relationship-building moments. But the wrong phrases can sound dismissive, robotic, or insincere — even when your team genuinely wants to help.
Most support teams struggle with consistency, especially when scaling across channels or onboarding new agents.
This guide provides curated phrases to use and avoid, plus scenario-based scripts for common situations like de-escalation, delays, and handoffs. You'll learn how to apply these phrases authentically without sounding scripted.
The following phrases work across phone, email, chat, and social media because they demonstrate empathy, ownership, and commitment to resolution. Each one serves a distinct purpose in building rapport and moving conversations forward.
When to use it: Thank customers for their patience during delays, for bringing issues to your attention, or simply for choosing your brand. This phrase works in openings, closures, and anywhere you want to acknowledge effort.
Example: "Thank you for reaching out to us today. I'm happy to help with your order."
When to use it: This phrase works especially well early in conversations to set a positive tone and show ownership. Avoid vague language like "I'll try" or "I'll see what I can do," which creates uncertainty.
Example: "I can absolutely help you track down that package. Let me pull up your order details right now."
When to use it: When you don't know the answer, this phrase validates the customer while maintaining confidence. It shows you're committed to accuracy over speed. The key is following up with a specific timeframe or next step.
Example: "Great question. Let me check with our warehouse team and get back to you within the hour."
When to use it: Empathy statements acknowledge customer emotions without over-apologizing. This phrase works well when customers express frustration, disappointment, or confusion. It demonstrates understanding while keeping the conversation solution-focused.
Example: "I understand how frustrating it must be to wait this long for your order. Let's figure out exactly where it is and what we can do."
When to use it: This phrase shows preparation and prevents customers from repeating themselves. It's especially valuable for follow-up conversations or when taking over from another agent. Customers feel heard when you reference previous interactions.
Example: "I've reviewed your case history and can see you contacted us last week about the damaged item. Let me make sure we get this resolved today."
When to use it: Frame customer feedback as valuable input rather than complaints. This phrase works well for bug reports, feature requests, and quality issues. It positions the customer as a partner in improving your service.
Example: "I appreciate you bringing this to our attention. This affects other customers too, and we're grateful you caught it."
These short power words create a cumulative effect of warmth and professionalism throughout your conversations. Sprinkle them naturally into your responses:
Certain phrases undermine trust, create defensiveness, or sound insincere — even when you mean well. Here are eight common phrases that backfire and what to say instead.
Why to avoid: This phrase feels hollow, especially after long hold times. Customers hear it as corporate speak that contradicts their experience. It's often delivered by automated systems, which makes it even less credible.
Say this instead: "Thank you for your patience. I know wait times have been longer than usual today."
Why to avoid: This generic apology sounds robotic and non-specific. The word "any" suggests you're not sure what went wrong or that you're minimizing the issue. It fails to acknowledge the actual impact on the customer.
Say this instead: "I'm sorry your order arrived damaged. That's not the quality we stand for, and I want to make this right."
Why to avoid: This abrupt phrase lacks context and doesn't ask permission. It treats the customer's time as less valuable than yours. It also creates anxiety because customers don't know how long they'll wait or why.
Say this instead: "May I put you on a brief hold while I check with our warehouse team? It should only take a minute."
Why to avoid: Blunt rejection closes down the conversation and positions you as an obstacle. It focuses on what you can't do rather than exploring alternatives. Customers feel dismissed and often escalate.
Say this instead: "While I can't process a refund past 30 days, I can offer you store credit or help you exchange it for something else."
Why to avoid: This phrase is patronizing and almost always escalates the situation. It invalidates the customer's emotions and makes them feel judged. Frustrated customers become angry customers when they hear this.
Say this instead: "I can see why you're frustrated. Let's work together to resolve this right now."
Why to avoid: Telling customers they're wrong creates defensiveness and damages trust. Even if they misunderstood something, this phrasing makes it confrontational. It shifts the conversation from problem-solving to proving who's right.
Say this instead: "Let me clarify what happened here. It looks like there may have been a misunderstanding about the shipping timeframe."
Why to avoid: This phrase lacks commitment and raises concerns about follow-through. Customers worry they'll fall through the cracks or have to start over with someone new. It also creates additional effort on their end.
Say this instead: "I'll reach out to our billing team right now and call you back by 2pm today at this number. Does that work for you?"
Why to avoid: Hiding behind policy sounds dismissive and suggests you're unwilling to help. It positions rules as more important than the customer. Even when policies genuinely can't be bent, this phrasing feels bureaucratic.
Say this instead: "Our return window is 30 days to ensure product quality and manage inventory. I can't extend it, but let me see if we have other options like an exchange or store credit."
Ready-to-use phrases work best when tailored to specific situations. These seven scenarios cover the most common customer touchpoints, with multiple phrase options for each.
The first few seconds set the tone for the entire conversation. Warm openings build trust and make customers feel valued rather than processed. Whether you're on phone, chat, or email, your greeting should balance professionalism with friendliness.
Why this works: These openings acknowledge the customer immediately and signal readiness to help. They avoid transactional language and create space for conversation.
Angry or frustrated customers need validation before they can move toward solutions. These phrases acknowledge emotion without agreeing that your company is at fault. The goal is to shift from venting to problem-solving.
Why this works: Validation reduces defensiveness and shows you're listening. These phrases pair empathy with forward momentum toward resolution.
When things go wrong, transparency builds trust. Customers want to know what's happening, why, and when it will be fixed. These phrases set clear expectations and demonstrate accountability.
Why this works: Specific timelines and proactive updates reduce anxiety. Customers can plan around delays when they have clear information.
Admitting you don't know something maintains credibility when paired with commitment to find out. These phrases show ownership and accuracy matter more than speed. The key is setting clear expectations for follow-up.
Why this works: These phrases maintain trust by prioritizing accuracy. Customers respect honesty more than guessing.
Handoffs are friction points where customers risk repeating themselves or feeling abandoned. These phrases maintain continuity and explain why the transfer adds value. Always share context with the next agent before transferring.
Why this works: Explaining the reason for the handoff and confirming context has been shared reduces customer frustration. Warm transfers feel like escalations to help, not attempts to pass the buck.
Walking customers through solutions requires clarity and collaboration. These phrases balance efficiency with thoroughness, making customers feel heard while moving toward closure. Break complex processes into steps.
Why this works: Clear next steps reduce confusion and give customers a sense of control. Offering choices empowers customers and increases satisfaction.
Endings should confirm resolution, invite follow-up, and leave customers feeling positive about the interaction. These phrases check for completeness and maintain the relationship beyond this single transaction.
Why this works: These closures confirm the issue is resolved while keeping the door open. They leave customers feeling valued and supported.
Scripts and templates are starting points, not rigid rules for positive scripting. The best customer service feels personal and responsive, not robotic. These principles help you adapt phrases to real conversations.
Vague language creates uncertainty and erodes trust. Specificity demonstrates preparation, ownership, and respect for the customer's time. Compare "I'll look into it" with "I'll check with our warehouse team and email you by 3pm today with tracking details." The second version tells the customer exactly what will happen and when.
Best practices:
Over-scripting makes agents sound like chatbots. Pay attention to how your customer communicates and match their tone. A formal customer gets a professional response, while a casual customer gets friendlier language. The phrase "I understand how frustrating this is" lands differently depending on context and delivery.
Best practices:
Delivering consistent, empathetic support becomes easier when your team has the right tools. Gorgias Macros lets you save these phrases as templates while personalizing them with customer data.
And if you need these phrases at scale? AI Agent carries natural conversations while maintaining your brand voice, 24/7, no matter the situation.
Book a demo today to see how we help ecommerce brands scale personal service.
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Some hold up the net promoter score (NPS) as the holy grail of KPIs. While we won’t go so far as to declare it the most important metric of all, we will say that it is one of a few that is absolutely crucial to your brand and customer success.
That’s because you can learn a lot about customers when you dig into NPS feedback. What keeps customers happy, what upsets them, how you can boost retention, how to slow down churn — you name it, NPS can become a valuable feedback loop that reveals insights into all of these things and more.
That’s why we’ve created this guide. Read below to learn how to improve response rates to create a better, more accurate net promoter score.
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If you’re unfamiliar with net promoter scores, we have a detailed explainer on how to calculate NPS that will tell you everything you need to know. But for now, let’s have a quick refresher.
It all starts with asking your customers a simple question: On a scale of 0-10, how likely are they to recommend your offerings to a friend?
From there, collect these numbers:
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Calculating your NPS is easy. Determine the percentage of promoters and detractors from the total number of responses. Then, subtract the detractor percentage from the promoter percentage for your score. So if you have 70% promoters minus 10% detractors, your NPS is 60.
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Before making business decisions based on your NPS, you need the best possible dataset to work with. That means improving response rates to NPS survey questions creates a larger sample size — and below, we’ll show you the best ways to do that.
There are three great cadences to send out your NPS surveys:
These should trigger at certain moments of the customer’s lifecycle. They’re a great way to get customer feedback at key points of the customer journey.
This way, you can easily triangulate high-impact changes — for example, if NPS goes way up after customers receive an email with set-up instructions, consider making that information available earlier.
Other examples include:
A transactional NPS survey gets triggered by set customer interactions. Much like the lifecycle surveys above, this helps you collect customer feedback and take a temperature check where it matters most. In this case, after key customer touchpoints:
Pulse checks are a bit different in that they survey your whole customer base all at once. You can use NPS surveys to gauge customer sentiment following a company rebrand, after a push to get new customer referrals, and so on.
Especially while conducting lots of customer research to ensure product-market fit, conduct pulse-check surveys with some level of regularity to maintain a healthy feedback look. Many companies do pulse checks twice yearly just to get a sense of customer sentiment across the entire customer base.
Where NPS surveys are concerned, less is more. The longer your survey, the lower the chances are that people will hang around to finish it. Sticking to one question can improve your response rate — and you want a great response rate because larger sample sizes will create a more accurate NPS.
So, what's a good survey response rate? There is no one clear answer because response rates can differ between channels (email surveys versus telephone or in-app surveys, for example) or based on how engaged your customers are with your brand.
However, good response rates can generally vary between 5% and 30%. If your response rate shoots up to 50% or more, you’re doing extremely well — and your customers are highly engaged.
While you want to keep your surveys brief, nothing says you can’t follow up with particular customers individually. In fact, you absolutely should follow up with customers who offer particularly interesting responses in your survey’s feedback section. Send out a more in-depth survey or schedule a 1:1 interview to discover the reasons behind their responses.
Here’s a great example of a one-question survey sent with NPS survey tool Delighted, plus a follow-up question made possible by Delighted’s integration with Gorgias:
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There are a couple of limited cases when you can send out multi-question surveys:
Use these longer surveys judiciously to collect highly targeted information — and strive to keep them as brief as possible.
A/B testing is a common marketing technique that has users compare multiple pieces of content to determine which pieces perform best. You can — and absolutely should — use A/B tests for your surveys, too. Doing so will help you optimize surveys to get the best response rate.
When you’re designing an A/B test, consider testing for the following:
Those tests will get you started, but feel free to add more as you spot areas to potentially improve.
The first step to creating an attractive survey is to add visuals. Don’t rely on people typing in answers to questions. Use graphical buttons instead. Be sure to use your company’s logo in the design, and introduce your brand’s colors through borders and other elements.
Make it brand-friendly, too — whatever that means for your brand. If your brand gives off a sleek, posh vibe, then your net promoter score survey should do the same.
Rather than building these emails from scratch, consider using an NPS survey software with convenient templates. There are many great options, but we recommend Delighted — especially given its integration with Gorgias:
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Delighted does a great job of letting you brand the survey (using your logo and colors) without over-crowding the email and distracting the survey-taker from the main purpose of the email: Choosing an NPS score.
Free swag is an excellent motivator, and so are discounts. Offer a little something extra in exchange for NPS survey responses, and you’ll likely see your response rate shoot up dramatically.
What can you offer? The sky's the limit. Create swag bags to send out to respondents or offer a limited-time promotional item. You can also offer digital gift cards or discounts, too.
The only issue with offering rewards is that it may not be sustainable. One great way to work around this is to set up a drawing or raffle, so that survey respondents have a chance at winning something awesome. It’ll be more affordable for your brand — and an attractive enough offer that more customers will leave feedback in exchange for a chance at the prize.
NPS survey best practices include always making sure there is a comment box below the numerical survey question. Some customers won’t leave a comment, but some will. Use these comments to understand why your happy customers are so delighted with your offerings and why unhappy customers are less than thrilled with the experience you’ve offered.
If you use an NPS tool like Delighted, you can opt in to include an optional “Tell us more” box:
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Your NPS score is a valuable tool, but it will only get you so far. It’s essentially a measurement of how “loud” your promoters are compared to the detractors. Focusing too much on the relative volume of each group can be misleading.
For example, you may be tempted to invest a lot of time into rescuing your detractors, but think about this: Maybe the problem isn’t that your detractors are unhappy. Maybe they were never the right target market in the first place.
That’s why you need to dig deeper into the data behind your NPS score. You might find interesting patterns, like nearly all of your detractors live abroad or a huge percentage of your promoters bought the same product. That suggests perhaps you need an audience from closer to home.
Thank-yous are a fantastic way to build goodwill and customer loyalty. This step doesn’t have to be anything complicated, either. In fact, the CRM tools or survey templates you use to generate surveys should automate the thank-you process — either as a final screen of the survey or a separate email.
Ideally, your survey should pop up with a quick statement of thanks once the survey has been completed. Make sure to personalize the message — but keep it brief to ensure that it’s both seen and appreciated.
This is how a thank you message will appear if sent with Delighted:
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Less ideal — but still acceptable — is to send a follow-up email to say thank you. The problem with this method is that people aren’t always appreciative of inbox clutter — plus, there’s a chance customers may delete the email unread.
Worried that your survey isn’t optimized to its fullest? Or that your customer base is too small to generate meaningful results? Set those fears aside and launch your NPS survey anyway.
The truth is, even small brands can get a lot out of comparatively few NPS responses. A/B testing your survey to optimize it is important — and it’s also something you can do to improve as you work through the process.
Now, if you’re a super small B2B brand with only a handful of customers, or a brand that is just starting, NPS scores may not be all that worthwhile. Instead, you may need to roll up your sleeves and dive in to ask for feedback the old-fashioned way: with phone calls or messages directly to your point of contact.
We’ve talked about the importance of A/B testing — but what about regular beta testing? It’s an easy and crucial step that ensures an easy-to-use survey tool for your customers.
Just have a handful of people at your company so they can click all the buttons and check various features. Request feedback on the design, and be sure to load the survey on mobile and desktop platforms, too.
Testing the technical aspects of your survey is especially important if you have any sort of automatic personalization. If you use a tool like Retently, for example, send a few test emails to different recipients to make sure the personalization is accurate:
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💡Tip: If you use Retnetly, you can integrate with Gorgias to follow up with customers — like winning back unhappy customers or inviting happy customers to a referral or loyalty program.
Up above, we mentioned that sometimes you learn important things about your target market based on your detractors — and that’s why you should always look beyond the NPS score itself. Do a deep dive on your detractors to really analyze what is happening. Examine demographic information and pay close attention to any comments they leave.
For example, do you have a large group of detractors who love your product but are unhappy with customer support or your website experience? This might indicate that your customer service team needs additional training or managerial support, which is a straightforward fix to raise your score. Or what if all of your detractors share certain characteristics, like age, income level, and geographical region? It could mean that this subset isn’t your product’s target market, and you’ll be better off re-targeting your product.
Ready to boost your NPS? Gorgias makes it easy. It’s customer support software specifically designed for ecommerce, built to integrate with the ecommerce tools (like NPS email software) you already use.
On top of NPS, you can facilitate follow-up questions, automate thank-you emails, and get a real-time view of other statistics like customer satisfaction (CSAT), average response times, and resolution times.
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To learn more, sign up here and check out everything Gorgias offers.
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When a shopper places an order, the second phase of customer acquisition begins: Turning new customers into repeat customers. Return customers generate 300% more revenue over first time buyers on average, according to data from 10,000 ecommerce brands.
So, what kind of post-purchase behavior leads to long-term loyalty? Ideally, your customers follow up purchases with:
Below, learn more about the psychology of your shoppers once they place an order, and get tactics to improve your brand's post-purchase experience.
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Post-purchase behavior is the set of actions customers take after purchasing an item. Post-purchase behavior can be positive (repeat purchases, raving fans), negative (poor reviews, excessive returns), or neutral (transactional purchases, simply using the product).
Post-purchase behavior matters because making the first sale isn’t the finish line. It’s the beginning of a race to win long-term, loyal customers: people who repeatedly return to your store, have a high customer lifetime value, buy more from you (increasing cart size and transaction value), and send new customers your way.
Gorgias’s data shows that while repeat customers make up 21% of all customers, they bring in 44% of revenue.

Post-purchase dissonance, or what’s also known as “buyer’s remorse,” is when an otherwise positive purchase experience creates cognitive dissonance in the form of discomfort or other negative feelings.
Usually, customers experience post-purchase dissonance when you don’t give enough information about:
This often, understandably, dampens positive post-purchase behavior. On the other hand, a great post-purchase experience and strong customer service and support can drive positive post-purchase behavior, including brand loyalty.
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Happy customers tend to become repeat customers. Focusing on creating a positive post-checkout process can increase customer satisfaction, bolster your repeat customer rate, and build customer loyalty.
Here are 13 ways to anticipate what your customers may think after clicking “Confirm order” and how steer your customer’s post-purchase behavior.
Consider: What metrics are we optimizing for?
The first step in encouraging positive consumer behavior through a thoughtful post-purchase experience is understanding what you want your customers to do. Then, take a look at who they are, what they care about, and how they behave. The key is to fully understand your brand’s customer journey. This will help you craft a better experience for them that’s based on real learnings about your business.
“The first question brands should ask is, what kind of post purchase activities do you want to drive differently,” Bri Christiano, Director of Support at Gorgias, says. “And, who are you really targeting? That's going to dictate what your main metric is, and it’ll determine where you focus.”
After you have a top-level understanding of the kinds of results you want to see overall, you can drill down into the specific activities that will be effective, like timely email sends.
In order to ensure a stress-free purchase process for your online store, send shoppers a confirmation email so they can confirm that their transaction went through.
Include details like their order number, the shipping destination address, payment method, product details (in case of an order mistake), and the total cost including any promotional discounts.

Caption: Gorgias customer Printfresh sends a thorough post-purchase email that includes all important order details.
💡Tip: Bri recommends sending timely emails that “catch customers when they're interacting with your brand. Don't send random emails at times when you’re likely not top of mind. Then, add personalization when you can for goals that they have, if your brand aligns with that.”
Even better if your order confirmation email links to a clear and helpful order management portal where customers can track their order, report issues, and modify the order.

Sometimes a customer realizes that they didn’t make the right decision about an order, or legitimately made a mistake.
Giving customers the opportunity to cancel an order themselves before it ships gives them peace of mind and allows them to correct their mistake in time without having to wait to send in a return. Using a helpdesk like Gorgias, customers can use self-service order management in chat or in the Help Center to cancel a recent order.

If you do require customers to write into support (or if customers bypass your self-service options), set up a ticket prioritization system to surface those urgent tickets before it’s too late. Ensure that your support reps can do a quick information search to find the order and change or cancel it quickly.
Here’s an example of a Gorgias Rule that automatically tags tickets about order cancellation requests from orders within the last two days, so your agents can confirm the cancellation before the order is shipped:

Retail disruptions have reached 59% or higher over the past couple of years. With supply chain issues and shipping delays, giving people as much information as possible about how and when their purchase will reach them helps better meet customer expectations.
Plus, questions about order status make up a large chunk of customer service requests. So, preemptively providing this information can help reduce the number of those repetitive tickets that don’t actually require a human touch.
Offering real time order tracking information (ideally, without making customers jump through hopes) provides transparency, sets expectations, and allows customers to stay up to date with any order delays or changes without having to reach out to customer support.

📚Recommended reading: Check out our post on how to offer real-time order tracking for more strategies.
Every moment, from the moment a shopper makes a purchase to when they unwrap your product for the first time, should build anticipation. Creating a fun and creative unboxing experience will help.
Stationary brand Ohh Deer and its subscription program Papergang sends visually stunning packaging, especially for its monthly boxes. These fun, “keepable” boxes spark joy, can be reused or gifted, and create an overall positive experience that customers can look forward to.

To get started, take a look at brands like Arka or Fantastapack, which provide custom options for enhancing your packaging.
When customers inevitably experience hiccups in the order process, the goal is that their behavior is constructive and positive, rather than angry and combative. To get that kind of post-purchase behavior, you need to offer easy paths to contact customer support and a smooth return or exchange process.
Customers love the peace of mind of knowing that they can return something without hassle, even if they never have the need. Communicating that returns are easy (and free, if you can manage it) upfront can even encourage shoppers to convert.
Still, solely-online retailers can be tricky for consumers. Many are hesitant to make a purchase decision on items that they can’t see in person first. To address that concern, share your returns process and policy in every order confirmation email and in FAQs and the Help Center on your website.
Mattress company Casper created an easy and generous return policy that’s a gold standard for ecommerce: If you don’t like your mattress, tell them within 30 days, and they’ll cover shipping for a free return. With something as bulky as a mattress, free return shipping can eliminate any concerns about not liking such a big investment.

A returns tool like Loop can really help you optimize the product so customers don’t have to jump through hoops to return a product:

Encouraging shoppers to make an exchange keeps them around as a customer and also allows you to keep the revenue from the sale, which will help with your bottom line. According to returns tool Loop, “Turning refunds into exchanges is 10x more impactful than reducing return costs.”
Loop incentivizes returns by offering customers slightly more in-store credit than they would get for a refund:

Shopify stores that use Loop for their returns see a 15% reduction in returns on average. If you use Shopify or Gorgias, it’s easy to integrate Loop as an impactful return/exchange tool.
Devices or tools that arrive with no or unclear instructions, DIY furniture assembly that seems nearly impossible, or even complex software tools with poor onboarding can cause a less than positive experience, even if the end product is great.
Create a simple YouTube video, send clear step-by-step instructions with images, or share a live chat hotline customers can reach out to if they get stuck. These options make it easy for people to get all of the information they need to set up or use the product or service they just purchased successfully.
For example, GEN3 e-bikes come with a paper manual for assembly, but they also send a QR code (using a QR code generator like Beaconstac) that takes shoppers to a short, high-quality how-to video that’s less than 5 minutes long.
Brands usually send a customer satisfaction (CSAT) score after a customer has interacted with customer support. Consider only asking for product reviews from people who score 4 or 5 on CSAT and leave positive feedback about their interaction with support.
If you use a helpdesk like Gorgias, you can likely send these kinds of CSAT surveys automatically after conversations, purchases, and other kinds of transactions:

📚Recommended reading: Our Director of Support’s guide to improving CSAT score and survey response rate
The time when shoppers are still deciding on a purchase is a prime opportunity for your support team to cross-sell or upsell them on additional items.
For example, a customer might have trouble finding an item on your website that they saw on social media. Or, they might ask for recommendations for what to purchase or for items that will go best with the item that they already bought from you.

After a purchase is complete, consider surfacing additional product recommendations for customers via email. Even if these don’t result in an immediate second sale, you keep customers engaged and thinking about how that recommended item would improve their lives or enhance the use of the current item they have.
Providing discounts or other perks in exchange for social media shares and reviews brings more exposure to your brand and enhances the post-purchase experience for your fans.
Underwear brand Parade runs a program like this called Parade Friends. Existing customers apply for the program, and once accepted, post pictures of themselves wearing Parade items on social media. Their followers can then use their Instagram handle as a discount code, incentivixzing future purchases (with a discount for customer delight).

That means that both parties benefit, which makes them happy, and you benefit by bringing in new customers and more revenue.
For many brands, community drives customer perception of the brand — and drives future sales. Brands have leveraged Facebook groups, Reddit forums, Instagram Live, and more to encourage community among their customers and fans.
For example, soap shop Dr. Squatch hosts its community on Discord, a community-based social and chat platform, so its customers can hang out with each other and chat about the brand.

Creating a community can increase customer engagement and satisfaction, generate trustworthy, quality customer feedback about your products, and make more opportunities for cross selling and upselling.
📚Recommended reading: What is Ecommerce Community Management and Why Does it Matter?
Inevitably, your brand won’t always be top of mind for customers, even if they absolutely love it and your products. This is where a thoughtful marketing strategy comes in, and where email automation can be really effective.
Set up automated flows that offer personalized product offerings, discount emails based on customer behavior, target returning customers, and ask for feedback.
📚Recommended reading: 8 Ecommerce Email Automation Series for Online Stores
Turning first-time customers into repeat, loyal, raving-fan customers takes meticulous attention to the customer experience, especially in the post-purchase window. This is where Gorgias shines.
Ultimately, getting the ideal post-purchase behavior starts — and ends — with delivering a great customer experience, especially in the post-purchase evaluation phase. Gorgias delivers a powerful platform for your customer service helpdesk, tailored to the needs of ecommerce businesses who want to deliver an exceptional customer experience.
Gorgias offers powerful features that drive ecommerce success, including:
See how Gorgias can transform your customer service efforts. Sign up now!
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Did you know that 80% of companies base annual pay increases on performance? Doing so may seem like a no-brainer, especially since other studies like Lattice’s State of People Strategy show effective pay-for-performance strategies are indicators of individual and company performance.
But despite this evidence, we at Gorgias believe compensation shouldn't only be based on performance. The right combination of performance, behavior, and business needs will lead people to a promotion, but we don't provide individual salary raises (that aren’t tied to promotions) based only on performance.
You might be raising an eyebrow, but don’t click away. Removing performance-based compensation helps us reduce bias and focus on long-term growth.
Here’s our compensation plan in a nutshell:
First, let’s define what we mean by compensation here. In this post, I discuss the total package offered upon hiring and the so-called “merit cycle” which gives financial rewards to “top performers.”
I won’t open the topic of commissions, which is a slightly different pay structure. It’s also an interesting topic — maybe a future post?
Regardless, here are the main reasons we don’t believe in compensation models that reward individual performance.
Startups move fast, and managers do too. Even managers who are aware of bias are still susceptible to them. And evaluations of employee performance are very hard to rid of bias.
Let me ask you this: Would all employees have the same salary today if they had different managers? At most organizations, the answer is no. When one manager decides yearly compensation of their direct reports, those direct reports end up with subjective, bias-ridden compensation. That’s no good.
You're probably well aware of biases, so let's skip the usual suspects like affinity bias (which makes you like more people who are similar to you) and focus on others.
Pressure bias occurs when an employee constantly talks about money and puts pressure on you to give them more. A common response is to compromise, just to end the uncomfortable pressure: "Alright, I'll give them at least a 3% raise so they won't complain forever."
You might be thinking, "I'm experienced and wouldn't do that." That might be true. But a more junior manager might reward employees who apply this kind of pressure, and that's a problem.
Visibility bias is the phenomenon of noticing (and rewarding) an employee just because of visibility. Perhaps they had a very visible project, or are vocal in meetings and on Slack. Or, perhaps they work in the same office as their manager and get more one-on-one time than remote teammates.
Just because you — or even the CEO — see more of one person or their projects doesn’t mean that person had the strongest impact. And it definitely doesn’t mean they deserve more compensation than teammates with less visibility.
Ah, my favorite topic. Let me illustrate with an example.
Imagine you have three employees. The first one has been here the whole year. The latter two have been absent for a few months due to illness and maternity leave. They've only been present for two or three quarters out of the four.
If you pay based on performance, you should reward the employee who had a greater impact by simply being present and shipping projects — right? But if this is the case, the employees would be punished simply for taking time off (which is a legal right).
Women are still paid 16% less than men in the US and 18% less in Europe. The same issue applies to people with disabilities. Compensation-based performance perpetuates these unfortunate statistics.
"But wait," you might argue, "performance should be assessed when the employee is here. If someone is absent for several months, you evaluate their performance and increase based on the period of presence."
This compensation strategy makes sense in theory but introduces room for interpretation and “gaming the system.” Now, employees have to strategically plan their absences around the annual performance appraisal to ensure they don't miss out.
What about a mother who is having her third pregnancy and is entitled to a one-year leave in many countries and companies? Would you truly base her performance increase on her performance from a year ago?
By penalizing employees for being away for a few months, you're creating unnecessary complexity and potential discrimination.
You may excel in one project, perform slightly below par in the next, and then shine again in another.
Let’s say your scope switches a bit and suddenly you’re not as great at keeping up with everything, you’re just good. However, your compensation is still higher — even if a colleague is now performing at a higher level.
It's the famous Peter Principle in action: People end up in positions where they perform at their worst because when they're great, they keep getting promoted.
By paying based on performance you apply the Peter Principle on compensation: You will ultimately pay employees more than the level of their performance.
For the same reason, we don’t believe compensation should be based on tenure. If you are rewarded for your tenure, over the years, you’ll become isolated at a very high level of compensation and misaligned with the market.
As the years pass, it will become extremely hard for you to find a job that pays what you expect and ultimately you can become unemployable. As a consequence, you’ll be very likely to stay but not for good reasons.
"But if you don't pay based on performance,” you say. “How is it fair that a high performer makes the same as an average performer?"
My answer is simple: As a human resources leader or a Manager, you must work tirelessly to avoid having average team players. You don't want average; you want excellence. A+ players only, period.
"This is unrealistic," you say. "You'll definitely have average employees, even poor ones."
I agree. But not for long. If you set high expectations and transparently communicate this at a company level, there are no surprises. If someone misses their performance goals too many quarters in a row and becomes a low performer, we trigger a performance improvement plan (PIP).
At Gorgias, our ultimate goal is to have the absolute best versions of ourselves in every corner of the company. Pay-for-performance programs force people to constantly strive to be "better" than others, which directly contradicts our company's vision of fostering high talent density. We believe this model leads to better employee engagement and company culture.
And ultimately, pay-for-performance doesn't work for top performers. When someone sees themselves as a rockstar and expects a 20% increase, but only receives 5%, it creates a misalignment between their beliefs and reality. With performance-based compensation as an option, it’s hard to make top performers (or anyone, really) satisfied.
Well, dear hiring manager, I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but no.
We share our compensation package with candidates right at the beginning of the hiring process (they can even check our salary calculator). If they say they're good with it, they're good with it. No surprises at the end, we offer exactly what we've shared from the start.
Being absolutely inflexible on this matter has made my life (and the lives of everyone involved in the hiring process) so much easier. No need to negotiate with HR when sending an offer. No need to get finance involved to revalidate the budget. It's smooth sailing.
I'm not saying that paying for performance is inherently bad. Obviously, if 80% of companies do it, there must be advantages like boosting retention of top talent.
I'm also aware that my vision may seem utopian. Maybe it's not entirely scalable, and perhaps we'll have to revisit our principles at some point.
But I've been told so many times that many things were not scalable and proved the opposite.
Not yielding is hard. Sticking to your principles is challenging. But adhering to your core principles is what creates wonderfully exciting machines like Stripe, Netflix, Apple, and Amazon.
You might think, "When people join a 20-person company, they know they're expected to work hard and strive for excellence. But when they join a 250-person company like Gorgias, they're not looking to work hard without direct compensation increases."
Maybe that’s true for some employees. As for me, I've worked just as hard in my previous 400,000-person company as I do in my current 250-person company.
And for those who desire something different, that’s okay. We just have to make our stance and policies clear and transparent in the interview process.
Yes, Gorgias is not for everyone. It's for people who thrive in a fast-paced environment, possess a growth mindset, and want to advance their careers. It's completely fine if it's not for you.
As long as we're aligned and embrace this statement, I sincerely believe we can continue scaling by paying people with the same job title and seniority level the same salary.

Quick summary:
Choosing the right ecommerce platform to host your online store is no small decision, but sometimes it's hard to know which option is right for your business. Shopify and Shopify Plus are two platforms that get a lot of buzz within the ecommerce community, and many store owners give them rave reviews.
What’s the difference between the two, and which plan is best for your ecommerce store? The main difference is that Shopify is for small and midsize businesses (SMBs), while Shopify Plus is for larger, or even enterprise-level businesses.
Below, we’ll discuss what each plan offers before diving into pricing structures and key differences between Shopify and Shopify Plus. Whether you’re considering upgrading to Shopify Plus from the regular Shopify plan or migrating from another ecommerce platform (like BigCommerce or Magento), read on to understand which option is right for you.
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Shopify is an ecommerce platform that offers businesses a way to promote, sell, and ship their products. It’s widely recognized as being great for beginners, meaning that the learning curve for new ecommerce store owners is minimal, and provides a level of customization that most small businesses find attractive.

Shopify Plus is a Shopify upgrade designed for large enterprises making high-volume sales that total around $1 million in gross merchandise value (GMV). The higher price tag unlocks more storefront functionality, automations, support, and integrations than core Shopify plans.
The main difference between Shopify and Shopify Plus lies in pricing, which is tailored to accommodate the unique needs and budgets of merchants.
Core Shopify plans cater to small to midsize businesses (SMBs) and has fixed pricing plans with the cheapest starting at $5/month. In comparison, Shopify Plus is made for larger enterprise businesses, starting at $2,000 per month and is customized to each merchant via quote.
Let’s take a closer look at the breakdown for each plan within Shopify and Shopify Plus.
Shopify has five plans depending on your online store requirements and the size of your team.
It’s important to note that all standard Shopify plans are subject to online and in-store transaction fees, as well as non-Shopify payment fees.

Related: Our comparison of Magento and Shopify for ecommerce merchants
Shopify Plus pricing plans can only be determined via quote but start at $2,000 per month, plus a percentage of your store’s monthly sales volume. This enterprise-level commitment comes with additional transaction fees, online store development, site launch, third-party services, and add-ons.
Shopify Plus doesn’t provide flat pricing plans. Instead, you will need to contact a Shopify Plus sales representative to receive your quote.
Understanding the main differences in the two options is essential to make the best choice for your ecommerce store.
Below, we’ve identified nine ways Shopify and Shopify Plus differ from each other, and what these differences mean for your business.
One of the benefits of Shopify Plus is that users have access to the merchant success program. This exclusive program lets Plus users connect with merchant success managers (MSMs) to optimize their Shopify Plus experience.
Here are a handful of ways MSMs support merchants:
Note: Plus users do not get a dedicated account manager, but they have direct access to a team of MSMs who are available to solve their business needs.
Shopify Academy is an educational resource hub full of advanced resources — like courses and webinars — that helps merchants improve their store’s design, marketing, operations, and more.
For merchants interested in self-guided education, the information on Shopify Academy’s information serves as a supplement to your merchant success manager to gain the knowledge you need to grow your store.
Here are a few titles you’ll find in Shopify Academy:
Related: Our list of the best customer service courses and certifications
Between Shopify and Shopify Plus, there is one major difference concerning checkout: The checkout page is customizable on Shopify Plus via checkout extensibility, while the checkout page on core Shopify plans are limited to their selected Shopify theme with no additional customization options.
Exclusive to Shopify Plus merchants, checkout extensibility is a code-free feature that allows checkout pages to have completely custom UI and content. This ability to personalize the checkout experience gives online businesses the power to greatly reduce cart abandonment and transform hesitant shoppers into customers.
On core Shopify plans except Shopify Starter, merchants can use Shopify apps to give their checkout page minor modifications to the backend logic and post-purchase experience.

Related: Our Shopify SEO guide to standing out amongst the competition
Depending on which pricing option you choose, you can add between two and 15 users to your standard Shopify dashboard (in addition to your owner profile). Stores on the Starter plan are allowed two staff accounts.

On the other hand, Shopify Plus offers unlimited staff accounts, allowing large teams access to their online store dashboard. This inclusivity allows effortless collaboration within the team when integrating order management and helpdesk tools like Gorgias. When teams combine Shopify Plus with Gorgias, they get:
The App Store is one of Shopify’s most enticing features. There are well over 8,000 paid and free Shopify apps in the new app store. Shopify itself is responsible for creating only 34 of them to date, but there are hundreds of other third-party app solutions from everything including marketing, order management, store design and customer support.
Notably, this enables easy integration with ecommerce apps like Gorgias, an excellent Shopify app for customer service and order management. You can elevate customer support with Macros, streamline order processes, and enhance the overall efficiency of your store on both a standard Shopify plan or a Shopify Plus plan.
However, Shopify Plus merchants have much more flexibility when it comes to API integrations. These users can integrate their ecommerce store with their existing ERP or CRM systems, which standard Shopify stores cannot.
A few examples of Shopify Plus API solutions include:
Related: The best 40+ Shopify apps to optimize your ecommerce store
Shopify payments are straightforward. Transaction fees are laid out as percentages of the total order volume. The Shopify POS includes a free credit card reader, which conveniently integrates your online and offline sales, no matter which plan you are on. But, what are the differences between Shopify and Shopify Plus’ payment processing and transaction fees?
For businesses using Shopify’s integrated payment system, Shopify Payments, there is no transaction fee as of May 2022. If your business uses an external payment gateway, transaction fees are as follows:
Like core Shopify plans, transaction fees are waived if your business uses Shopify Payments. However, for external payment gateways, transaction fees are as follows:
Shopify is designed to set ecommerce merchants up for success. During the checkout process, your page needs to be optimized for high conversion rates. Luckily, promotional discounts can help you achieve just that. Want to run flash sales and seasonal price reductions? Here’s how your ecommerce business can make it happen with Shopify and Shopify Plus.
There are probably hundreds of apps in Shopify’s add-on marketplace that can help you create discounts to entice your shoppers. Standard plans include the ability to easily create discounts from inside your dashboard. In addition, you can enable shoppers to redeem in-store discounts if you use Shopify’s integrated POS system.
What type of discounts can you create with a standard Shopify plan?
After you run a promotional discount campaign, you can track its progress using the “Sales by Discount” report. Regular reports provide you with insights about which campaigns are working and which ones aren’t. Use real data to power your marketing campaigns.
Children’s vitamins brand, Hiya, takes advantage of the discount options available with Shopify by doubling-down. First, they offer 50% off first order then follow it up with free shipping. Both promotion types are executable via the discount portal.

Take your promotions a step further with Shopify Plus. You can increase your cart value with Launchpad, exclusive to the Plus platform. The system automates most aspects of promotional campaigns, discounts, flash sales, and product releases.
Planning and executing an online sale usually involves tedious manual processes. When running a campaign this way, it’s difficult to make real-time optimizations to your campaigns. The add-on makes it much easier, reducing the amount of time spent launching a campaign and the risk for human error.
Here’s what you can expect Launchpad to automate for you:
Simba runs percentage discount campaigns for their online store. From a customer perspective, their campaign execution is comparable to that of Hiya above. But, as a Shopify Plus user, you can wager that they use Launchpad to automate the process rather than manually perform the tedious work.

Source: Simba
The regular Shopify plan comes with plenty of features that are sufficient for most small businesses and single-store organizations. But larger stores may find the following features and apps, which are only available for Shopify Plus subscribers, worth the higher price tag:
If you’re a Shopify store interested in expanding to B2B selling, you will need to contact a Shopify sales representative to upgrade your Shopify account.
Shopify Plus offers access to headless commerce features not found in Shopify Core plans. With headless commerce, online stores can separate the frontend customer touchpoints from the backend, allowing custom storefronts and immersive shopping experiences. "Going headless" is an excellent choice for enterprise-level businesses aiming to scale, especially with dedicated developers on the team.

On the other hand, standard Shopify plans don't have access to headless commerce and rely on templates and themes for their online store designs. This limitation can be limiting for businesses in the midst of expansion as it restricts them from fully scaling their online presence.
Shopify and Shopify Plus both have tools to help you reach a bigger audience, scale your business, automate your processes, and stay competitive. If you're trying to decide which one will work best for you, think about the pricing structure that works best for your business, the customization and customer support you need, and the areas of the world you want to reach.
Regardless of your choice, consider how you’ll provide fast, helpful customer service to visitors of your store. Gorgias integrates with Shopify and Shopify Plus and is the only customer service platforms to receive the distinction of being a Shopify Plus Partner.
Want to know more about Gorgias’s centralized, automation-powered, and revenue-generating customer service solution? Yes, book my demo.
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61% of consumers define an excellent customer support interaction as one with a quick resolution, according to a 2021 study. Your overall customer experience depends on how fast you can provide answers that fully solve a customer’s problem and lets them get on with their day—without too much effort.
Average resolution time is the metric businesses use to measure how quickly their customer support teams completely close an open customer issue. It’s not the only customer support metric that matters, and I don’t recommend holding it up as the holy grail of your team’s success. But it’s certainly worth measuring (and, usually, lowering) because it can make or break the customer experience — especially for urgent issues like lost packages, billing issues, or outages and bugs.
Learn all about average resolution time below, including what it is, how to measure and interpret your average resolution time, and how to lower your brand’s resolution time and make customers happy.
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Resolution time, also called time to resolution or mean time to resolution (MTTR), is the average amount of time a customer spends interacting with a business’s customer support, helpdesk, or customer service team before their issue is solved.
The clock starts ticking the moment a customer writes or calls your support team. It includes the amount of time customers wait before getting a first response and any additional wait time between conversations. The clock stops ticking when the question is resolved and the support interaction is complete.
Most brands don’t measure resolution time for individual tickets; they measure resolution time across all tickets — average resolution time. Apply a formula like this one to measure your business’s average resolution time:
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Average resolution time = Total resolution time in a defined period / Total number of customer interactions resolved in that period
If you conduct customer support directly on email and social media, you’ll have to calculate the total resolution time for all tickets by hand. This is tedious: You’ll have to subtract the difference between the timestamp of the last message in an interaction from the timestamp of the first message.
However, if you use a helpdesk for customer service, you’ll likely have access to a dashboard that reports on your resolution times. Here’s what average resolution time looks like in Gorgias, which you can view by agent, channel, time frame, and more:
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Orange represents average resolution time, while red represents the resolution time of the 10% of tickets that took the longest to resolve.
Ecommerce businesses work especially hard to reduce their average resolution time because of the high customer expectations: 63% of customers will leave a brand after a single bad customer service experience. The stakes for fast, helpful customer service are high.
But defining a good resolution time is difficult because of a variety of factors:
But perhaps the most important “it depends” for resolution time is the type of ticket in question. At Gorgias, we encourage you to categorize every ticket into one of two categories: simple requests, which you can automate entirely, and complex requests, which will (and should) have higher resolution times.
Rather than trying to drive a variety of tickets to an arbitrary benchmark, you can clear your queue of repetitive, tedious tickets so you actually have time to handle and more efficiently resolve more complex ones.
Here’s what we mean:
Questions like “Where is my order?” or “What’s your return policy?” or “Where do you ship?” might not take long to resolve individually, but they tend to take up a lot of time because customers ask them at such a high volume. We call them “empty calorie” tickets. You could try and resolve these tickets one by one, but it’s much faster (for both customers and agents) to provide helpful, automated answers.
Here’s how you can provide instant answers to these types of questions:
This way, when customers ask these FAQs, they’ll immediately get a resolution-worthy response — assuming the templated response is helpful — without any agent effort.
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Even better, you can set up self-service resources like FAQ pages, knowledge bases, or Quick Response Flows like the one pictured below:
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Again, the goal is to deflect empty-calorie tickets from your queue so agents don’t have to rush through complex, escalated, or high-impact questions. And don’t worry: Customers always have a clear path to a human agent if they need extra support.
Once you automate simple tickets, your helpdesk will have a higher ratio of questions that actually need human attention. This way, your customer service agents won’t have to rush through a mountain-high pile of tickets each day.
It may sound counterintuitive, but slowing down is often the best way to lower resolution time for these types of tickets. They need some extra research, personalization, problem-solving, and empathy to fully resolve. And taking a few extra minutes to resolve these issues won’t be an issue because you don’t have a queue overflowing with easy tickets waiting for an available agent.
These types of questions include:
Now, we’re not saying resolution time doesn’t matter here. It does. But it’s a mistake to expect these tickets to match the resolution time of the first category, and lumping them all together in terms of metrics will paint an unclear picture of the problem.
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Now that you’ve separated simple and complex tickets, consider each channel your customers use: email, DMs, live chat, and so on. Customers have expectations for each support channel, and I recommend building your service-level agreements (SLAs) for each channel’s resolution time around those expectations.
Below, I recommend some rough benchmarks for major support channels. That said, the time frames listed below are ambitious, so aim for gradual improvements based on your current average resolution times rather than matching my suggestions exactly.
Email isn’t an instant messaging channel, so customers don’t expect instant responses. Ideally, you should respond within the same day — within a few hours is even better. Email works well for complex issues, where customers may need to explain an issue in detail or send a picture of their purchase.
As a live messaging channel, SMS resolution time should ideally be less than 10 minutes. SMS texting usually involves shorter messages than email, so it’s best to funnel quick, simple interactions to SMS. That said, one benefit of SMS is that customers can start a conversation and text you throughout the day, so the channel’s resolution time might be a bit longer than other live channels like live chat.
Learn more about offering SMS customer service with Gorgias.
Live chat is the most immediate channel because customers are usually sitting by their computers for the entire conversation. With that in mind, aim for an average resolution time of under 10 minutes, too.
Live chat is great for real-time conversations and can be combined with chatbots or other self-service features for automating the simplest queries. One downside is that impatient users may switch tabs and forget about the conversation, driving up your resolution time metrics. But Gorgias features like our in-message product cards are great at keeping customers engaged until a resolution:
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Some brands are worried about high resolution times from live chat if messages come in outside of business hours. Check out our post on how Gorgias helps small teams manage live chat if you have this same concern.
Check out our post on live chat support for more information about this support channel.
Phone calls are one of the quickest paths to a resolution since you can collect details, offer multiple tactics to solve the issue, and stay on the line until the customer is completely satisfied — no back and forth necessary. Gorgias customers improve ticket resolution by 34% by adding phone support.)
Aim for resolution time under 10 minutes for the simple tickets, but also leave the door open for longer phone calls as a great strategy to handle complex issues. You don’t want to rush through a phone call with frustrated or VIP customers for the sake of hitting a resolution metric.
Read more about the benefits of phone support for your brand.
Your customers will think of social messaging as nearly the same as live chat, so treat it the same: resolution time within minutes (certainly under 10 minutes). When they get what they want, customers love social because it feels like a shortcut compared to phone or email. But, like SMS and live chat, social media can be a difficult channel in which to solve complex issues.
Check out our guide to social media and customer service.
Each channel has its strengths and weaknesses in terms of helping the customer solve their issue. Some are better for solving issues quickly, while others excel at solving them thoroughly.
There is no single best channel. The real goal should be solving the customer’s issue efficiently and completely. For that matter, ecommerce businesses can’t directly control which support channel customers will choose, so the best approach is to provide omnichannel communication that focuses on meeting the customer where they’re at and using a customer service platform that reduces platform-switching for customer service agents.
One important distinction in this discussion is the difference between resolution time and first reply time (FRT).
First reply time measures how long a customer has to wait before getting a response from your support team. Obviously, a customer who's been on hold for an hour will be in a certain frame of mind when they finally get a hold of a team member — and it isn’t a good one.
Across all live channels (on-site live chat and SMS, for example), a reply time under two minutes is a good target. Email, on the other hand, can usually have a longer first reply time — up to a few hours is acceptable.
While keeping first reply time low is important, relying solely on this customer service metric is a mistake. For example, if your team’s only goal is to keep first reply time below two minutes, they may do a great job at making that initial contact — at the cost of actually solving people’s problems promptly. This scenario will also correlate to lower customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores, even when your team hits its KPI for reply time.
In reality, both resolution time and first reply time are important, in nearly equal proportion. Placing more emphasis on one than the other can lead to problematic interactions with customers, so ecommerce companies should take a balanced approach.
Within Gorgias, users can see their unique support performance score. This powerful metric combines three customer support metrics (first reply time, resolution time, and CSAT score) into a single metric to give you a more well-rounded view of your support team’s performance.
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Now that we’ve formed a framework for categorizing and thinking about support tickets, it’s time to work on reducing resolution time — intelligently and carefully, so you don’t run into the pitfalls we’ve mentioned.
Here are seven strategies.
First up, the best support ticket is the one that never exists because the customer solved their own problem. The next-best? One that you can close out almost immediately by pointing the customer to an existing resource.
FAQ pages provide value to you and your customers:
Process automation can significantly reduce first response time using automated responses (macros and rules) and self-service automation. Getting through initial triage via automation frees up your customer support agents to do the harder work. Chatbots can even solve simple tickets on their own, and your human team will get to ticket resolution faster when they aren’t swamped with empty-calorie tickets.
If most of your customers contact you on slower channels (like email), consider reminding them about faster channels like live chat and SMS. Point out that live chat customers get an answer in three minutes on average, and users with simple questions may decide to hop over.
Berkey Filters, a Gorgias customer, did just that after launching an SMS support channel. They implemented several tactics like:
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Your business should prioritize certain ticket types — the highest-value tickets might include VIP customers, customers about to make a purchase, and escalated customers. I recommend focusing on decreasing resolution times for these high-value tickets first and foremost, regardless of your overall metric. (Again, automating simple requests makes prioritizing these tickets even easier.)
Gorgias can use Shopify or BigCommerce data to tag customers who have spent over a certain amount as VIPs, pushing them to the front of the queue. Likewise, Gorgias’s sentiment detection can flag escalated customers.
Learn more about triaging and prioritizing customer service tickets using Shopify data.
If your brand sells vastly different products — or sells to vastly different types of customers — one way to prioritize tickets is to create specialized teams. This way, you don’t need to waste any time playing hot potato with the customer query. You simply auto-assign tickets to the appropriate team.
For example, say you sell desks to individuals as well as offices. More than likely, someone buying a single desk for their house will have different needs and questions than someone buying 100 desks for the business’s office. Using Gorgias, you can auto-assign tickets to a specialized team based on channel, language, or a myriad of other qualities with the support of auto-tagging.
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Technical issues can increase resolution time; sometimes, the answer lies elsewhere, outside your support team. Make sure you create clear escalation workflows so that, when these kinds of issues arrive, your team knows where to send them (and those other resources know the importance of responding promptly).
For example, if a customer had trouble with a missing package, they might need to speak directly to your fulfillment team. Likewise, if a customer has an issue with the functionality of your website, you may need to rope in your software engineers. Don’t wait until an issue arises to try and chase down these other teams — that’s a surefire path to a long resolution time.
The more manual your processes and the less connected to what you already know about customers, the longer it takes to close tickets and the more frustration you’ll likely create with customers.
So use the tools you already have (like historical data and perhaps templates) and leverage new, powerful tools like Gorgias’ ticketing system to expand your capabilities.
In 2022, we studied the data from over 10,000 ecommerce brands and sat down with 25+ ecommerce brands to understand the connection between customer experience and growth. We found that when brands lower their average email response time to under six hours, they lift overall revenue by about 2%.
Ready to learn more? Check out our ultimate CX playbook for 18 tactics to boost revenue through CX.
Want to lower your resolution time? Gorgias can help. Gorgias is customer support and helpdesk software that can help ecommerce support teams become more efficient, improve customer experience, and drive revenue.

Shopify comes equipped with everything you need to get your ecommerce store up and running, but if you really want to optimize it for time-saving efficiency and maximized sales, you are going to need to rely on some third-party apps from the Shopify app store.
From automating your email marketing campaigns to helping you better manage your inventory and much, much more, there is a large number of capabilities offered by the best Shopify apps. To help you decide which of these apps is the best choice for your ecommerce business, we'll take a look at the most important qualities to look for in a Shopify app before diving into the 40+ best Shopify apps available today.
For easy skimming, we've pulled out the top 10 Shopify apps for ecommerce stores below.
While the exact features and functions of Shopify apps can vary dramatically from app to app, there are still a few essential qualities that you will want to look for no matter what type of app you are needing. This includes qualities such as:
Like people, Shopify apps work best when they work together. Being able to integrate your email marketing app with your shipment tracking app, for example, means that you'll be able to send automated shipping updates to customers.
Integrating your customer support platform with your call center app, meanwhile, means that your agents providing phone-based customer support will have a wealth of data on the customers they are speaking with at their fingertips throughout each call.
These are just two examples of how it can be beneficial to choose apps that can integrate with your other ecommerce tools. Of course, it's also important to choose apps that will integrate with your ecommerce platforms, which is why all of the apps in our list are capable of integrating with Shopify, Shopify Plus, or both.
Plug-n-play solutions that don't offer much room for customization may seem convenient at first. As your business grows and scales, though, you are likely to find that these solutions no longer meet your needs like they once did.
While learning how to navigate Shopify apps that offer a wide range of customization options might require a bit of a learning curve, it's almost always worth it in the end.
Even the most well-polished apps still require regular updates and maintenance to continue functioning correctly. In addition to scheduled updates and maintenance, it is also essential to choose apps whose providers are willing to work with you to quickly correct any bugs or issues that come up while you are using the app.
This makes great customer support a vital quality to look for in Shopify app providers no matter what type of app you are purchasing.
Gorgias is an all-in-one customer support platform (including a helpdesk and live chat support) that provides a centralized help center for your customer support agents to provide great, revenue-generating customer experiences.
Gorgias lets ecommerce brands centralize conversations from every channel, empowered with features including:
If you are looking for a tool that will improve the customer experience on your website while at the same time reducing the burden of your customer support team, then Gorgias for Shopify is an excellent app to consider.
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Tidio is an app that provides both live chat and chatbot capabilities for your Shopify store, with AI-powered chatbots that allow you to automate up to 40% of your customer support conversations.
Help Center is a customer support solution that provides tabs for organizing your product descriptions, live chat software, a HelpDesk ticketing system, and an FAQ builder that allows you to create a comprehensive FAQ page in just a matter of minutes.
According to data from the Content Marketing Institute, 31% of B2B marketers say email newsletters are the best way to nurture leads. With these must-have Shopify apps for email marketing, you can automate your email marketing campaigns, create stunning branded emails, better segment your list for improved targeting, and beyond.

With Automizely Email Marketing, online store owners are able to create email campaigns that are both personalized and automated in addition to helping them create professional-quality emails using Automizely's drag-and-drop email editor.

Omnisend is a highly-popular email marketing tool that provides access to pre-built email and SMS workflows and templates, gives you the ability to segment your subscriber lists based on a wealth of data, and allows you to create automated email marketing campaigns that are sent out based on customer activity triggers.
See how Omnisend integrates with Gorgias.

With Klaviyo, you are able to easily segment your email list for personalized targeting before creating automated email campaigns that can be sent out based on a variety of custom triggers.
See how Klaviyo integrates with Gorgias.

Attentive is an SMS and email marketing solution that makes it easy to build and optimize campaigns while remaining compliant with SMS and email marketing regulations. This platform is designed to help store owners grow their subscriber lists and engage with these lists more effectively with segmentation and targeting functionality to generate high-impact campaigns.
See how Attentive integrates with Gorgias.
Selling more products is the ultimate goal of every Shopify store owner. With these sales and conversions Shopify apps, you can boost your sales with sales enablement tools such as SMS messaging tools, loyalty and referral programs, list segmentation tools, and beyond.

Marketed as a conversational text marketing ecommerce platform, Cartloop is designed to help ecommerce brands grow their subscriber base and engage with them on a more personal level. With highly targeted campaigns, Cartloop leverages simple text messages to help Shopify store owners increase revenue.
Recharge is a Shopify app for store owners who sell subscription-based products or services that makes it easy to set up and manage subscription programs in addition to providing your customers with the ability to manage their subscriptions either via SMS or through a user-friendly customer portal.
See how Recharge integrates with Gorgias.

Postscript is an SMS marketing tool that allows you to grow your SMS subscriber list with customizable opt-in tool templates, create hyper-targeted list segments based on your Shopify store data, and easily message customers with both one-on-one and mass messages.
See how Postscript integrates with Gorgias.

With Spently, Shopify store owners are able to turn their standard Shopify post-purchase notification emails into customizable, branded emails complete with product recommendations, discount codes, and other custom features.
Shopify provides all of the tools you need to create a basic online store. If you would like to create new features for your store that are not already supported by Shopify, though, you are sure to find these Shopify development apps highly beneficial.

Shopify's default product search function can be somewhat limited. With Omega Instant Search, though, you are able to develop a product search function for your store that is much more powerful thanks to features such as spell correction, fallback search, redirects, and synonyms.

A mega menu is a feature that allows you to display multiple menus from a single dropdown in your store's navigation, making it much easier for customers to find the specific products and collections that they are looking for. With Buddha Mega Menu, you can create an attractive and fully-functional mega menu for your Shopify store in a matter of minutes and cross-sell like a pro.

Smart Bar is an app that allows you to quickly create promotional bars and banners for your online store and populate these promotion bars and banners with conversion-boosting features such as countdown timers and free shipping bars.

404 page errors can potentially cost your store a lot of customers by both encouraging would-be customers to navigate away from your website and harming its SEO. With Easy Redirects, though, you can automatically find and fix all 404 errors on your Shopify store.
Hextom is a SaaS company that offers a number of different development solutions for Shopify stores, including a bulk image edit solution, a bulk product edit solution, an email collection bar, a payment processing tool for converting foreign currencies, a countdown timer bar, and more.

Vela is a solution that provides a centralized dashboard for managing multiple Shopify stores as well as the ability to bulk edit every aspect of your product descriptions.
According to data from Baymard Institute, 70% of shopping carts are abandoned before the customer completes their checkout. By enabling you to create fast and optimized checkout pages, these checkout Shopify apps can help you lower your abandoned cart rates and ultimately increase sales.

One-Click Checkout is an app that enables you to create "Buy Now" buttons for your products that take customers directly to the checkout page as well as create a checkout popup that shows customers the items in their cart each time they add a new item to the cart.

Integrating payment processing app Klarna into your online store provides your customers with the ability to split the cost of their purchase into four interest-free payments while still ensuring that you get paid upfront and in-full.

Fast Checkout In One Click is an app that allows you to create animated "Buy Now" buttons that direct customers straight to checkout, skipping the cart page and reducing the likelihood of an abandoned cart. Make your sales channels work harder for your brand.

Transcy is a language and currency conversion app that will automatically translate both the content and USD prices on your online store into the language and currencies of the customer viewing them, making it one of the best apps for stores that sell to a lot of international customers.

Buy Me Button is a Shopify checkout solution that offers features such as "Buy Me" buttons that take customers straight to checkout, a cart preview popup that appears when customers add a new item to their cart, and "Quick Buy" buttons that allow customers to purchase products from any page or listing on your website.
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One Click Upsell is a Shopify app designed to help store owners increase their average order value by presenting customers with upsell opportunities at checkout. With One Click Upsell, you can create one-click upsell options that are shown to customers either before or after checkout that allow them to add additions to their purchase with just a single, convenient click.
Keeping track of your inventory and ensuring that you always have the appropriate amount of products in stock to meet customer demand can sometimes be a time-consuming challenge.
With these inventory management Shopify apps, though, you can streamline and automate your various inventory management processes, freeing you up to focus on bringing in new customers and growing your store's revenue.

Katana Manufacturing ERP is an inventory management solution that allows you to optimize inventory movements by setting up reorder points and prioritizing your sales orders.

With Stock Sync, store owners are able to set up automatic inventory updates, update existing products via over 80 different connection methods, and set quantity rules to avoid overselling.

One of the most well-known inventory management solutions, QuickBooks Commerce is a platform that allows you to manage your product listings across multiple channels, track products from inventory to fulfillment, automatically update your inventory levels, and much more.

Stocky is an inventory management solution offered by Shopify that enables Shopify store owners to achieve complete visibility over their inventory through detailed inventory analytics and insights such as demand forecasting. Stocky also makes it easy to create and manage purchase orders from one place.

More of a logistics service provider than an application, ShipBob is a service that allows ecommerce store owners to ship their products in bulk to ShipBob warehouses across the country. Once you've delivered your products, ShipBob then takes over all inventory management and order fulfillment responsibilities on behalf of your online store — picking, packing, and shipping products to customers as they're ordered.
ShipBob is a common alternative to Shopify Fulfillment Network.
See how ShipBob integrates with Gorgias.

AfterShip Returns Center is a solution for managing customer returns that allows store owners to create a branded and interactive self-service returns page, provide customers with automated real-time updates regarding the status of their orders and returns, and set up smart routing rules to ensure that items are sent back to the right place at minimal cost.
See how Aftership integrates with Gorgias.

Encouraging exchanges for returned products rather than refunds is a great way to reduce the often substantial impact that product returns have on a store's bottom line. With Loop Returns, Shopify store owners can let customers take control of their returns and exchanges and free up their team.
See how Loop integreates with Gorgias.
According to a report from eMarketer, the number of US customers who purchased products directly from social media platforms grew to 80.1 million in 2020 and is expected to increase to 96.1 million in 2022. With these social media marketing Shopify apps, you can ensure that you are leveraging the advantages of social media marketing to their full potential.

With Outfy, Shopify store owners are able to automate the process of promoting their products on social media by creating and scheduling product promotion posts that can be automatically posted across multiple social media channels at once. Outfy also makes it easy to create collages, videos, and GIFs that you can use to make promotional posts really stand out.

Zotabox is an all-in-one ecommerce marketing platform that offers over twenty different marketing tools in one package, including tools such as a landing page builder, a Facebook reviews integration, Facebook live chat, and a promo popup.

With Instafeed, Shopify store owners are able to display content from their Instagram profile on their Shopify store in order to create social proof and expand the reach of their Instagram content.

Facebook Channel is a tool that allows you to sell your Shopify products directly on Instagram and Facebook by making it easy to set up Facebook and Instagram shops.
If a Shopify store has great products but no one ever visits it, does it make a profit? Unlike the well-known "tree falling in a forest" puzzle, there's a simple answer to this question, and the answer is "no.” By utilizing these search engine optimization (SEO) Shopify apps, you can ensure that Google lists your store snippets as high as possible in the results for relevant searches and boost the number of potential customers who find your site.

Plug In SEO is an app for Shopify stores that automates the tedious SEO process by automatically detecting and resolving a wide range of SEO issues such as broken links and missing metadata.

SEO Manager is an app that provides a range of features for boosting your website's SEO, including features such as detecting and automatically fixing broken links, JSON-LD data support, automated title, description, and image alt text templating, Google sitemap submission, and much more.

If the images in your Shopify store are not optimized, they could slow down your loading speeds and thus harm your site's SEO. With TinyIMG SEO & Image Optimizer, you can automatically compress all of your site's images without reducing their quality, speeding up your loading times and boosting your SEO. TinyIMG SEO & Image Optimizer also provides a range of other SEO features such as broken link detection and redirect and metadata optimization.

Yotpo is a review app that lets you stay engaged with customers, using email or SMS and a variety of customizable opt-in tools. Segment your lists based on detailed customer analytics, whether new or returning. The most unique selling point of Yotpo, however, is its tool set for encouraging customer reviews and dynamically displaying those reviews on your website.
See how Yotpo integrates with Gorgias.
Retention Rocket is an SMS marketing platform that allows you to grow your SMS subscriber list and encourage long-term loyalty with TCPA compliant opt-in templates. Message individual customers or entire subscriber lists directly from the app, and create automated SMS messaging campaigns that can be triggered by a wide range of customer events.

Smile.io is an app designed to help you improve your customer retention and increase your lifetime customer value by making it easy for you to create and manage loyalty and referral programs for your Shopify store.
See how Gorgias integrates with Smile.io.

With LoyaltyLion, Shopify store owners can retain more loyal customers and increase repeat purchases with customized loyalty programs. This platform simplifies the management of your customer loyalty program and offers a number of promotional marketing tools that help you promote your program to new and existing customers.
See how Gorgias integrates with LoyaltyLion.
Tthe right Shopify apps can provide you with a broad range of revenue-boosting capabilities, from tools to grow your subscriber lists to tools for improving the quality and efficiency of your customer support (and everything in between).
At Gorgias, we are dedicated to helping Shopify store owners grow by providing their customers with the best possible experience as efficiently as possible.
If you would like to see for yourself the many benefits that Gorgias provides to Shopify store owners, see how Gorgias works with Shopify and sign up for Gorgias today.
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If you’ve ever worked in customer service, you know that unhappy customers are unavoidable. Customer satisfaction has plummeted since 2018, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index.

That’s why top brands don’t wait until angry customer emails arrive to decide how to respond. By setting up processes and templates ahead of time, your customer support team doesn’t need to craft responses from scratch. Especially while emotions are running high and angry customers are waiting for responses.
Below, you’ll find step-by-step instructions on how to process and respond to angry customer emails, considerations for handling angry or rude customers without making the situation worse, and tips to prevent angry customers by improving your customer experience (CX). We'll also share templates and sample emails for how to respond to:
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When customers aren’t happy with your product, service, or customer support, the stakes are high. You could lose them as a repeat customer, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Angry customers also go and tell their friends and family, either by word-of-mouth, on social media, or via a Google review.

The Effortless Experience found that 96% of disgruntled customers who had a high-effort or bad experience with a brand feel disloyal to that brand afterward. In other words, a frustrating, high-effort experience will irreversibly damage your brand's reputation for almost any customer, whether they’re first-time or regular shoppers. That spells trouble for your bottom line.

Also, your customer service team doesn’t want to respond to nasty emails all day long. Customer service can already be an emotionally challenging role, and spending all day dealing with angry customers is a quick path toward burnout and quitting.
📚 Related reading: Read our guide to hiring A+ customer service agents, written in partnership with customer service agency Helpflow.com.
Respond to angry customer emails by acknowledging the customer's frustration, owning any mistakes, gathering additional context, confirming you understand the entire situation, and fully resolving the issue.
These messages are high-stakes: When someone writes to your organization with an angry message, they’re angry enough to sit at their keyboard and express their anger. You’re lucky they wrote to you — the next message could be on a review website or social media.
You’re lucky they wrote to you — the next message could be on a review website or social media.
It’s imperative to respond to every single angry customer email — ideally with fast response times.
If you have a small team or are only online for certain parts of the day, consider setting up a standard automated reply to confirm receipt of their email. We listed this as step 0 because it’s not a catch-all solution: You should not send this kind of email if you’re able to provide a human response within an hour or two. Nobody likes an extra, unnecessary email.
If you do choose to activate this kind of response, it should:
Here’s a mockup of how to create this kind of automated response with Gorgias Rules:

📚 Recommended reading: Get more tips and tricks to improve your response times.
This may seem obvious, but unless you address every point the customer makes, you’re only prolonging the correspondence and further irritating them.
It’s easy to overlook something the customer says, particularly if the email’s pretty emotive or raises several points. So, try to summarize what they’re complaining about in a separate text document or as a note on the ticket in your helpdesk.

Consider bullet-pointing each issue to ensure you answer every aspect of their message, as shown in the internal note above.
Before responding, consider if there’s any research you can do on your end to resolve the issue faster. For example, if a customer asks whether an item will come back in stock, you may look up similar items currently available if that customer is in a time crunch (like for the holidays).
You’ll also want to ensure you have all of the context you need to provide a full resolution for that customer.
For example, if a customer is trying to track down a lost package, take a look at the package history and order date to better understand why they’re upset and whether you’ll need to re-send the item or reach out to the carrier on their behalf.
Ideally, your helpdesk has integrations with shipping software (like AfterShip) so you can see this information right next to the customer’s message (rather than having to navigate to a new tool).

Some requests, whether from a VIP customer, the urgency of the issue, or its scale, need to be escalated right away. Based on the policy you’ve set out for your support team members, encourage them to forward major concerns to the correct team quickly.

📚 Recommended reading: Read our Director of Support’s guide to prioritizing customer service requests.
Yes, you've already done this in your automated message – but it doesn't hurt to do it again. So, always say thank you at the start of your email. You must acknowledge their complaint and show you care about their feedback.
For instance, if a customer has written to complain, you could start with something along the lines of:
Thank you for contacting [your company name] and letting us know about your experiences with our [insert name of the product/situation]. We appreciate you contacting us to let us know. We value customer feedback so that we can work to provide you with gold-plated customer service.’
If you're not already, it's time to take a personalized approach to customer service. While this means taking a more holistic approach to the service process in general, the first step is to take note of small details, like using a customer’s name in correspondence.
Consumers crave a personalized experience; they want to be treated as individuals, not as just another support ticket. That means avoiding asking them for information they’ve already given you again. It also means using a customer support tool that provides all of their historical account information in one place. Your helpdesk should show all past orders, correspondence with support, shipping address information, and even marketing emails they’ve received and clicked on.
For example, Gorgias’ Customer Sidebar provides customer information right next to the ticket that can help you personalize the message.

If your customer has taken the time to bring an issue to your attention, it’s polite and good practice to acknowledge that. So, in your response, reflect on what they’ve told you.
For example, you could write something like this:
‘I can see that you’re frustrated [insert a suitable empathic summary of the customer’s feelings] about your experiences with our product/customer service. We can see how, on this occasion, we didn’t reach our normally high standards of delivery.’
Always focus on solving the customer’s problem. Find a solution and clearly explain the resolution to the customer’s complaint.
For example, if they’re upset about a product’s quality or performance, you need to refer them to your returns and replacements policy. On some occasions, it may be necessary to escalate a complaint if it’s not within your power to resolve. In which case, again, follow the protocol your company has to handle the specific issue so that it complements your current chain of command.
According to a research study conducted by Gartner and later coined The Effortless Experience, 45% of customers who have a positive support experience tell less than three people. In contrast, 48% of customers with a negative experience shared it with over ten people.

While a positive, low-effort solution is a short-term expense for you, it could keep the customer on your side, netting future purchases or at least minimizing negative word of mouth and reviews.
If a customer is still upset after you’ve already offered a solution, chances are it wasn’t the right one. Ensure that you’re able to give the customer a few different options for a resolution in case the original one didn’t work for them (or wasn’t the result they hoped for).
Of course, this should only go as far as your support policy states. If possible, tag in a customer service lead to see if you can make an exception to your policy. In a helpdesk like Gorgias, you can tag specific agents or an escalated team.

Above, we covered the steps to follow when responding to angry emails. Below, we’ll share some high-level considerations to keep in mind when crafting responses.
Use clear language and show empathy. Always consider your audience. Remember, your audience doesn’t know your organization's internal workings or technical aspects.
Interestingly, 65% of online shoppers prefer casual over a formal tone in their customer service interactions. That said, if the customer isn’t happy with your response or solution, 78% said that an overly casual style would elicit an adverse reaction from them.
Why? Because it sounds like you're not taking their problem seriously.
Also, consider the words you use. For example, remove any uses of the “but” from your responses. By eliminating negative terms like this, you’ll exude more of a positive tone, which works wonders for altering perception.
For example:
“Thank you for contacting us, but we don’t provide that service.”
Vs.
“Thank you for contacting us. Unfortunately, we're unable to provide that service. We do, however, provide the following….”
See the difference?
Through practice and experience, you’ll be better positioned to sense your customer’s tone. For example, if the customer’s frustration radiates through their message, show empathy by offering reassurance and the right level of apology.
There’s nothing worse than grammatical and spelling errors. Re-read your response and run it through a spelling and grammar checker. If in doubt, ask a colleague to double-check it for you.
Some reputable online spell checkers include Grammarly, Reverso, and Language Tool. Your organization may already have a subscription for marketing or other purposes, so check what’s available.
The key to understanding whether a customer is truly angry is empathy and context.
Use empathy to dissect the tone and language a customer uses in their correspondence with you. Then, use the context they've given you and that you have about their order history to piece together their entire situation.
For example, a customer might write in about a lost or delayed package. Based on the language they’re using, and the fact that they paid to upgrade shipping to get it in time for a friend’s birthday, tells you that this customer is angry and in need of a fast resolution.
You should strive to provide top-notch support no matter if a customer is merely frustrated versus angry. But, your communication, time to resolution, and the solution you offer need to be even more considerate when dealing with someone who is truly irate.
Sometimes, angry or frustrated customers will use profanity when complaining about an issue. The best responses to rude customers involve focusing on what the problem is to help get them to a solution.
Some customer service phrases to use include:
You may already have a series of customer service email templates you and your team use to handle various customer complaints. However, it’s always worth doing a little housekeeping to ensure they reflect your commitment to great customer service.
This is especially true if your customer service software comes with a set of templates already in existence. Don't make the mistake of just using these as they are. Instead, personalize them to reflect your own brand’s voice and tone.
With that in mind, we’ve put together a summary version of some of the examples above to illustrate how to respond to an upset customer:
Dear [insert customer name],
Thank you for contacting us. I'm very sorry to hear you experienced poor customer service from the [insert your brand name] team.
It’s important to us that our customers are happy, so we're sorry we could not provide our usual high service standards to you.
Possible paragraph:
Having investigated your complaint about [insert a summary of the complaint]. I'm happy to tell you; we can offer you the following solution [insert an explanation of the answer].
Alternative paragraph:
We're currently investigating your complaint about [insert a summary of the complaint]. Because your complaint involves several departments/strands/suppliers, it will take us a couple of days to get to the bottom of why, on this occasion, you received less than a gold standard of service from us. Thank you for your patience while we investigate this matter. I'll get in contact with you in two days to update you on our progress.
Once the complaint is resolved, you could offer a discount to reduce the number of returns, which are more expensive to your business than exchanges:
We’d like to prove just how important you are to us by offering you a discount of [x%] on your next purchase.
Sign off:
Thank you for bringing this negative experience to our attention. Once again, I apologize for any inconvenience caused.
If there's anything else I can help you with or you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me.
Best wishes,
[Name and contact details]
If you use Gorgias, a helpdesk that deeply integrates with your entire ecommerce tech stack (including Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce), feel free to use the copy above as a Macro (which is what we call templated responses).
Your agents can use the template as a starting point and tweak it to meet each customer's unique needs.
Below, we’ve put together a series of templates that you can implement for different angry customer situations.
Hi {{Customer first name}},
Thank you for reaching out and letting us know about your experience with us. This is not up to our standard and I've passed this along to our team to ensure this doesn't happen again.
In addition, I've {{Insert policy: refund, added a credit, send a replacement, etc.}} to make this right.
We truly value you as a customer and apologize for the inconvenience this caused.
Please let me know if I can help with anything else.
{{Current agent first name}}
Hello {{Customer first name}},
Thank you for reaching out! Your order {{Number of last order}} has been received and we are working on getting it shipped out. Our processing time to ship an order is 3-5 business days, excluding weekends.
We will email you a confirmation once it ships, which will include your tracking information as well.
If you have any questions in the meantime, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Thanks,
{{Current agent first name}}
Hi {{Customer first name}},
We wanted to let you know that your most recent order {{Number of last order}} is currently out of stock. We’re doing everything we can to get more in stock soon and we apologize for the delay!
The good news is that our next shipment should arrive by {{Date of availability}}, and you should receive your order within {{Number of business days}} once the item(s) gets to our warehouse.
Thanks for your patience! We’ll get you taken care of as soon as possible.
{{Current agent first name}}
Hi {{Customer First Name}},
Thanks for reaching out about your recent order {{Number of last order}}. I’m sorry to hear about your experience. As we try our best to provide exceptional service, some factors like shipping and handling are out of our control and issues like this can happen.
Please send us a photo of the broken/damaged item(s) you received and we’ll do our best to resolve this as soon as possible.
{{Current agent first name}}
Hi {{Customer First Name}},
Thank you for reaching out! I’m so sorry to hear that you were unable to locate the missing package. Rest assured we will remedy this situation for you.
I have two options to offer: we can ship a replacement to you or issue a full refund for the order instead. If you prefer a replacement order, we kindly ask that you confirm the shipping address of where you would like the replacement order sent. We look forward to receiving your reply.
{{Current agent first name}}
Hi {{Customer first name}},
I'm sorry to hear that you haven't received your order yet. It does appear to be in a delivered status. Sometimes this can be due to an incorrect scan by the carrier. If the package doesn't show up in the next {{Insert the number of days according to your policy}} please reach back out and we will {{insert internal policy}}.
In the meantime, I've contacted the carrier and will be investigating on my end.
Please reach out if I can help with anything else and I will keep an eye out for your email regarding the package.
{{Current agent first name}}
Hi {{Customer First Name}},
We regret to inform you that your order {{order number}} has been delayed.
We apologize for any inconvenience, and we appreciate your understanding. The reason for the delay is {{reason for the delay}}.
You can track the status of your order using this tracking link {{Link to tracking portal}}.
If you’d like to return or exchange your order, you can do so here {{Link to return/exchange portal}}.
Once again, we apologize for the inconvenience. Please let us know if you have any questions or can provide further assistance.
Best,
{{Current agent first name}}
Hi {{Customer First Name}},
Thank you for letting us know we sent you the wrong product. We apologize for the inconvenience. We are sending you the correct product, the {{correct product name}} and it will be shipped by {{estimated shipping date}}.
We sent it using expedited shipping, so you should receive it {{estimated delivery date}}. Please return {{old product}} in the original shipping box and packaging using the attached shipping label and instructions. Please contact us with any additional questions.
{{Current agent first name}}
Hi {{Customer first name}},
Thank you for reaching out to us!
Unfortunately, it looks like your order {{Number of last order}} has already been shipped from our warehouse. Therefore, I’m unable to make any changes to it at this time.
If possible, refuse the package at delivery. If that’s not possible, please let me know and I will send you a prepaid shipping label so that you can send the order back to us. Once we receive the order back at our warehouse, I will send a {{Replacement or refund}} to you right away.
{{Current agent first name}}
Hi {{Customer First Name}},
Absolutely! I’ve swapped out {{Item name}} for the {{Item name}} you originally selected for order {{Number of last order}}.
If you need anything else, just say the word.
Best,
{{Current agent first name}}
Hi {{Customer first name}},
Thanks for reaching out! For your order that was delivered on {{Shipping date of last order}}, we’d be happy to process a refund for you.
To get the return process started, please go to our {{Link to returns portal}} and follow the steps.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
{{Current agent first name}}
Hi {{Customer First Name}},
Thank you for contacting us. Unfortunately, your order {{Number of last order}} is unable to be returned because it is outside of the time window (30 days) outlined in our return policy.
I apologize for any inconvenience that you’ve experienced because of this.
If there is anything else I can help you with, feel free to reply to this email or visit {{Link to help center}} at any time.
Thank you again,
{{Current agent first name}}
Hey there {{Customer first name}},
Thanks for reaching out about your recent order {{Number of last order}}. I see that you are interested in a product exchange. We do allow exchanges, and I’m happy to help you with this right away.
{{Exchange policy and instructions}}
Once you have {{Required action(s)}}, I can process your exchange and get a new {{Product name}} shipped out to you right away.
Thanks again,
{{Current agent first name}}
Hi {{Customer first name}},
Thank you for reaching out and letting us know about your service experience with us. This is not up to our standard and I've passed this along to our team to ensure this doesn't happen again.
In addition, I've {{Insert policy: coupon, refund, added a credit, send a replacement, etc.}} to make this right.
We truly value you as a customer and apologize for the inconvenience this caused.
Please let me know if I can help with anything else.
{{Current agent first name}}
Hi {{Customer first name}},
Thank you for reaching out and letting us know about your experience with us. This is not up to our standard and I've passed this along to our team to ensure this doesn't happen again.
I have CC’d {{Technical/Lead agent first name}} on this email. They will be able to figure out what happened here and will follow up to ensure that we resolve this for you.
{{Current agent first name}}
Hi {{Customer first name}},
Thank you for following up with us.
We sincerely apologize that we didn’t get back to you — we’ve been overloaded with requests lately and yours slipped through the cracks. This is not the type of support experience we strive to provide.
To answer your original question {{Provide context and a resolution to the original issue or request}}.
I hope this helps!
All the best,
{{Current agent first name}}
{{Customer First Name}},
Thanks so much for your feedback on {{Concern or issue they had with the brand or their experience}}.
We strive to provide an amazing experience for all of our customers, and sometimes we fall short of doing that. We sincerely apologize for the experience you’ve had with our brand.
As a token of our appreciation, we’d like to offer you {{Discount code, free gift, free shipping on next order; whatever aligns with your policy}}.
Have a great day,
{{Current agent first name}}
{{Customer First Name}},
Thanks so much for your feedback on {{Customer survey, review site, etc.}}.
I wanted to check in and get a little more information from you about your experience. This will help our team improve future experiences for you and other shoppers. If you’re open to it, you can just reply to this email and share your thoughts.
Thanks for your time,
{{Current agent first name}}
Angry customers use harsh language and accusatory words, and often make demands to your company or service team.
Some examples of phrases and words to look out for include:
Additionally, keep an eye out for any language that includes profanity.
As your team grows, you can also use a helpdesk with Intent and Sentiment Detection, which automatically scans tickets to tell you what a customer’s looking for and how they’re feeling. The main benefit is that you can send different automatic responses depending on the customer’s intent and sentiment.

While every brand deals with angry customers from time to time, the best ones design a customer experience that, hopefully, doesn't produce so much frustration. Customer experience is a broad term, but there are a few areas of opportunity to mitigate customer frustration more proactively.
Customer self-service resources is a type of customer experience automation (CXA) that allows customers to quickly solve their own problems. They include:

Being able to self-serve information gets them an immediate resolution and saves them the time and hassle of reaching out to you. You might be surprised how many angry emails you avoid by:
A positive post-purchase experience sets the customer up for success from the very beginning, starting with quick order confirmation emails to fast order fulfillment and going all the way to returns.
A great post-purchase experience involves:
If customers need to reach out to you to ask a question, either pre or post-purchase, your best bet is to make it quick and easy to do so. Channels like live chat support, social media support, and SMS messaging support are more immediate channels where customers can see fast responses.
Live chat and social media, for example, can help you make more sales by answering product questions to quell any objections before a customer makes a purchase. Water filter brand Berkey Filters even advertises their faster channels (live chat and SMS) on the website to steer customers to those fast channels:

The quicker and more seamless you make getting support for your customers, the more likely they are to reach out to you when they have a problem, rather than simply not purchasing from you again.
In addition, some customers look at what support options are available before they make a purchase. Having these options available can help shoppers feel more comfortable and confident that if they have an issue, you’ll be there quickly to help them resolve it.
📚Recommended reading: Check out our CX-Driven Growth Playbook for a more robust list of tactics to improve your customer experience, reduce customer anger, and boost revenue by up to 40%.
You’re now fully prepped to polish your customer support email copy, so even the most unhappy customers walk away happy. Exceptional copywriting isn’t rocket science; it's a skill you can certainly nurture over time, so keep practicing and paying attention to customer responses.
And when you pair great customer service copy with the right customer service automations, you can delight customers at scale. How? You can respond to low-impact tickets (like, "Where is my order?") with helpful, dynamic responses so you have more human time to deal with high-impact tickets like angry customer complaints.
And you don’t need us to tell you that happy customer relationships lead to higher profits. Check out our guide to customer service ROI to learn how to translate your customer service into meaningful business results.
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