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How to Write Guidance with the “When, If, Then” Framework

Learn how to write clear, effective Guidance for your AI Agent using the “when, if, then” framework to reduce escalations.
By Holly Stanley
0 min read . By Holly Stanley

TL;DR:

  • AI Agent is only as good as the instructions you give it. Clear Guidance enables it to perform like your best support teammate.
  • The “When, If, Then” framework makes writing Guidance easy and repeatable. Start with the scenario (when), define the conditions (if), and list specific actions (then) to create structured Guidance.
  • Use Guidance to handle frequently asked questions, like returns, cancellations, or discount code inquiries, so your team can focus on more complex issues.
  • If your Guidance isn’t working, formatting or logic gaps might be to blame. Check for missing conditions, unsupported tasks, or confusing formatting.

AI Agent is built to deliver fast, accurate support at scale, but like any teammate, it performs best when given clear and specific instructions. 

That’s where Guidance comes in. Writing structured prompts that tell your AI Agent exactly what to do in a given scenario helps reduce escalations, speed up resolutions, and create a more consistent customer experience. 

One simple, repeatable way to do that is with the “When, If, Then” framework. 

In this post, we’ll show you how it works, using examples from our Gorgias Academy course, Improve AI Agent with Better Guidance

You’ll learn how to write Guidance that results in:

  • Fewer escalations
  • Faster resolutions
  • Smarter, more consistent AI behavior

Let’s break it down.

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What is Guidance?

Guidance is how you tell your AI Agent what to do. It’s a set of instructions that outlines how your AI Agent should respond in specific situations. 

When Guidance is available, your AI Agent follows it first, even before checking your Help Center or website content.

That means if your Guidance is missing, unclear, or incomplete, your AI Agent might escalate the ticket, or worse, give a confusing or unhelpful response. Here’s an example:

Let’s say a customer wants to return an item. A human agent would send them a link to the return portal and explain the steps. But without that instruction in Guidance, your AI Agent might skip straight to escalation, turning a simple request into unnecessary work for your team.

That’s why clear, step-by-step Guidance is key to help your AI Agent respond the way your best support agent would.

How AI Agent works: First it uses Guidance, knowledge sources like Help Center aticles, then performs Actions.
AI Agent starts with using Guidance, followed by knowledge sources like Help Center articles, and then, if enabled, it performs automated Actions on your behalf.

Learn more: Create Guidance to give AI Agent custom instructions 

Introducing the “When, If, Then” framework

Sometimes it’s hard to know where to start when writing Guidance. The “When, If, Then” framework gives you a simple, repeatable structure to follow, so there’s no need to guess. 

Taking this approach mirrors how AI Agent processes information behind the scenes. When you write clear Guidance, your AI Agent can follow it step by step, just like a support teammate would.

Let’s walk through the three parts of the framework.

WHEN: Set the scenario

Start by identifying the situation your Guidance applies to. This is the trigger or scenario. Use it as the title of your Guidance so it’s easy to find later.

Example:

  • WHEN a shopper asks to return an order
  • WHEN a customer wants to cancel their subscription

Keep it simple and action-oriented. You’re setting the stage for what comes next.

The Guidance name uses the when statement, 'When a customers asks for a return or exchange'
Use your WHEN statement as the name of the Guidance. It makes it easier to identify and organize Guidance as your collection grows.

IF: Add conditions

Once you’ve defined the scenario, add any conditions that determine what should happen. “If” statements help your AI Agent understand what to do based on specific details, like timing, order history, or customer tags.

Example:

  • IF the order was placed less than or equal to 15 days ago
  • IF the customer has a VIP tag in Shopify

Use as many “if” conditions as needed to guide different outcomes. Just make sure you cover all the possibilities so your AI Agent doesn’t get stuck.

THEN: Define the actions

This is where you tell your AI Agent exactly what to do. Be specific and use bullet points or numbered steps to keep things clear.

Example:

  • Tell the shopper they’re eligible for a return
  • Send them a link to the return portal
  • Let them know they’ll receive a prepaid label once the form is submitted

The more clearly you outline the steps, the more consistently your AI Agent will perform.

The framework keeps your Guidance simple, structured, and easy to understand—for both your team and your AI Agent. When your AI Agent knows exactly what to do, it can deliver fast, accurate, and helpful responses that keep customers happy.

Put it all together

Say a shopper messages your store asking to return an item and you want AI Agent to send them to your return portal.

Here’s how this looks in a complete piece of Guidance:

WHEN a shopper asks to return an order:

IF the order was placed less than or equal to 15 days ago,   

THEN

  • Tell the shopper they’re eligible for a return
  • Send them a link to the return portal
  • Let them know they’ll receive a prepaid label via email once they submit the form

9 support scenarios made better with Guidance

These nine scenarios come up constantly in ecommerce support, and they’re perfect candidates for automation. They follow predictable patterns and are quick to resolve when your AI Agent knows what to do.

Use the examples below to jumpstart your setup. Each one is written using the When, If, Then framework and can be copied directly into Gorgias.

1. Where’s my order? (WISMO)

WHEN a customer asks about their order status:

IF tracking information is available,

THEN

  • Provide the tracking number and link to the carrier's tracking page.
  • Inform the customer of the expected delivery date.

IF tracking information is unavailable,

THEN

  • Inform the customer that the order is being prepared for shipment.
  • Provide an estimated shipping date.

2. What size should I order?

WHEN a customer inquires about product sizing for [item name]:

IF the customer asks what size to get, or mentions they’re unsure about sizing,

THEN

  • Share the sizing chart or guide.
  • Offer recommendations based on common fit feedback.

3. Can I change my shipping address?

WHEN a customer requests to change their shipping address:

IF the order has not been fulfilled,

THEN

  • Confirm the new address with the customer.
  • Update the shipping address in Shopify (or your chosen platform).

IF the order has already been fulfilled,

THEN

  • Inform the customer that the address cannot be changed.
  • Provide options for order interception or return.

4. Can I cancel my order?

WHEN a customer asks to cancel their order:

IF the order has not been fulfilled,

THEN

  • Confirm that we can cancel their order.
  • Tell them they’ll receive their refund in 5-10 business days.

IF the order has already been fulfilled,

THEN

  • Inform the customer that the order cannot be cancelled.
  • Help to initiate a return once the item is delivered.

5. How do I return an item?

WHEN a customer asks about returning an item:

IF the return is within the allowed return window of [x] days after the order was received,

THEN

  • Provide the return instructions and link to the return portal.
  • Inform the customer about the refund process.

IF the return window has expired,

THEN

  • Inform the customer that the return period has ended.
  • Offer alternative solutions if available.

6. Do you have any discount codes?

WHEN a customer inquires about discounts or promo codes:

IF there is an active promotion for [item name],

THEN

  • Share the current discount code and its terms.

IF there are no active promotions for [item name],

THEN

  • Inform the customer that there are no current promotions.
  • Suggest subscribing to the newsletter or following social media for future promos.

7. I want to pause my subscription.

WHEN a customer requests to pause their subscription:

IF the customer has an active subscription,

THEN

  • Provide instructions on how to pause the subscription through their account.
  • Confirm the pause and inform them of the next billing date.

8. When will this item be back in stock?

WHEN a customer asks about product restocking:

IF a restock date is available,

THEN

  • Inform the customer of the expected restock date.

IF the restock date is unknown,

THEN

  • Offer to notify the customer when the product is back in stock.
  • Suggest similar products.

9. Do you ship internationally?

WHEN a customer inquires about international shipping:

IF international shipping is available,

THEN

  • Confirm that international shipping is offered.
  • Provide estimated delivery times and any additional fees.

IF international shipping is not available,

THEN

  • Inform the customer that shipping is limited to specific regions.

Pro Tip: Test out your Guidance by going to AI Agent > Test, and iterate as you go.

Troubleshooting: Why Guidance might not trigger

If your AI Agent isn’t following your Guidance, or it’s escalating tickets you thought it could handle, run through this quick checklist to spot the issue:

  • Has a descriptive, easy-to-understand name: Name your Guidance based on the scenario (e.g. When a shopper asks about returns).
  • Clear IF and THEN conditions: Make sure your Guidance spells out what to do when a condition is met.
  • Covers all variations (no gaps in logic): Don’t leave your AI Agent hanging. Include fallback instructions for all scenarios.
  • No wall-of-text formatting: Break things up with line breaks, headers, and spacing to help AI Agent scan quickly.
  • Clearly written steps with bullets or numbers: Use lists to make actions easy to follow, like you would for a teammate.
  • Doesn’t include unsupported tasks: Avoid unsupported instructions like “send macro,” “assign to agent,” or “delay the response.”

Bonus: Let AI do the heavy lifting

Don’t have time to write Guidance from scratch? The good news is AI can help with that, too.

AI-generated Guidance is available for all AI Agent subscribers. This feature analyzes your historical ticket data and uses it to generate ready-to-use, customizable prompts for your AI Agent.

Here’s what it does:

  • Analyzes past tickets to identify common support scenarios
  • Generates step-by-step Guidance based on what’s worked before

Ready to level up your Guidance?

Clear, structured Guidance is the key to unlocking better performance from your AI Agent. With just one well-written “When, If, Then” prompt, you can reduce escalations, speed up resolutions, and give your shoppers a smoother experience.

Not sure where to start? Try writing Guidance for one common question today—like returns, order status, or promo codes. Or, if you want to go deeper, check out our free Gorgias Academy course. 

min read.

When Should You Migrate Helpdesks? 5 Signs to Watch Out For

Buried in tickets? It might be time to switch helpdesks. Spot the 5 signs, see how top brands handled it, and learn what to prioritize in a new tool.
By Tina Donati
0 min read . By Tina Donati

TL;DR:

  • Your helpdesk shouldn't hold you back. If your team is buried in tickets or bouncing between tools, your platform might be the problem—not your process.
  • Rising ticket volumes, slower response times, and clunky integrations are signs you’ve outgrown your platform. Don’t wait for these issues to impact revenue or retention.
  • You’re not alone—fast-growing brands hit these roadblocks too. Dr. Bronner’s, Psycho Bunny, and Audien Hearing all switched platforms to support bigger growth with less friction.
  • Helpdesk migration doesn’t have to be scary. With the right migration support, you can move quickly, avoid downtime, and give your team a tool they actually want to use.

As ticket volume grows, even the best CX teams start running into roadblocks: limited integrations, repetitive manual work, clunky interfaces, and slower response times. You patch things together. You make it work... until you can’t.

Many growing ecommerce brands find themselves trapped in a system that demands constant workarounds just to function.

If your current customer service platform feels more like a burden than a backbone, you’re not alone—and you’re not stuck.

In this post, we’ll walk through:

  • The key signs it’s time to switch platforms
  • What to prioritize when choosing your next one
  • How brands like Pepper made a smooth move to Gorgias

The 5 warning signs you’ve outgrown your helpdesk

There’s a tipping point most brands hit as they scale. The signs are subtle at first—maybe your agents are taking longer to respond, or the volume of customer support tickets quietly outpaces your team. Then it starts affecting revenue, customer satisfaction, and retention. Big yikes.

Left unchecked, small inefficiencies can snowball into bigger operational challenges.

Catch these warning signs before they start costing you growth:

1. Rising ticket volume and slower resolution times

Support teams that are always playing catch-up rarely have time to focus on higher-value work. If your inbox is constantly overflowing or first response times are creeping up, it’s likely a sign your tools aren’t scaling with your business.

That’s exactly what happened with apparel brand Psycho Bunny.

“As we grew and expanded, we needed a tool that was better suited for Shopify, easier to manage, and offered better support to help us get the most out of the tool,” said Jean-Aymeri de Magistris, VP IT, Data & Analytics, and PMO at Psycho Bunny.

2. Agents constantly toggling between tabs and tools

If your agents are spending more time gathering context than solving problems, you’re losing time (and likely, patience) on both sides of the conversation. Fragmented tools can seriously undercut productivity.

Dr. Bronner’s experienced this firsthand, juggling Salesforce, spreadsheets, and disconnected systems.

“When I joined, we were logging calls and emails in Excel. It wasn’t scalable,” recalled Emily McEnany, Senior CX Manager at Dr. Bronner’s.

3. Clunky or missing integrations with your ecommerce stack

Some platforms require technical support even for small changes, such as custom workflows, new automations, or basic integrations. That may work at the start, but it becomes a bottleneck as your brand grows.

Disconnected systems strip away context, increasing the risk of mistakes. Whether it’s pulling up an order status or managing a return, agents need tools that work together, not against each other.

4. You’re stuck answering the same questions over and over

Every support team deals with repetitive inquiries. But without automation or self-service options, those tickets eat into your team’s time and keep you from focusing on higher-impact conversations.

Nude Project struggled to keep up with their ticket volume due to Zendesk’s lack of intuitive automation features. During Black Friday, the team received a record-high number of tickets—more than double their average volume.

“Connecting with customers through a screen is not always easy. With the high volume of messages, we need a tool that simplifies operational tasks while enabling effective communication and organization,” said Raquel J. Méndez, CX Manager at Nude Project.

5. Onboarding takes too long

Your platform should be easy for new hires to learn and for your team to evolve with. If ramping up agents takes weeks (or months), the platform might be getting in the way more than it’s helping.

Arcade Belts went through this process, trying one system, then switching back to one that better matched their needs.

“It just took a demo or two to realize what was actually going to support our team the way we needed,” their Ecommerce Coordinator, Grant, shared.

If any of these challenges sound familiar, you’re not alone. 

The important part is recognizing when you’ve outgrown your current setup—and knowing that there are options out there to help you move faster.

What to look for when switching CX platforms

Switching platforms isn’t just about solving today’s problems. It’s about creating space for your team to be efficient, serve customers better, and turn support from a cost center into a real growth engine.

Need to migrate to a new platform? Look for the following:

1. A system that keeps up with rising ticket volumes

As your brand grows, support volume naturally increases. 

Find a stable infrastructure that can handle that growth, has zero platform lag, and a robust engineering team that continuously makes the tool better for your needs.

To Psycho Bunny, Zendesk was a “legacy tool”—so they switched to Gorgias.

In just a few weeks, they migrated all historical conversations, tags, and Macros to Gorgias. Jean-Aymeri, their VP IT, credits Gorgias’s helpful onboarding specialists for making it effortless to integrate their apps and onboard their team onto a brand new tool.

Related: The engineering work that keeps Gorgias running smoothly

2. Automation for repetitive tasks (that maintains the human touch)

From “where’s my order” questions to return policies, prioritize AI tools that can automate repetitive inquiries.

Dr. Bronner’s implemented AI Agent to handle rising volumes of FAQs, allowing their team to focus on complex requests that require a human touch.

In just two months, they saw:

  • 45% of all customer service tickets automated
  • $100,000 saved per year by switching from Salesforce to Gorgias
  • 4 days per month in team time savings
  • 11% higher customer satisfaction score 

By systematizing the simple stuff, they freed up bandwidth to focus on what matters most—building relationships and solving more nuanced problems.

Dr. Bronner's performance dashboard on Gorgias shows they saved over $5k by automating 48% of customer support tickets.
In a month, Dr. Bronner’s saved $5,248 by automating almost half of their support tickets.

3. Built-in features that turn support into sales

More brands are rethinking how support contributes to revenue. Look for a tool that combines support and sales. The most effective ones use AI to initiate upselling conversations, so your team can generate new revenue without needing to scale headcount at the same rate.

For jewelry brand Caitlyn Minimalist, which normally saw 30,000 tickets per month, AI Agent was the perfect fit. On top of answering FAQs, AI Agent also helped recommend products based on customer needs.

These conversations often begin as simple inquiries (“What should I get for my friend’s birthday?” or “What product suits me?”) and end in a purchase—handled entirely by AI. In fact, AI Agent’s conversion rates were 150% higher than the team average, proving that automation can support and sell.

4. A more efficient workflow—without relying on developers

The last thing scaling brands should have to worry about is relying on developers for basic changes. That includes being able to create macros and automations in-house and access key customer data without toggling across tools. 

The platform should fit into your existing ecommerce stack—not fight against it.

That’s where Audien Hearing found themselves before switching to Gorgias.

“I’ve seen companies lose a lot of money because it’s not efficient,” said Zoe Kahn, former VP of CX. “You try to save money early on, but then you look at your helpdesk a year later and think, ‘Oh no, what’s happening?’”

Since switching from Richpanel, Audien Hearing’s CX team has been able to run CX on their own terms—without the bottlenecks.

They now resolve 9,000 tickets per month through self-service alone (including a customer knowledge base), cut first response times by 88%, and reduced return rates by 5%. With more time for one-on-one conversations, CSAT jumped from 80 to 86.

What migration actually looks like

“But migration sounds hard.”

We get it. Moving your entire CX operation can feel intimidating. But with the right partner (and the right platform), it doesn’t have to be.

Here’s how Gorgias makes switching smooth and stress-free:

  • A dedicated onboarding team: Our team is with you every step of the way—from initial setup to post-launch optimization.
  • A platform built for ecommerce workflows: Gorgias is designed to work the way ecommerce brands do, not the other way around.
  • Fast setup and agent training: Most brands are up and running in days, not weeks. And because the interface is intuitive, teams can get comfortable quickly without heavy, time-consuming training.
  • Full data migration support: Whether you’re moving from Gladly, Zendesk, or another platform, we’ll help you bring your history, macros, and workflows over smoothly.

Most Gorgias customers are fully live within just a few days—ready to serve customers faster, smarter, and with less manual lift.

How Pepper made a smooth switch to Gorgias

When fast-growing intimates brand Pepper outgrew their old CX platform, they knew they needed a system that could scale with them—without sacrificing speed or quality.

“Gladly didn’t offer any automation or inbox organization features. Our queue got really messy. We got 400 tickets a day during Black Friday, and we didn’t clear that backlog until the following Spring. We knew we couldn’t do that again,” explained Gabrielle McWhirter, CX Operations Lead at Pepper.

With Gorgias, Pepper was able to:

  • Fully migrate their workflows and history
  • Train their team quickly on the new platform
  • Launch their AI Agent ("Penelope") to automate more than 50% of support tickets
Pepper uses AI Agent to help customers find the right bra size.

And the results spoke for themselves:

  • 16.5x ROI on AI-driven sales interactions
  • 90%+ decrease in first response and resolution times
  • 18% uplift in average order value

See how Pepper made the switch happen (and why they’re never looking back):

Is it time to make the switch?

If you’re seeing the warning signs, here’s a quick gut check:

  • You’re drowning in tickets and toggling between tabs
  • You can’t track or tie support to revenue
  • You need better integration with your tech stack
  • You’re not using automation, or it’s not actually saving time
  • Your team dreads logging into your current tool

The right platform won’t just help your team work better. It’ll help you drive more revenue, boost customer retention, and actually make customers want to talk to you.

See what switching to Gorgias could do for your brand. Book a demo today.

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min read.

11 Ways CX Teams Can Turn Customer Touchpoints Into Revenue

Generating revenue doesn’t start at the sale — it starts with CX. Discover 11 ways to drive revenue for every customer touchpoint.
By Christelle Agustin
0 min read . By Christelle Agustin

TL;DR:

  • Your CX team drives revenue: Build trust, remove friction, and influence buying decisions across the customer journey
  • Optimize existing processes: Automate tasks, address concerns proactively, and create efficient handoffs
  • Spot risk early: Use tagging and sentiment detection to re-engage customers before they churn
  • Protect VIPs: Prioritize loyal customers, create moments of delight, turn supporters into advocates

Rising tariffs. Shipping delays. Unpredictable price hikes. For ecommerce, it's an understatement to say the pressure is rising. If you're on the CX team, you're already facing the fire head-on — all the customer frustration, confusion, and hesitation.

CX teams are on the frontlines of support and sales. You're shaping customer trust, buying decisions, and brand loyalty

From pre-sales conversations to loyalty programs, it’s time to rethink the customer journey, so you can turn every interaction into an opportunity to grow your revenue.

Reframe CX’s role across the customer journey

Customer service isn’t just about reacting to problems. It can be a proactive and strategic function that helps you stabilize and even grow your revenue.

Think about it this way: you have the power to turn everyday customer moments into wins.

At every stage of the customer journey, you can turn:

  1. Purchase hesitation -> confidence to buy (pre-sales)
  2. Concern → relief (post-purchase)
  3. Disinterest -> re-engagement (loyalty)
  4. Returning customers → brand advocates (advocacy)

This isn’t about being pushy for sales. It's about anticipating needs and putting systems in place that protect customer relationships and revenue.

As you update your CX workflow, keep these two questions in mind:

  1. How can I positively influence revenue?
  2. How can I reduce the risk of losing it?

1. Resolve pre-sales hesitation with education

Most pre-sales hesitation is rooted in uncertainty: What’s the return policy? How much is shipping? Will this fit? Will it arrive in time? 

Reduce customer effort and build confidence with automation as your CX team’s first line of defense. Anything else more complicated, your agents can take care of.

Automate repetitive questions

Start by setting up automated answers for the questions your team responds to every day, especially the ones that delay conversions:

  • Where is my order?
  • Do you ship internationally?
  • How much is shipping?
  • Do you accept returns?
  • Are your prices affected by tariffs?

There are a few ways to automate these questions in Gorgias: 

  • Flows: Automated conversations designed to resolve common inquiries without agent intervention
  • AI Agent: Conversational AI that answers customer questions in chat and email, trained on your internal documents and brand voice
  • Help Center: A self-serve, customer-facing knowledge base of help articles, FAQs, guides, and product resources
AI Agent cancels an order for a customer
Conversational AI, AI Agent, can automatically cancel orders for customers.

Read more: How to optimize your help center for AI Agent

Proactively guide shoppers

Be the compass for the wandering window shoppers and browsers. They might not know exactly what to get, but with the right nudge, you can guide them toward the right product and a fuller cart.

Try these chat prompts:

  • Don’t know what size to get? Check out our sizing guide to get your perfect fit!
  • Need help choosing the right carry-on? Here’s a quick comparison of our top sellers.
  • We offer free shipping for orders over $60! 
  • What’s your skin type — dry, oily, or combination?

Offer discounts based on shopper intent

Sometimes, a discount is all a customer needs to take their order to checkout. Instead of storewide promo codes, use AI to offer tailored discounts to shoppers who show strong intent to buy. This can help reduce abandoned carts and leave customers with a great impression of your brand.

Here are some of the best times to offer a discount:

  • A first-time shopper is hesitant because of the price
  • A shopper adds an item to their cart, then asks about shipping or return policies
  • A shopper asks if they should wait for a sale

Recommend products in real time

If shoppers can’t quickly find what they’re looking for, they’ll leave. Real-time product recommendations help resolve indecision and increase average order value.

Examples of when real-time suggestions drive conversions:

  • A shopper asks for jeans in medium — AI suggests bestsellers in their size
  • A returning customer mentions loving a nude-colored top — AI recommends similar or matching items
  • A product is out of stock — AI suggests alternatives based on color or style
AI Agent recommends alternative items to a customer looking for an out of stock item
AI Agent helps a customer looking for an item in their favorite color by recommending alternatives.

Hand off high-intent shoppers to live agents

High-intent questions are usually specific and goal-oriented — things like:

  • What size should I get?
  • How soon can this ship?
  • Is this item still in stock?

When customers ask questions that directly impact their ability to purchase, it’s a strong buying signal. If they don’t get a fast response, they’ll probably abandon their cart.

So, how do you encourage shoppers to keep shopping?

Activate chat on your website and equip it with automated features, such as Flows, and/or conversational AI, like AI Agent. 

No matter what setup you choose, always have a protocol ready to hand off to a human agent when needed.

In Gorgias, you can set up Rules or use AI Agent handover rules to automatically route conversations based on specific keywords, topics, or customer behavior.

A Rule that automatically assigns chat tickets to a dedicated chat team
Have a dedicated chat team? Create a Rule that automatically hands over all chat tickets to them.

2. Alleviate post-purchase concerns

After buying, customers may want to change their order or just need reassurance that everything is on its way. 

If customers feel ignored during this critical window, you risk losing their business.

The easy fix? Eliminate friction, reassure customers, and make it easy for them to stay excited about their purchase.

Automate order status updates

Customers expect full visibility into their orders. Give them full access to this information, and you'll receive fewer WISMO requests.

Integrate your helpdesk with your 3PL or shipping provider to automatically send real-time updates on order status. If customers have an account portal, give them a tracking link.

Pro Tip: If delays are expected, automate messages to let customers know ahead of time. Being proactive keeps customers informed and reduces the need for reactive support.

Turn negative experiences into retention moments

When something goes wrong, like a delay, a lost package, or unexpected fees, it's how you respond that matters most.

Empower your CX team to act quickly. For example:

  • Offer store credit, loyalty points, or free shipping perks to impacted customers
  • Prioritize VIP or first-time buyers for fast-tracked resolutions
  • Escalate critical post-purchase issues to senior agents

You can also use sentiment detection to flag frustrated customers early. Gorgias has built-in customer sentiment detection that automatically identifies tones like urgent, negative, positive, or even threatening language. You can create Rules that tag these conversations and route them to the right agent for faster handling.

Read more: Customer sentiments

3. Re-engage at-risk customers and reduce churn

Just because a customer is at risk doesn’t mean you’ve lost them. Identifying and re-engaging at-risk customers is one of the highest-impact things you can do to protect revenue. 

Spot risk early

Pay attention to repeat patterns that signal dissatisfaction. Common early indicators include:

  • Multiple shipping complaints
  • Frequent refund or return requests
  • Negative or urgent sentiment in support tickets
  • Long periods of customer inactivity after purchase

Use sentiment detection and Ticket Fields (ticket properties) to tag these signals automatically. With this data identified, you’ll start to spot patterns that can help you address issues, giving customers a reason to stay. 

Segment customers by using Customer Fields to organized them under VIP, Problematic, High Returns, or Fraud.
Customer Fields make it easier to segment customers. For example, customers can be grouped by VIP, Problematic, High Returns, or Fraud.

Build recovery flows

Once you’ve identified your at-risk customers, use win-back strategies, like:

  • Offering discount codes, loyalty perks, or free returns
  • Sending personalized emails or messages acknowledging the issue and offering solutions
  • Prioritizing conversations for your most experienced agents or account managers

When handled thoughtfully, a churn-risk customer can become one of your strongest advocates because you showed up when it mattered most.

4. Build loyalty by surprising your best customers

Don’t forget, there are already customers who love you! These loyal customers don’t just come back to buy again — they bring friends, amplify your brand, and give your business stability when you need it most.

Identify and prioritize VIPs

Use customer data to identify customers who purchase frequently, spend more, or have referred others. Tag them as VIPs in your helpdesk so that their requests are prioritized.

For example, in Gorgias, you can use Customer Fields (customer labels and properties) to group your customers under:

  • VIP
  • Repeat purchaser
  • High lifetime value
  • Promoter

When you know who your top customers are, you can offer more personalized service and make sure every interaction strengthens their connection to your brand.

Create brand advocates through small gestures

You don’t need to offer huge discounts to let customers know you appreciate them. Small, thoughtful gestures often make the biggest impact:

  • Send handwritten thank-you notes with their orders
  • Offer a free gift, upgrade, or loyalty perk after a milestone purchase
  • Include a referral code they can share with friends
  • Feature loyal customers on your social media channels (with their permission)

If you’re using macros and automations, you can even trigger some of these surprise-and-delight actions automatically, making it easier to scale while keeping the personal touch.

Make revenue your outcome at any time

We know how overwhelming uncertain times can be. It’s easy to think you need to reinvent your entire strategy just to keep up. 

But the truth is, you already have what you need. You have a team that knows your customers. You have conversations happening every day that can protect, nurture, and even grow your business.

By grounding yourself in what’s already working and creating proactive systems, you can turn uncertainty into strong and steady growth.

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min read.
Create powerful self-service resources
Capture support-generated revenue
Automate repetitive tasks

Further reading

Optimizing Brand Experience For Revenue

Event #1: Optimizing Brand Experience To Drive Revenue

By Sonia Moatti
2 min read.
0 min read . By Sonia Moatti

Last thursday, we organized our first event at Gorgias. It was the perfect opportunity to celebrate our new round of funding and recent moving to a new office in SOMA, while discussing brand culture and customer experience.

Special thanks to our speakers Renee L. Halvorsen from Marine Layer, Alicia Levine from Sunski, Dorian Greenow from Keto-Mojo and Anthony Benedettini from Dry Farm Wines.

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Here are the key takeaways you should remember:

  • As an e-commerce brand, you cannot compete on price with Amazon and powerful dropshippers. That’s why brand experience is your key differentiation factor.

  • Building a strong brand experience requires to be present on each distribution channel. Don’t let your resellers do the job for you! Sunski for example prepares “environment kits” for their resellers and marketplaces. This way, customers can experience Sunski’s spirit beyond its website.

  • When building brand experience, your community is your key success factor. Create a pool of ambassadors who will promote your brand, and reward them with presents, promo codes, and dedicated attention.

  • Bet on your own team! Building a great mindset within your team will help you create a strong and consistent brand image. At Keto-Mojo, each member of the team does customer service, so that everyone focus on what customers really need. Besides, the founder should inspire a culture of passion and dedication to the product.

You missed our event? Don’t worry, it was the very first of many!

Curious about how Gorgias can optimize customer service? Create an account here and get started in a few minutes!

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Thank You Interns

Thank you, interns!

By
1 min read.
0 min read . By

At Gorgias we've been very fortunate to work with some amazing people who did their internship with us:

Amit Poonia
Astrid Parmentier
Emilie Drouin
Hadrien de Lamotte
Ram Goli

Thank you all for your work!

Their contributions big and small make an indispensable part of what Gorgias is today and what it will be in the future. We are very grateful for their hard work, and we want to continue working with them after they finish their studies. To make returning more attractive for them, we've decided to take into account their stock option vesting period if they ever decide to return as full-time employees.

What exactly does this mean?

Interns that decide to return to Gorgias within a limited amount of time and choose to take our stock options offer upon the start of their full-time employment will have an accelerated schedule of their stock option vesting period. The offer will be judged case by case with our board's approval.

Let's take the example from our friends at Cockroach Labs (which this decision was inspired from):

For example, our standard option vesting schedule is that 25% of the stock options vests after 12 months of service from an employee’s start date (the “cliff”), and the remaining option vests in equal installments over the following 36 months of continuous service. However, if an intern spent four months with us, on their hire date, they would only have eight months until they hit their one-year cliff date and vest 25%.

We hope that by doing so, we're showing that we're taking their time seriously and we show our intention to work with them beyond their internship.

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Announcing The Recharge Integration

Announcing the ReCharge integration

By Astrid Parmentier
1 min read.
0 min read . By Astrid Parmentier

Recharge is the most popular subscription app in the Shopify app store and is the preferred solution for Shopify Plus stores. Over 10,000 Shopify merchants chose ReCharge to help sell products on a recurring basis, including stores like Dr. Axe, Hubble Contacts, and 5 Hour Energy.

The challenge is, when a customer has an issue with their subscription, the support team needs to jump between their helpdesk, Shopify and the ReCharge platform to fix the problem. This negatively impacts response time. Agents end up wasting hours per week going to ReCharge to skip a box for a customer, edit a subscription, etc. One of the key advantages of using Gorgias is to manage all your customer support in one place. A few months ago, our customer Darn Good Yarn asked us to build an integration with ReCharge. They no longer wanted to switch between ReCharge, Shopify and their helpdesk. This was completely aligned with our vision, so we decided to build it.

Today, we're excited to announce we've partnered with ReCharge to launch this integration.

Here are the key benefits:

  1. Display ReCharge subscriptions next to support tickets.
  2. Edit ReCharge subscriptions in one click from your helpdesk: refund charges, skip monthly payments or cancel subscriptions from Gorgias
  3. When a customer ask to edit their subscription, you can send them an auto-response with the link to manage the subscription.

“Gorgias gives us a holistic view of our customers. This way we can provide them with fast and personalized help”
Nicole Snow, DarnGoodYarn

Let’s take the example of Averill John. She wants to cancel her subscription to the Yummy Box and has just sent an email to your support.

Here is how your helpdesk looks like:

You can see that Astrid has been assigned to this ticket and that this ticket is tagged “Ambassador”. It means that Averill is one of your super loyal customers.

On the right, you can see the ReCharge account data of Averill. Here, Averill has a monthly subscription to the Yummy Box and will be charged on the 15th of October.

Astrid can skip the October charge in one-click on the “Skip charge on subscription” button. It will immediately set the action within ReCharge. Response time? Less than 1 minute!

If you're already a Gorgias customer, head to your account and go to Integrations to connect ReCharge. If not, you can create an account here and get started in a few minutes.

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New Integration

Announcing the Aircall integration

By
1 min read.
0 min read . By

One of the key advantages of using Gorgias is to provide a unified support experience to your customers across all channels. A few months ago, some of our customers asked us to build a phone integration. Traditional helpdesk integrations simply log calls as tickets. We wanted to go one step further and associate the phone call with the right customer.

Today, we're excited to announce we've partnered with Aircall to build this integration.

Aircall arms small-to-medium sized business (SMBs) with a phone system built for modern business. With zero hardware to manage, dozens of integration options to explore, and the ability to add local numbers in more than 40 countries, support teams can easily provide phone support in minutes.

Here are the benefits of this new integration:

  • When a customer calls your company in Aircall, it creates a ticket in Gorgias and automatically matches it with the corresponding Shopify customer. This way, your staff can edit orders while they are on the phone with the customer.
  • Your team sees all previous interactions they had with each customer, under their timeline.
  • Get omni-channel statistics. Gorgias stats include Aircall phone data. For instance, you can monitor if you're getting more return requests over the phone or through Facebook Messenger.

If you're already a Gorgias customer, head to your account and go to Integrations to connect Aircall. If not, you can create an account here and get started in a few minutes.

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Shopify Plus Partner

We're joining the Shopify Plus Technology Partner Program

By
1 min read.
0 min read . By

Today, we’re thrilled to announce we’re joining the Shopify Plus Technology partner program.

Over the past few months, we’ve worked with some incredible Shopify Plus merchants like Darn Good Yarn, Fjallraven and Frichti, who serve tens of thousands of customers every month. What they all had in common was a shared commitment to maximizing the efficiency of the customer service team to keep delivering high-quality support as they grow.

We’ve worked with other technology partners, like LoyaltyLion, in order to provide merchants with a holistic view of their customers when they respond to them in an effort to continue delivering best-in-class support interactions. We’ve also worked with the Plus team to leverage the latest features of the Shopify Plus API, to allow agents to create customized solutions for their customers, For example, creating personalized gift cards based on support conversations. Also, check out the guide we wrote comparing Shopify and Shopify Plus for an idea of the additional functionality and benefits ecommerce business owners get when they upgrade to Shopify Plus.

Using our technology, we’re proud to announce that our Shopify Plus customers have managed to improve their support request treatment time by 30%.

By joining the Technology Partner Program, we’re excited to take our collaboration with Shopify Plus and Shopify Plus merchants to the next level, by further enabling more customers to improve their customer service.

"We are glad to welcome Gorgias to the Shopify Plus Technology Partner Program. We’re particularly excited about how they’re helping our merchants provide efficient & personalized customer support, and hope they can help more of them."
Jamie Sutton, Head of Technology Partnerships, Shopify Plus
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We're Integrating With LoyaltyLion

We're integrating with LoyaltyLion!

By
1 min read.
0 min read . By

Great news! Today, we're announcing a new integration with LoyaltyLion. LoyaltyLion is a digital loyalty framework that gives ecommerce stores innovative ways to engage and retain customers.

Our mutual customer Darn Good Yarn uses it to successfully increase customer retention. When they switched from Freshdesk to Gorgias to manage customer support, they wanted to leverage their loyalty program for customer support.

We used their feedback to build the integration with LoyaltyLion, which they have been using for a couple months in beta. Today, we're excited to make it available to all our users.

What is the LoyaltyLion integration?

Here are some of the benefits of this integration:

  • Display how many points a customer has when they contact your support team
  • When you respond to customer support requests, award loyalty points to customers directly in Gorgias
  • Include the customer's personal referral url in your responses. This way, if they are happy about your support, they'll refer their friends to your store.

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Overall, this allows your team to use your loyalty program for customer service.

"We love being able to issue our customers loyalty points directly from Gorgias! It's a great way to boost efficiency and also customer retention."

Chloe Kesler, Customer Support manager at Darn Good Yarn

How can I use the LoyaltyLion Integration?

The integration is immediately available on your Gorgias account. If you don't have an account, you can create one here. Then, follow the instructions in our documentation and you can get started!

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Customer Support To Increase Sales

How to leverage customer support to increase sales?

By
14 min read.
0 min read . By

Most customers are loyal to brands because they know what level of service they can expect. As a result, providing an above-average customer experience is key to increase repeat in sales.

It’s relatively easy to provide great support when you get started with your store: your team gets a few dozens of support requests a day, and they respond to them almost instantly. The thing is, this level of service is very hard to maintain as you scale. Response time usually drops, and most brands start using standardized macros to keep up with the pace, which is a poor customer experience.

Your sales have increased, good. Now, you need to get your customer support up to speed

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Source: Gorgias customers during the Thanksgiving peak

At Gorgias, we’ve been chatting with 400 stores over the past year, and we’ve seen a lot of them working on crossing this “chasm”.

This post shares learning on how you can build a customer support organization that will scale with your business, and provide best-in-class customer service, which will drive customer retention.

Step 1: Run an audit of your support organization

A good place to start is to list the most common reasons customers are contacting you about. Go ahead and manually classify 200 tickets from your support inbox. This should take you about an hour. You can build categories from scratch, or use this spreadsheet of the most common requests for e-commerce companies we built.


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Most frequent support requests in e-commerce. Source: Gorgias customers


Now, you should be able to understand what problems are causing the most pain to customers.

If a specific type of request is above 10% of requests, then it’s a good candidate for optimization. For instance, if you’re getting a lot of “where is my order” questions, here are a few things you can do to deflect those:

  • Add a tracking section for customers to track their package on your site. Aftership can help here.
  • Send updates to customers about issues with delivery, through SMS or email.

Now that you have a good understanding of the reasons customers are contacting you for, you can map the customer journey, and identify what actions your agents need to take to respond to tickets.

Later, you can use this for training purposes, and to identify optimization opportunities.

At Piper, we basically studied the whole customer journey and tried to identify all reasons why someone could contact us (based on previous history). This helped us quickly identify where customers were "blocked"

Finally, let’s analyze the efficiency of your team. Of course, every business is different, but you can use this table to figure out how efficient your agents are compared to other stores. A good metric to track it is ticket closed per month. Just make sure that satisfaction remains consistent.

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Related: Learn more about the impact of live chat on sales. And see how Gorgias live chat can help you turn more browsers into buyers with chat campaigns.

Step 2: Figure out how you can improve the customer experience

Now, let’s work on creating “wow moments” for your customers. If you manage to exceed customers expectations when they contact you, you’re most likely to increase their loyalty and have them refer your store to their friends.

Here are a few ways you can create “wow moments”.

Make it easy for customers to contact you

You should be where your customers are. For example, if you have a Facebook page with a large audience, consider it as a real customer support channel. The point is, you should provide the same level of assistance across all support channels that your customer will use.

Also, don't be afraid to contact customers first, especially when they have items in their shopping cart. Offering help or a discount code at the right time could make the difference between a sale and an abandoned cart.

Example: providing high quality support on Facebook
70% of customers consider Facebook as a live chat support. To maximize customer satisfaction, your response time should be no more than 1 min. You’ll then be listed as a very responsive page, which will encourage your customers to respond.

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You can also leverage public posts to build relationship with your customers. Another easy way to facilitate customer communication is to remove the need for customers to repeat themselves. On your support platform, make sure your merge Facebook conversations with email tickets. This way, if the customer switches channel, your team will have access to the context of what the customer said before.

Related: Check out our trends and best practices for customer support.

Personalize every interaction with customer support

You should leverage every data point you have about the customer to personalize the way you communicate with them:
For how long they have been a customer
Their order preference
Their location
The days of the “we value your business” are over.

Always go an extra mile for your customers. If the customer asks for the status of their order, don’t respond only with the tracking number. Go get the order status on UPS so the customer doesn’t have to do it themselves when they’ll receive your email in the subway with poor network connection.

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Another good thing to do is to use a specific tone with your customer, that matches the brand image you want to convey.

If you’re into gifs, you can use them to build a brand tone your own set of gifs, designed for your own brand, and use them in your support emails. You can hire an illustrator on Upwork for that, or build them yourself.

Related: Tips to respond to angry customer emails.

Step 3: Give your team the “ironman suit” for support

Now that you know the level of support you aim at giving your customers, and you know what actions your agents need to take to get the delivery info, create an RMAs, etc., you can start optimizing the process for them.

Display rich customer profiles for your agents

To personalize messages, your agents need to have access to customer data. You can leverage the standard Shopify integration from your help desk as a starting point.

Though, it can be relevant to connect other data points to your help desk:

  • Display fulfillment data. Shippo is great for that
  • Inventory data: Stitch, display inventory to the reps
  • NPS responses
  • Responses to last promotions

If you’re on Zendesk, enabling the Shopify integration is a good start: it shows how much the customer has spent, and the past orders.

Some Gorgias customers have pretty advanced widgets that display data from Shopify, Stitch & Shipstation. This way, all the customer information is available.

Empower your reps to perform actions from support conversations

You can create custom widgets for your help desk, so that your agents can trigger actions from your help desk. Here are the most helpful actions:

  • Create a coupon
  • Place a replacement order
  • Cancelling an order
  • Create an RMA

This is a bit more tricky to implement. You need to build a custom app with buttons that will trigger actions - there are some good tutorials for Zendesk, Freshdesk & Help Scout. At Gorgias, we’ve built integrations with Stitch, Shipstation to embed these actions in the product, and enable you to add your own.

Other 3rd party apps like Chargedesk enable you to refund customers in one click.

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Step 4: Track your progress

Our goal here is to improve the customer experience to drive sales. A good way to track the efficiency of your support work is to compare the behavior of customers that have been in contact with customer support from those who have not.

Shopify helps you easily to this. You can create an integration between your help desk and Shopify to tag customers who reach out to support, using the Shopify API. Say you add a “customer_support” tag to them.

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Then, you can use Shopify statistics to monitor how the cohort of customers who have been in touch with your support team behaves, and assess the impact of your efforts with customer support.

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Another way to proceed is to tag orders that generated a support tickets. This way, if you work on improving delivery notifications, you can monitor the impact.

Final thoughts

Building a scalable support team that provides an amazing customer experience takes time.

Try to test different “wow moments”, iterate on the way you personalize messages, on the tone you’re using, and always track your progress. Among the teams we surveyed, several mentioned they managed to increase sales repeat by 30% after implementing these tactics.

Want to learn more about how customer support can improve your conversion rate and lead to more purchases? Check out our guides to ecommerce upselling and Shopify abandoned cart recovery.

Celery Gorgias

Celery + Gorgias

By
1 min read.
0 min read . By

Celery just released their API on Github, currently in beta. Here are some of the cool stuff you can do with it in Gorgias.

Display customer information

When you receive an email from a customer, you can connect your Celery account and see customer information (orders, shipping address, etc.). Here’s what it looks like:


Customer info from Celery

To configure it, grab your Celery access_token, head to integrations, and add an HTTP integration using this URL:
https://api.trycelery.com/v2/orders?buyer.email={ticket.requester.email}

Then you can customize the sidebar to only show the Celery data you need to respond to customers. Click the cog and simply drag and drop elements you want to show.

Select the data you want to show about your customers

Refunds, order change... without leaving tickets

Celery’s API enables you to perform a few actions from your favorite helpdesk:

  • Edit an order
  • Cancel an order
  • Issue a refund
  • Create a coupon

Here’s an example of how you can cancel an order from Gorgias itself. Say you already have a macro to cancel an order. Add an HTTP action to it, in this case:
https://api.trycelery.com/v2/orders/{ticket.requester.customer.data[0].number}/order_cancel

Then, when you use this macro and send it to the customer, it will automatically cancel the last order at the same time:

Action in celery from Gorgias

We hope this integration with Celery can save you time. If you'd like to try Celery with Gorgias, shoot us a note! At support@gorgias.com.

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