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Conversational Shopping Trends

Conversations Are Becoming a Revenue Channel: The Data Proves It

Brands using AI-driven conversational commerce are seeing measurable gains in purchase rates, retention, and AOV. The data from 16,000+ ecommerce brands shows why conversation has become the new path to checkout.
By Gabrielle Policella
0 min read . By Gabrielle Policella

TL;DR:

  • Customer journeys are collapsing to a single conversation. The traditional browse-and-buy journey is giving way to AI-guided shopping that moves from discovery to purchase in a single exchange.
  • 79% of brands say AI-driven conversational commerce has increased their sales and purchase rates.
  • AI-only influenced orders grew 63% in a single year, from 2.7 million in Q1 to 4.4 million in Q4.
  • Brands treating conversation as a revenue channel. They’re not just a support function, generating higher AOV, shorter buying cycles, and stronger retention.

The page-based shopping experience dominated for decades. Customers would search, browse, compare, abandon, get retargeted, return, and eventually buy (sometimes). 

That journey is no longer the only option.

Shoppers are turning to chat, messaging, and AI-powered tools to find what they need. Instead of clicking through product pages or reading static FAQs, they ask questions, have back-and-forth conversations, and get answers that move them closer to a purchase in real time. The path to checkout has changed, and the brands that recognize this are pulling ahead.

Read our 2026 State of Conversational Commerce Report to learn more about conversation commerce trends from 400 ecommerce decision-makers and 16,000+ ecommerce brands using Gorgias. 

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The shopping journey has collapsed into a single thread

The traditional shopping journey was a solo experience. A shopper had a need, searched for options, browsed across sessions, and eventually made a decision — often days later, after being retargeted multiple times. Support only entered the picture after the purchase.

Side-by-side comparison showing traditional page-based shopping with multiple steps and drop-offs versus a streamlined conversation-led journey with AI guidance and fewer friction points.

The conversation-led journey collapses that timeline:

  1. A shopper recognizes a need and starts a conversation via chat, messaging, or a search-triggered prompt
  2. An AI agent asks clarifying questions about preferences, budget, and constraints
  3. The AI provides personalized product recommendations in real time
  4. The shopper validates concerns about fit, compatibility, delivery, and returns, all inside the conversation
  5. The shopper completes the purchase directly within or immediately after that exchange
  6. The AI picks up the conversation post-purchase for order tracking and proactive support
  7. A human agent steps in only when the situation calls for it

What used to take days now takes minutes. Discovery, evaluation, and purchase happen in a single thread.

Conversation is a revenue strategy, not a support upgrade

79% of brands agree that AI-driven conversational commerce has increased sales and purchase rates in their business. When brands were asked to rank the highest-return areas:

  • 38% cited improved customer support efficiency
  • 23% pointed to higher customer retention and loyalty
  • 20% saw improved purchase rates

Those numbers reflect something important: the value of conversation compounds. Faster support reduces friction. Better retention raises lifetime value. More confident shoppers buy more often and spend more per order.

The brands seeing the biggest returns aren't just using AI to deflect tickets. They're using it to create one-to-one shopping experiences at scale.

What the data shows about AI-influenced orders

Looking at AI-only influenced orders across key verticals like Apparel and Accessories, Food and Beverages, Health and Beauty, Home and Garden, and Sporting Goods, the growth across a single year was significant. 

Quarterly bar chart showing conversations linked to orders increasing from about 2.7M in Q1 to 4.4M in Q4, with a small share influenced by AI.
Quarterly bar chart showing conversations linked to orders growing from about 753K in Q1 to just over 1M in Q4, with a small AI-driven portion.
Quarterly bar chart showing conversations linked to orders growing from about 2.05M in Q1 to 2.82M in Q4, with a small portion influenced by AI.
Quarterly bar chart showing conversations linked to orders increasing from about 651K in Q1 to 978K in Q4, with a minor AI contribution.
Quarterly bar chart showing conversations linked to orders rising from about 322K in Q1 to 509K in Q4, with minimal AI influence.

Across industries, ecommerce brands saw AI step into conversations, reduce shopper hesitation, and drive higher QoQ conversion rates. 

Learn more about AI-powered revenue generation in the full 2026 Conversational Commerce Report.

Why brands are making this a strategic priority

84% of brands say the strategic importance of conversational commerce is higher than it was a year ago. 82% agree it will be mainstream in their sector within two years.

Statistics showing 84% of brands increased the strategic importance of conversational commerce and 82% expect AI-driven conversational commerce to become mainstream within two years.

That shift is registering at the leadership level because of what conversational commerce does to the buying experience. Creating one-to-one touchpoints earlier in the journey drives higher AOV, shorter buying cycles, and stronger purchase rates. Shoppers who get real-time answers to their questions are more confident.

What this looks like in practice: TUSHY

TUSHY, known for eco-friendly bidets and bathroom essentials, is a useful example of what happens when you take conversational commerce seriously.

Bidets aren't an impulse purchase. Shoppers have real questions about fit, compatibility, and installation. Those questions used to go unanswered until the CX team could respond, often after the customer had abandoned the cart.

TUSHY used Gorgias's AI Agent and shopping assistant capabilities to automate pre-sales support. AI Agent engaged shoppers in real-time conversations, addressed their concerns directly, and built confidence at the moment of highest intent.

This resulted in a 190% increase in chat-based purchases, a 13x return on investment, and twice the purchase rate of human agents.

How to apply this to your strategy

You don't need to overhaul your entire operation to start seeing results. The most effective approach is to start where the impact is clearest and expand from there.

A few places to begin:

  • Pre-sales chat. Identify your most common pre-purchase questions (sizing, compatibility, shipping timelines) and ensure your AI can answer them confidently and promptly.
  • Product page engagement. Use proactive chat prompts triggered by page behavior to start conversations before shoppers leave.
  • Post-purchase follow-up. Let AI pick up the conversation after checkout with order updates and proactive support, reducing inbound volume and building trust.
  • Human escalation. Define clearly which situations require a human agent – complex issues, emotional exchanges, high-stakes decisions. 

Want to see the full picture of where conversational commerce is headed in 2026? Read the full report to explore the data, trends, and strategies shaping the next era of ecommerce.

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min read.
ai adoption trends

AI Is Table Stakes for Ecommerce: What the Data Tells Us About 2026

AI adoption in ecommerce has reached 96% in 2026, with use cases spanning support automation, personalization at scale, product discovery, and end-to-end operations.
By Gabrielle Policella
0 min read . By Gabrielle Policella

TL;DR:

  • AI adoption is rapidly accelerating. 96% of ecommerce professionals now use AI in their roles, up from 69% in 2024.
  • AI has moved beyond support automation. Use cases have evolved into revenue generation, personalization, and logistics.
  • Brands are tying AI success to profit-and-loss outcomes. 60% of brands consider AOV a top indicator of AI effectiveness.  

A year ago, ecommerce brands were still debating whether AI was worth the investment. That debate is over. Today, nearly every ecommerce professional uses AI to do their job.

The shift isn't just about adoption. It's about what AI is used for and how brands measure its impact. Support automation was the entry point. Now, AI is embedded across the full operation, from product recommendations to inventory control to real-time shopping conversations.

In our 2026 State of Conversational Commerce Report, we break down trends on AI usage among 400 ecommerce decision-makers and 16,000+ ecommerce brands using Gorgias. 

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AI adoption has reached a tipping point

If we rewind 12 months ago, the industry was still split on AI. Some ecommerce professionals were excited, but most were still hesitant. In 2024, 69% of ecommerce professionals used AI in their roles. By 2025, that number reached 77%. In 2026, it hit 96%.

Ecommerce professionals using AI: 69.2% in 2024, 77.2% in 2025, and 96% in 2026.

The confidence numbers back it up. 71% of brands say they are confident using AI for ecommerce, and 73% are satisfied with its business impact. 

In early 2025, only 30% of ecommerce professionals rated their excitement for AI at 10/10. Today, zero percent of respondents describe themselves as hesitant about AI. 

Views on AI among ecommerce professionals: 33% say it’s transforming their business, 50% see steady improvements, 18% say it hasn’t delivered, and 0% remain hesitant.

AI use cases now span the full ecommerce stack

Using AI in ecommerce is not new. In fact, it dates back to the 1980s with the invention of algorithms and expert systems. And if you’ve ever leveraged similar product recommendations or chatbots, you’ve already integrated AI into your ecommerce stack. 

Modern AI is far more sophisticated. 

With the rise of agentic commerce and conversational AI, brands began leveraging AI agents to automate the processing of repetitive support tickets. That’s still happening today, but the scope has expanded beyond the support queue. 

AI use cases in ecommerce include customer support automation (96%), product recommendations (88%), tracking updates (69%), personalization (64%), inventory control (51%), dynamic pricing (36%), and order fulfillment (18%).

Ecommerce brands are deploying AI across every layer of their operation:

  • Customer support automation: 96%
  • Product recommendations: 88%
  • Automated tracking and status updates: 69%
  • Personalization: 64%
  • Inventory control: 51%
  • Dynamic pricing and discounting: 36%
  • Order fulfillment: 18%

When brands were asked which channels contribute most to their AI success, conversational channels dominated. Social media messaging led at 78%, followed by SMS at 70%, and website live chat at 51%. Shoppers want fast, personal conversations, and AI is the best way to deliver that at scale.

Learn more about AI adoption, perception, and use case trends in the full 2026 Conversational Commerce Report.

How AI is changing CX success metrics

For decades, customer support success meant fast response times and high satisfaction scores. Those are still important indicators of success, but leading brands are adding revenue-focused metrics to their dashboards.   

91% of brands still track CSAT as a measure of AI's impact. But 60% now include AOV as a top indicator, and higher-revenue brands earning $20M+ are focusing on metrics like total operating expenses, cost per resolution, incremental revenue, and one-touch ticket rate.

AI impact measured by 91% customer satisfaction, 60% average order value, and 43% resolution time.

AI can now start a conversation, ease customer doubts, sell, upsell, and recover abandoned carts in a single conversation. When you’re only measuring CSAT, you’re ignoring the real ROI of conversational AI investment. 

AI makes every conversational channel a storefront

Virtual shopping assistants now proactively engage shoppers, adapt to their needs in real time, and offer contextual product recommendations and upsells. When the moment calls for it, they can close the deal with a targeted discount. 

Gorgias brands using AI Agent's shopping assistant capabilities nearly doubled their purchase rates and converted 20–50% better than those using AI Agent for support only.

Orthofeet, the largest provider of orthopedic footwear in the US, is a concrete example of this in practice. Using Gorgias, they achieved:

  • 56% of support tickets automated in 2 months
  • Email response times down from 24 hours to 35 seconds
  • Double-digit revenue growth without adding headcount. 

What this means for your AI strategy

The data tells a clear story: AI has evolved beyond a tool for handling tier 1 support tickets. It’s a core part of your revenue generation strategy. 

57% of brands are already using AI for 26–50% of all customer interactions, and 37% expect that share to rise to 51–75% within the next two years. The brands building toward that range now are the ones who will have the operational advantage when it matters most.

The practical question isn't whether to invest in AI. It's where to focus first. Based on where brands are seeing the most impact, three priorities stand out:

  • Start with high-volume, low-complexity tickets. WISMO (where is my order) inquiries, return policy questions, and order status updates are where AI delivers the fastest return. Automate these first.
  • Expand into conversational channels. Social messaging and SMS are where AI is driving the most success right now.
  • Connect AI performance to revenue metrics. If you're only measuring CSAT and response time, you're missing half the story. Add AOV, conversion rate, and incremental revenue to your reporting.

Want to go deeper on the full 2026 conversational commerce trends? Read the complete report for data across every major AI use case in ecommerce.

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min read.
Conversational Commerce Trends

The State of Conversational Commerce: 5 Trends Reshaping Ecommerce in 2026

Explore 5 key trends from The State of Conversational Commerce Trends Report in 2026.
By Gabrielle Policella
0 min read . By Gabrielle Policella

TL;DR:

  • AI is resolving tickets, not just replying. AI now handles 31% of customer interactions for ecommerce brands, and that number is expected to nearly double within two years.
  • Every channel is becoming a storefront. Conversations are replacing the traditional browse-and-buy journey, with 79% of brands reporting sales from AI-driven interactions. 
  • AI is shortening the buying cycle. 93% of AI-influenced purchases happen within the first 48 hours of the conversation. 
  • CX teams are changing, not shrinking. Ecommerce brands are actively hiring for more technical roles to implement, coach, and maintain AI. 
  • The winning model is hybrid. AI handles volume and speed, while humans handle complexity and judgment. 

The way shoppers buy online has shifted and customers are at the center. 

They no longer want to scroll through product pages, dig through FAQs, or wait 24 hours for an email reply. They open a conversation, ask a specific question, and expect a useful answer in seconds. Brands that can’t deliver these experiences at scale are seeing customer hesitation turn into abandoned carts and lost revenue. 

This shift has a name: conversational commerce. It's the practice of using real-time, two-way conversations as your primary sales channel, through chat, AI agents, messaging apps, and voice. 

What started as an experiment for early adopters has become a key growth lever, with 84% of ecommerce brands treating conversational commerce as a strategic pillar this year vs. last year. 

Bar chart showing percentage of customer interactions handled by AI: 31% in 2025 and 47% within the next two years.

We surveyed 400 ecommerce decision-makers across North America, the U.K., and Europe to understand how conversational commerce and AI are reshaping the ecommerce landscape. These findings are complemented by aggregated and anonymized internal Gorgias platform data from 16,000+ ecommerce brands.

The State of Conversational Commerce in 2026 trends report breaks down all of the findings, including five key trends shaping the ecommerce landscape. 

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Trend 1: AI is table stakes for ecommerce and it’s no longer just about efficiency

A few years ago, adding an AI chatbot to your site that could provide tracking links and Help Center article recommendations was a differentiator. Today, it's table stakes. McKinsey found that 71% of shoppers expect personalized experiences, and 76% get frustrated when they don't get them. 

Right now, most ecommerce professionals use AI, with 93% having used it for at least 1 year. Enthusiasm is accelerating quickly, with only 30% of ecommerce professionals rating their excitement for AI at 10/10 in April 2025. Similarly, while AI adoption rose steadily year over year, it reached a clear peak in 2026.

Bar chart showing ecommerce professionals using AI: 69.2% in 2024, 77.2% in 2025, and 96% in 2026.

The use cases driving this adoption are practical and high-volume:

  • Order tracking and status updates
  • Returns, exchanges, and refund requests
  • Shipping FAQs and delivery estimates
Bar chart showing AI use cases across ecommerce: customer support automation (96%), AI product recommendations (88%), automated tracking updates (69%), AI personalization (64%), inventory control (51%), dynamic pricing (36%), and order fulfillment (18%).

These are the tickets that flood brands’ inboxes every day. AI agents resolve them instantly, without pulling teams away from conversations that actually require human judgment.

Explore AI adoption and use case data in more depth in the full report. 

Trend 2: Conversations are the new path to checkout

The traditional ecommerce funnel, visit site, browse products, add to cart, check out, is losing ground. Shoppers now discover products on Instagram, ask questions via direct message, and complete purchases without ever visiting a website.

Side-by-side comparison of page-based and conversation-led customer journeys, highlighting AI-driven real-time recommendations, proactive information, and post-purchase support within a single conversation.

Conversational AI is actively increasing revenue, with 79% of brands reporting that AI-driven interactions have increased sales and conversion in their business.

Bar chart showing percentage of customer interactions handled by AI: 31% in 2025 and 47% within the next two years.

The practical implication is that every channel is becoming a storefront. Creating personalized touchpoints with customers earlier in the journey, through proactive engagement, is impacting the bottom line. 

Read the full report to explore how AI conversions have increased QoQ by industry.  

Trend 3: AI is accelerating the purchase cycle

Pre-purchase hesitation is one of the biggest conversion killers in ecommerce. A shopper lands on your product page, has a question about sizing or compatibility, can't find the answer quickly, and leaves. That's a lost sale that had nothing to do with your product.

Conversational AI changes that dynamic. When a shopper can ask a question and get an accurate, personalized answer in real time, the friction disappears. 

Brands using Gorgias saw this play out at scale in 2025. When AI Agent recommended a product, 80% of the resulting purchases happened the same day, and 13% happened the next day. 

AI chat interface recommending apparel items based on cart contents, alongside statistic stating 93% of purchases occur within 48 hours of an AI agent’s recommendation.

Brands are further accelerating the buying cycle through proactive engagement. On-site features such as suggested product questions, recommendations triggered by search results, and “Ask Anything” input bars drove 50% of conversation-driven purchases during BFCM 2025. 

Explore how AI is collapsing the purchase cycle in Trend 3 of the report.

Trend 4: AI is making CX teams more technical 

There's a persistent narrative that AI is making CX teams redundant. The data tells a different story. 62% of ecommerce brands are planning to grow their teams, not cut them. But the scope of those teams is changing.

Bar chart of expected headcount changes over 12 months: 21% increase significantly, 41% increase somewhat, 28% stay the same, 9% decrease somewhat, and 1% decrease significantly.

New roles are emerging around AI configuration and quality assurance. Teams are investing in technical members to write AI Guidance instructions, develop tone-of-voice instructions, and continuously QA results. 

CX teams are also bridging the gap between support goals and revenue goals, as the two functions increasingly overlap.

Donut chart indicating 77% of companies report at least some convergence between support and sales functions due to AI.

The result is CX teams that are more technical than they were before. Agents who once spent their days answering repetitive tickets are now spending that time on higher-value work: complex escalations, VIP customer relationships, and improving the AI systems and knowledge bases that handle the volume.

Learn more about the evolution of CX roles in Trend #4. 

Trend 5: The future is hybrid: AI-first, humans when it counts

Despite increasing AI adoption, data shows that ecommerce brands shouldn’t strive for 100% automation. Winning brands are building systems in which AI handles repetitive tier-1 tickets, and humans handle complex, sensitive cases. 

Chart showing which inquiries are handled by AI vs. humans.

AI handles speed and scale. It resolves order-tracking requests at 2 a.m., processes return-eligibility checks in seconds, and answers the same shipping question for the thousandth time without compromising quality. 

Human agents handle conversations that require context, empathy, or decisions that fall outside the standard playbook. There are several topics where shoppers still prefer human support.

Bar chart showing customers prefer human support for order issues (54%), product advice (35%), and returns or refunds (24%).

Successful hybrid systems require continuous iteration, meaning reviewing handover topics, Guidance, and reviewing AI tickets on a weekly basis. 

Discover how leading brands are balancing human and AI systems in Trend #5. 

Where conversational commerce is heading by 2030

The 2026 trends are about expansion and standardization. The 2030 predictions are about what comes next.

Bar chart showing brand expectations by 2030: 89% expect AI voice purchasing, 29% expect AI multilingual support, and 19% expect proactive AI upsells and cross-sells.

Voice-based purchasing is the biggest bet on the horizon. Only 7% of brands currently use voice assistants for commerce, but 89% expect it to be standard by 2030. The vision is a customer who can reorder a product, check their subscription status, or manage a return entirely over the phone.

Proactive AI is the other major shift. Rather than waiting for a customer to reach out, AI will anticipate needs based on browsing behavior, purchase history, and where someone is in their relationship with your brand. Think of it as the digital equivalent of a sales associate who remembers what you bought last time and knows what you're likely to need next.

Explore where ecommerce brands are allocating their AI budgets in the full report. 

Start building your conversational commerce strategy today

The brands winning in 2026 are creating smart, scalable systems where AIhandles volume and humans handle nuance. They’re treating every conversational channel as an opportunity to serve and sell.

The data is clear: AI adoption is accelerating, customer expectations are rising, and the revenue impact of getting this right is measurable.

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

Further reading

Guide More Shoppers to Checkout with Conversation-Led AI

By Emily Hooker
min read.
0 min read . By Emily Hooker

TL;DR:

  • Shopping Assistant is your new AI sales closer. It jumps in when shoppers hesitate, delivering real-time, personalized support that drives conversions.
  • It boosts revenue by acting like your best salesperson. It knows when to recommend, upsell, or offer a discount, without being pushy.
  • It remembers what shoppers do mid-session. That means smarter conversations, better suggestions, and bigger order values.
  • It’s already delivering results. Brands using Shopping Assistant are seeing 62% more conversions, 10% higher AOV, and 5x ROI.
  • You control the strategy. Customize how it promotes discounts, when it steps in, and how it speaks.

What’s the common factor between shoppers debating between products and considering a splurge? Hesitation. 

Today’s shoppers are overwhelmed with choices. They don’t want to be left to figure things out on their own. They want guidance.

But most brands are missing that crucial piece of the puzzle. They lack a strategy that accompanies shoppers on their journey. A tool that encourages shoppers to proceed to checkout. And, ultimately, a customer experience devoid of a sales approach.

That’s why we built Shopping Assistant, an AI Agent that proactively engages browsers, offers context-aware product recommendations, and turns hesitation into conversions in real time.

And it’s working. Brands using Shopping Assistant are seeing a 62% uplift in conversion, 10% higher average order value, and 5x ROI.

Here’s a closer look at what’s behind the magic.

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AI-powered shopping, built for sales

Most traditional chatbots passively wait for questions and deliver answers that aren’t personalized to each shopper's preferences. 

Unlike these bots, Shopping Assistant reads real-time signals like pages viewed, cart contents, and conversation tone. This results in a solution that not only offers support but also offers personalized, proactive selling. This enables Shopping Assistant to continuously refine and adjust its playbook, evolving with each shopper as their journey matures.

Here’s how Shopping Assistant engages with customers across the shopping journey:

  1. Discovery: Gathers preferences and educates.
  2. Interested: Makes targeted product suggestions.
  3. Ready to Buy: Assists with checkout, nudges purchases with discounts.

Take this example below. When a customer vaguely asks “how to make up,” Shopping Assistant interprets it as a sign of interest in makeup products and recommends a starter kit.

Shopping Assistant helps a customer with makeup product recommendations.

Personalization that understands you

Where traditional bots reset with every message, Shopping Assistant does the opposite. It has built-in context-aware intelligence that remembers what shoppers have clicked, viewed, and added to their cart during a session. 

This enables natural, relevant, and persuasive conversations that truly resonate with each shopper. It goes beyond reading messages and observes behavior to adapt its responses.

That means it knows if someone has:

  • Viewed three red lipsticks but didn’t add to cart
  • Repeatedly checked sizing info for the same dress
  • Added two serums to their cart after browsing dry skin FAQs

With plenty of context to work with, Shopping Assistant is not only smarter but also more profitable than the average chatbot. It drives more conversions with product recommendations and lifts average order value with timely upsells based on what’s been added to the cart or viewed. 

Here’s what it looks like in action: When a customer engages through a product page, Shopping Assistant recommends a matching outfit, suggesting it’s aware of alternate product variants and the customer's likely interest in that style.

Shopping Assistant suggests a complementary product to the initial product a customer is looking at.

Dynamic discounts that convert without undercutting

Promotions are powerful, but they’re not one-size-fits-all. 

With Shopping Assistant, merchants can define their discount strategy to align with their brand. These strategies can range from offering no deals to using aggressive promotions. 

Once the strategy is set, Shopping Assistant waits for hesitation and customer intent to trigger a discount, firing it at the most conversion-worthy moment.

Proactive engagement in 3 ways

Shopping Assistant initiates conversations. It’s built to engage shoppers, spotting when they linger or show signs of confusion, stepping in with timely, personalized help.

Every second counts in ecommerce. If a shopper pauses on a product page or is left scrolling through an endless search results page, Shopping Assistant detects it in real-time and reaches out with a relevant prompt like:

  • “Need help picking the right shade?”
  • “Want to know our return policy before you buy?”

Here’s how Shopping Assistant reduces drop-off, builds confidence, and drives faster decision-making in three different ways.

1. Suggested product questions 

Shopping Assistant automatically triggers commonly asked questions depending on the product currently being viewed. In one click, shoppers can get the answer to the question they’re curious about. This combats hesitation caused by a lack of information, resulting in more confident conversions.

2. Ask Anything Input

When shoppers land on the homepage, it’s easy to become overwhelmed and not know where to navigate. The Ask Anything Input provides an easy way to start a conversation with Shopping Assistant and get the guidance they need.

Shopping Assistant can refine its response to the customer based on the page context. For example, when the customer is on a product page, Shopping Assistant knows exactly what product is being asked about.

3. Trigger on Search

Shopping Assistant can step in to offer pinpointed help based on a shopper’s search query. Instead of scrolling through a results page, Shopping Assistant triggers a message based on what the shopper entered, offering an easier and faster way to find what they need.

Smart recommendations and relevant upsells

Shopping Assistant’s suggestions are rooted in real context: what the shopper has viewed, added to cart, or asked about. Whether they’re exploring a specific product line or revisiting a category they’ve shown interest in, Shopping Assistant delivers relevant upsells and complementary items that make sense for the customer.

This personalized approach to upselling increases cart size without feeling forced—it’s smart, seamless, and sales-driven.

Shopping Assistant can even turn vague product questions into upsell opportunities. By asking questions, it learns more about an individual to come up with recommendations that best fit their preferences.

Try Shopping Assistant today

Shopping Assistant is transforming the way shoppers engage and helping ecommerce brands sell more effectively. Through smarter conversations and real-time personalization, it turns every interaction into an opportunity to convert, build trust, and drive revenue.

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Coach AI Agent in One Hour a Week: SuitShop’s Guide

By Tina Donati
min read.
0 min read . By Tina Donati

TL;DR:

  • Don't just turn it on, coach it. Treating your AI Agent like a team member, not a plug-and-play tool, is what makes it truly helpful and memorable.
  • One owner and one hour a week is enough to make a big impact. SuitShop’s Katy Eriks runs QA and training solo, using a repeatable system to log feedback and improve performance weekly.
  • Don't forget to pause and evaluate. SuitShop temporarily turned off AI to improve their help content, making automation far more effective when it came back online.
  • Let your best human agents guide your AI. Katie studied her top-performing teammate's tickets to teach AI the best responses and macros.
  • Brand voice matters as much as accuracy. SuitShop's AI Agent "Max" is trained to sound warm, helpful, and on-brand. Customers even thank it by name.

The most coachable team member on your support team might not be human.

Brands that want to keep up with rising customer expectations are turning to AI to help meet demand. But as SuitShop’s Director of Customer Experience, Katie Eriks, will tell you, great results don’t come from flipping a switch.

They come from coaching.

Since implementing Gorgias AI Agent, SuitShop has reached a 30% automation rate, all while maintaining a lean CX team and giving every customer the tailored experience they expect (literally and figuratively).

“I consider myself its boss,” said Katie, who runs the entire coaching process solo. With under an hour of weekly maintenance now, SuitShop’s AI Agent runs efficiently, accurately, and on-brand.

Katie spoke at Gorgias Connect 2025 to share exactly how she got there. You can watch her full session below:

The case for coaching your AI Agent 

When brands think about automation, they often imagine flipping a switch and watching repetitive tasks vanish. But in practice, it’s not that simple, at least not if you care about customer experience.

Gorgias encourages brands to treat their AI Agent like a junior teammate — someone you onboard, train, observe, and coach over time.

Brands that do this well are already seeing massive gains:

  • 60%+ of customer conversations fully automated
  • First response times under 30 seconds
  • Consistent CSAT scores of 4.5 and above
  • Major cost savings during high-volume seasons

For SuitShop, automation was about creating space for their small team to focus on specialized service. Space to scale without scaling headcount. And space to do it all without losing their voice.

SuitShop uses Gorgias AI Agent to allow them to answer repetitive questions directly on their website.

Step-by-step: SuitShop’s AI coaching workflow

Katie and her team had been longtime Gorgias users, but when they turned on AI Agent in August 2023, the results were unremarkable. The responses weren’t inaccurate, but they weren’t helpful enough either.

What Katie learned was to “Be hands-on early. Use downtime to train. And never stop refining.”

So she got to work, not by replacing the tool, but by going deeper into it. Here are her coaching tips: 

One owner, one hour a week

Katie made herself the sole point of contact for training and QA. That might sound like a lot, but over time, it became a light lift.

“At this point, it’s definitely less than one hour per week,” she said. “In the beginning, it was more time-consuming because I needed to create help center articles and Guidance regularly. Now I’ve got it down to a pretty quick thumbs-up, thumbs-down kind of process.”

Katie uses Monday mornings to review AI Agent tickets from over the weekend, when fewer human agents are available and AI takes the lead.

Read more: Why your strategy needs customer service quality assurance

Pause and perfect before scaling

Unlike many retail brands, SuitShop’s busiest time isn’t the holiday rush — it’s wedding season in the summer and fall. So when things quieted down in December, Katie used that time strategically.

She temporarily turned off the AI Agent to regroup.

“I decided to turn it off and really beef up our Help Center,” she explained. “I went back to the tickets I had to answer myself, checked what people were searching in the Help Center, and filled in the gaps.”

She built out content with a mix of blog knowledge, internal macros, and ChatGPT. Once she felt confident the content base was solid, she turned AI back on.

Read more: How to optimize your Help Center for AI Agent

Use data to guide your coaching plan

Once SuitShop’s foundational content was in place, Katie didn’t just sit back and hope for the best. Instead, she built a repeatable feedback loop grounded in data — one that helped her spot opportunities for improvement before they became issues.

Rather than combing through tickets at random, Katie created custom views inside Gorgias to zero in on the most impactful coaching moments:

  • Low CSAT tickets: Any conversation that ended with a customer satisfaction score below expectations got flagged. These were clear indicators that something about the tone, accuracy, or clarity of the AI response had fallen short.
  • High handover rates: Katie looked at the tickets AI Agent was regularly handing off to humans. Many of these were actually answerable. The handover just meant that guidance was missing, miscategorized, or too vague.
  • Agent-tagged tickets: To make this scalable, Katie empowered her team to flag any strange or impressive responses from the AI. By using a tag like AI_agent_feedback, team members could drop tickets into a coaching queue without needing to write a full explanation.

To keep all of this actionable, Katie logs insights in a shared spreadsheet that functions as a live to-do list. Every row includes:

  • A link to the ticket
  • A summary of the issue
  • The resolution (e.g., new Guidance or macro needed)
  • A status tracker (not started / in progress / completed)
  • A link to the resource she created in response

These insights are also available in Gorgias’s dashboard, where you can identify the top issues customers had.

Gorgias's Top Product Insights can show which products customers talk about most.

“Sometimes I do it all in the moment. Other times I’ll log it and come back later when I can take the time to do it right.”

By combining frontline feedback with structured ticket views, Katie turned scattered QA into a consistent coaching system — one that ensures SuitShop’s AI Agent keeps getting smarter every week.

Learn from your human agents

One of Katie’s most effective strategies comes from her own team.

Like many CX leads, she noticed that some agents consistently resolved tickets in a single touch. That pattern, Katie realized, wasn’t just a win for customers, it was a roadmap for an AI-driven support strategy.

Her teammate Tacy quickly became her go-to signal for what the AI Agent needed to learn next.

“I pull her tickets often to see what she’s responded with. It helps AI learn from her directly.”

By reviewing Tacy’s ticket history, Katie identified standard replies that didn’t yet exist as macros or Guidance. If Tacy was writing the same sentence repeatedly or copy-pasting a reply manually, that meant it could (and should) be taught to the AI Agent.

She also tracked Tacy’s macro usage rate. If Tacy frequently used a macro for a certain issue, but other agents weren’t, it flagged an opportunity to standardize responses across the team and the AI.

The key insight? If it only takes one touch for a human to answer, the AI can be trained to do it too.

These small efficiency wins added up quickly, especially during peak season, when the ability to automate just a few extra conversations per day created meaningful breathing room for the rest of the team.

Related: How to automate half of your CX tasks

Make your AI sound human (and on-brand)

Automation without brand voice feels robotic. Katie made sure SuitShop’s AI Agent sounded like a natural extension of the team, and that started with a name: Max.

“We get replies like, ‘Thanks Max!’ from customers who think it’s a real person.”

Using AI Agent’s tone of voice settings, Katie went deep on personalization. She customized everything from sentence structure and greeting format to whether or not emojis and exclamation marks should be used (they shouldn’t, in SuitShop’s case).

SuitShop customers can talk to AI Agent across the website including product pages.

Her AI Agent instructions include clear direction on:

  • Tone: Warm, empathetic, clear, especially with high-stress wedding-related issues
  • Structure: Shorter responses for chat, slightly more detailed for email
  • Dos and Don’ts: Specific words or phrases to use or avoid, pulled from real team responses
  • First/last name use: Always first name only, to keep things friendly but respectful

Katie also made sure she instructed AI Agent to acknowledge customer emotions — especially frustration — and to offer reassurance when things went wrong.

And because AI responses are written at lightning speed, she regularly reviewed messages to ensure they didn’t come off as cold or abrupt, especially in sensitive situations like delayed wedding orders or size issues close to the event date.

Live coaching: What it looks like in practice

In the workshop, Katie walked through two real support tickets where AI missed the mark and how she used those moments to improve.

In one case, a customer asked a common question: “The navy suit I’m looking at says ‘unfinished pant hem.’ Will the pants need to be hemmed?”

Despite having help articles and macros explaining this exact issue, AI Agent responded: “I don’t have the information to answer your question.”

That was a red flag.

Katie immediately stepped in to coach the agent by:

  • Applying the correct existing resources
  • Writing an ideal sample reply as an internal note
  • Checking tone, empathy, and phrasing
  • Testing the fix by pasting the same question into the test environment

“I like to write a short internal note, so if I see that ticket again, I know exactly how I coached it.”

In another case, AI Agent was incorrectly handing off a sizing question about jacket sleeve length. Katie realized that a previous broad handover topic ("sizing and fit questions") was causing confusion by flagging issues that the AI should have been able to handle.

So she deleted the handover topic and replaced it with a clear guidance article — complete with example questions, macros, and links to sizing resources.

AI Agent successfully answers a customer's question about sizing by linking to their fit finder, sizing guide, and video tutorial.

“Once I added specific questions in quotes, it made a huge difference.”

What's next: AI tools that help you scale faster

SuitShop didn’t automate 100% of CX — but that’s not the point. At 30% automation (and growing), Katie gives her team more time to specialize, connect, and handle urgent or emotional conversations with care.

Here’s what Gorgias offers to help as well:

  • Optimized intent dashboards: These show the most common topics customers ask about, the AI’s performance on those topics, and how much opportunity there is to increase automation.
  • Auto-generated knowledge: Based on your macros, Help Center, and even Shopify data, Gorgias can now draft suggested guidance for your review, making it faster to train your AI Agent without starting from scratch.
  • Auto QA: This tool scores every AI (and human) response based on resolution, accuracy, communication, and tone. It gives you full visibility across your team and automations, without needing to review each ticket manually.

Whether you’re just getting started or trying to move beyond basic automation, Katie’s approach proves that coached AI outperforms out-of-the-box tools every time.

Want to coach your AI Agent like SuitShop? Book a demo to see how Gorgias can help you scale smarter.

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How Do You Build a Support Sales Flywheel? Lessons from 4 Experts

By Holly Stanley
min read.
0 min read . By Holly Stanley

TL;DR:

  • Segment customers for personalized support. Use purchase history and behavior data to tailor every interaction, making conversations more relevant and higher-converting.
  • Offer onboarding calls for complex products. TUSHY's "Poo-Rus" turned free install calls into a $15 paid service that dramatically boosts customer LTV and retention.
  • Pick up the phone strategically. Use voice calls for abandoned carts, stuck tickets, and VIP follow-up.
  • Give agents freedom to make judgment calls. Empower your team to bend policies and offer solutions that prioritize retention over rigid rules—confident agents drive more cross-sells.
  • Train for helpful selling, not pushy pitches. Use roleplaying to teach agents how to spot buying signals and offer value naturally.

At Gorgias Connect LA 2025, CX leaders from Tommy John, TUSHY, Triple Whale, and Talent Pop shared how support teams solve problems and drive revenue.

This shift, known as the support sales flywheel, doesn’t involve massive overhauls or shiny new tools. Instead, it means doing the small things exceptionally well, like picking up the phone, empowering agents to make judgment calls, and adding a personal touch where others automate.

These brands have shown that when support teams focus on consistency, connection, and conversion, the results compound. Every thoughtful interaction spins the flywheel faster, boosting loyalty, LTV, and revenue.

Ahead, we’re breaking down the most actionable takeaways so your team can start building its own support-led growth engine.

Watch the full panel here:

5 tactics that power the support sales flywheel

From scrappy install calls to AI-powered training, these CX leaders aren’t only talking about driving revenue, they’re doing it. Here’s how they’re turning support into a sales flywheel, and the tactics your team can start testing today.

1. Personalization at scale starts with smart data

“Customer service done right is actually a great source of revenue.” That’s how Tamanna Bawa, Tech Partner Manager at Triple Whale, kicked off the conversation on how data can transform CX from reactive to revenue-driving.

She advises segmenting customers based on purchase history and behavior to deliver more personalized, higher-converting interactions. 

In a market where margins are razor-thin and ad costs are high, Tamanna emphasized that “incremental gains from personalization are the difference between companies that are thriving and the ones that are just surviving.”

Steal this strategy 

  • Segment customers based on behavior and purchase history using your helpdesk, CRM, or analytics tool.
  • Give agents access to this data so they can personalize every interaction.
  • Use macros that adapt based on customer segments, like VIP status, product interest, or past issues.
  • Focus on relevance over volume: one well-timed, tailored message converts better than a generic one.

2. The power of onboarding calls

What do you do when your hero product needs a cultural shift as much as it needs installation instructions? If you’re TUSHY, you send in your “Poop Gurus.”

Ren Fuller-Wasserman, Senior Director of CX at TUSHY, shared how her team launched a scrappy, free CX-led service that has now become a legendary video install program to help customers set up their bidets.

The real value wasn’t just tech support. As Ren put it, “It wasn’t about the actual install process, it was the encouragement they needed to change culture.” These calls sparked deeply personal moments (yes, even with cats and toddlers wandering in) and created the kind of emotional connection customers never forget.

Today, that service has evolved into a $15 paid add-on at checkout, and the customers who use it have significantly boost LTV and retention. It’s a masterclass in turning support moments into revenue through genuine human connection.

Steal this strategy

  • Identify a product or feature your customers often hesitate to use, install, or fully understand.
  • Offer free, low-lift onboarding calls via Zoom or Google Meet to guide them through setup or usage.
  • Track LTV, CSAT, or repeat purchase rates for those who opt in.
  • If it drives results, package it as a paid add-on at checkout or use it to surprise and delight key segments.
  • Use simple tools like Calendly and Typeform to automate scheduling and reduce lift on your team.

3. When in doubt, pick up the phone

Phone support is back, and it’s becoming one of the most effective ways to turn conversations into conversions.

Ren from TUSHY swears by it. Her team uses customer phone numbers from abandoned carts to reach out directly. “You can send a hundred emails,” she said, “but a voicemail from a real person cuts through the noise.” Even if customers don’t answer, the fact that a brand called is memorable, and often enough to drive them back to checkout.

Max Wallace, the Director of CX Tommy John echoed the value of voice. His team recently implemented Gorgias Voice, using it to track conversion rates by agent. That visibility helps them identify what top performers are doing differently and replicate it across the team. “By the end of a tough call, customers often apologize for how they started. You can’t get that kind of de-escalation over email.”

In a world where inboxes are crowded and chat fatigue is real, a real voice builds real trust and real revenue.

Steal this strategy

  • Start small: offer limited phone hours once your chat and email support are dialed in.
  • Use phone strategically—for abandoned cart outreach, stuck tickets, or VIP follow-ups.
  • Track call outcomes with tools like Gorgias Voice to see which agents are converting.
  • Train agents to de-escalate and personalize through roleplaying or AI-based call simulations. 

Pro Tip: Don’t rush into phone if your other channels aren’t dialed in. “Master email and chat first. Then, start with limited phone hours. Taste it before scaling it,” said Armani Taheri, the co-founder of TalentPop. 

4. Trust your team to use their judgment

For Max at Tommy John, revenue-driving support starts with two things: deep product knowledge and the freedom to bend the rules.

“We have five different fabrics for men’s underwear alone,” Max shared. To help customers choose the right one, agents need firsthand experience. That’s why Tommy John sends new products directly to the support team, so they can offer real, personalized recommendations like “Try Second Skin instead of Cool Cotton.”

But product knowledge is only half the equation. The other half is empowering agents to make judgment calls. Tommy John’s “Best Pair Guarantee” allows customers to try a product and get a refund or replacement if it’s not the right fit. 

Agents are trained to prioritize retention, offering replacements instead of refunds, recommending better-suited products, and using their own discretion to keep customers happy.

As Max put it, “We don’t have really strict policies… we want them to use their best judgment.” That confidence translates into smoother resolutions, more cross-sells, and customers who stick around.

Steal this strategy

  • Send new or popular products to your CX team so they can speak from firsthand experience.
  • Build simple product cheat sheets or comparison guides to help agents make tailored recommendations.
  • Give agents clear guidelines—but also the freedom to make judgment calls when it comes to refunds, replacements, or policy exceptions.
  • Let your team know it’s okay to “bend the rules” if it means keeping a customer happy.
  • Track outcomes like retention and CSAT to show how empowered agents directly impact loyalty and LTV.

5. Training teams to sell without the push

How do you train outsourced agents to drive revenue, without sounding like a sales team? According to Armani Taheri of TalentPop, it starts with confidence and context.

“You have to tailor-fit the training approach to each brand,” he explained. That means grounding agents in product knowledge, tone of voice, and customer journey before they ever interact with a shopper.

One of the most effective tactics is roleplaying. Armani’s team uses both live roleplays and AI-powered chat simulations to prepare agents for real conversations, pre-sales, post-sales, and everything in between. Tools like Replit and Lovable help create lightweight, brand-specific training environments agents can practice in at their own pace.

The goal isn’t to turn CX reps into hard sellers. It’s to give them the confidence and consistency to recognize revenue opportunities, and act on them in a natural, helpful way.

Steal this strategy

  • Start with the basics: make sure agents understand your product, tone of voice, and customer journey.
  • Roleplay low-pressure scenarios, then layer in more complex ones.
  • Try AI-powered training tools like Replit or Lovable to create brand-specific simulations agents can practice anytime.
  • Emphasize helpfulness over selling: coach agents to spot buying signals and offer value, not push products.
  • Review transcripts together to highlight great conversations and show how small shifts lead to better outcomes.

Tools to power your flywheel

Ready to turn your CX team into a revenue engine? Here are some of the tools mentioned by the panelists that help make it happen:

  • Gorgias Voice: Track revenue by agent, spot top performers, and improve conversion rates across the team.
  • Flip CX: Automate common phone interactions with AI-powered voice support.
  • Kixie: Drop voicemails, integrate with Klaviyo and Shopify, and build smart call queues for abandoned cart outreach.
  • Calendly + Typeform: Scrappy, low-lift tools for scheduling paid or free support calls that drive LTV.

Whether you're scaling phone support or experimenting with post-purchase outreach, the right tools make the flywheel spin faster.

Your CX team might be your best-kept sales secret

They’re on the front lines with your most engaged customers, answering questions, easing doubts, and uncovering what really drives purchases. With the right tools and training, they resolve tickets and help close the sale.

With tools like Gorgias Voice, it’s easier than ever to connect the dots between conversations and conversions.

Want to see how your CX team can help drive growth?

Book a demo to see how Gorgias Voice powers sales through support.

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Every Successful Marketing Campaign Starts with a Customer Question

By Holly Stanley
min read.
0 min read . By Holly Stanley

TL;DR:

  • Start with your CX team—they know what customers are asking. Their insights reveal what’s confusing, what’s converting, and what’s causing returns before marketing ever gets involved.
  • Turn pre-sale questions into better messaging. Use common support queries to improve landing pages, product descriptions, and emails so customers feel confident enough to convert.
  • Your best-performing products aren’t always the most hyped. Let real customer comments guide your messaging by identifying what people rave about in chats and reviews.
  • Customer confusion and returns usually stem from messaging gaps. Fix product pages, policies, and descriptions to better reflect what people need to know upfront.

Your CX team talks to customers every day. They know what’s confusing, driving purchases, and causing returns, because they hear it firsthand.

But all too often, those insights stay siloed in support tickets and live chat transcripts instead of informing the campaigns that shape the customer journey.

This post is here to change that. We’re breaking down the most valuable questions marketing teams should be asking their CX counterparts. When marketing and CX work together, you get more relevant messaging, smarter product positioning, and campaigns that convert.

Whether you’re planning a big seasonal push or just want to improve product education, this is where to start.

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1. What do customers ask about before buying?

Your CX team knows what makes shoppers hesitate. They’re the ones fielding questions like: Does this come in a larger size? Is it final sale? Will it arrive in time?

Beyond being pre-sale inquiries, they’re signals. They reveal what your customers care about most, and where your messaging may be falling short. When marketing teams tune into this, they can proactively address objections in landing pages, product detail pages (PDPs), emails, and top-of-funnel content.

AI Agent answers questions on email and chat.
No matter the product, Gorgias AI Agent can answer your shoppers’ questions right in chat.

At luxury jewelry store Jaxxon, Director of Customer Experience Caela Castillo saw firsthand how important it is to address these questions early. 

Chat used to be a support tool for repetitive questions and problem-solving, but now AI Agent takes care of that for us,” she said. Once those friction points were handled upfront, the CX team could focus on more meaningful conversations, and conversions improved.

And when AI recommended the wrong products? Conversions dropped. It was a clear signal that relevance matters, especially before the sale.

Ask your CX team:

“What do customers most often need to know before they buy, and how can we answer that earlier in the journey?”

2. What product do customers rave about—and why?

Your best-selling product isn’t always your hero product. Sometimes, it’s that under-the-radar item that customers can’t stop talking about. The one that shows up again and again in reviews, chats, and post-purchase surveys.

The insight is gold for marketers. The key is to find out why people love it. Is it the fit? The feel? The results?

At online fashion brand, Princess Polly, Alexandria shared that her team expected Gen Z shoppers to lean on AI for recs, but what really influenced them was customer feedback. Reviews, not bots, built trust. That’s why campaigns built around real customer language and experiences often outperform the most polished product copy.

Shopping Assistant can turn those rave reviews into real-time action. It highlights top products using your Shopify product catalog to make personalized recommendations, proactively assists shoppers by using behavior signals, and even offers tailored discounts when they’re ready to convert. That means less guesswork, greater relevance, and an easier path to purchase.

Ask your CX team:

“Which product do customers rave about most, and what exactly are they saying?”

3. What product causes the most complaints?

When customers are frustrated, it’s easy to blame the product. But in many cases, the issue isn’t quality, it’s communication.

At Shinesty, a men’s underwear brand, Molly Kerrigan, Senior Director of Retention, observed that high return rates often stemmed from unmet customer expectations

She noted the importance of maintaining clear and consistent communication as the company grows, “We get a lot of praise from our customers, and they talk highly of our CX team after 1:1 interactions. We can’t lose that as we scale.” 

Molly notes that using Gorgias AI Agent enables Shinesty’s customers to receive quick answers, freeing her team's time for more complex or sensitive issues.  

Similarly, Princess Polly saw that delivering a standout customer experience meant being fast, consistent, and helpful at every stage. After switching to Gorgias, their support performance improved dramatically:

  • 80% decrease in resolution time
  • 95% decrease in first response time
  • 40% increase in efficiency

Before changing the product, try updating the messaging. Use insights from CX to rewrite descriptions, add size guides, include user-generated content, or even build a quick-fit quiz. Small tweaks help set clearer expectations and reduce unnecessary returns.

Ask your CX team:

“Which products are driving the most complaints, and what do customers wish they knew before buying?”

4. What confuses customers the most?

Confusion is a conversion killer. If a customer isn’t sure about how something works, what’s included, or whether it’s right for them, they’re more likely to bounce.

That’s why it pays to ask your CX team where customers get stuck. Is it a product feature that needs more context? A vague store policy? A missing detail on a bundle?

The good news is that most confusion is fixable. Start with the following steps: 

  • Simplify your product pages
  • Add quick-hit FAQs to your emails
  • Use plain language and real examples

If you’re using Shopping Assistant, you can go even further. It can detect when shoppers are hesitant and provides real-time nudges. Like an assistant who knows all your needs, Shopping Assistant automatically surfaces the questions customers are likely to ask when evaluating a product, so they’re equipped with the clarity they need to proceed to checkout.

Gorgias Shopping Assistant can surface questions while shoppers browse and search for products.
Shopping Assistant uses a shopper’s browsing behavior to answer potential hesitations and questions automatically.

TUSHY, a modern bidet brand, faced similar challenges. As bidets aren't mainstream in North America, shoppers often had concerns about product compatibility and installation. They’d ask questions like:

  • Will a bidet fit my toilet?
  • Is installation complicated?
  • Which bidet is right for me?

Without immediate answers, many potential buyers would abandon their purchase. To address this, TUSHY implemented Shopping Assistant, providing instant support. Taking this approach resulted in an 81% higher chat conversion rate compared to human agents and a 13x return on investment.

“The Shopping Assistant has been a game-changer for our team, especially with the launch of our latest bidet models. Expanding our product catalog has given customers more choices than ever, which can overwhelm first-time buyers. Now, they’re increasingly looking to us for guidance on finding the right fit for their home and personal hygiene needs,” said Ren Fuller-Wasserman, Sr. Director of Customer Experience at TUSHY.  

Ask your CX team:

“Where do customers get confused most often—and how can we clear that up sooner?”

5. Which products are frequently bought together?

Your CX team picks up on patterns that analytics sometimes miss. They hear which items customers ask about in the same chat, which products get added to carts together, and which pairings people reorder time and time again.

That intel is a goldmine for bundling and upselling. It helps you build smarter campaigns that feel relevant and drive real value.

Zoe Kahn, owner of Inevitable Agency and former VP of Retention and CX at Audien Hearing, emphasizes the importance of using AI to enhance customer interactions.

“A lot of that revenue was potentially missed revenue because these were customers sitting on the site, asking questions about the products, and wanting an answer now so they could purchase…Now, AI can answer those questions immediately and convert those customers.”

With Shopping Assistant, you can act on these insights in real time. It will surface personalized product pairings, bundle suggestions, or accessories based on customer behavior. All before they hit the checkout page.

Shopping Assistant can detect shoppers' likelihood to convert
Shopping Assistant initiates relevant conversations by monitoring shopper behavior.

6. Which products lead to the most returns, and why?

Returns cut into your margins and chip away at trust. Most of the time, they’re not caused by poor-quality products. They happen because expectations weren’t met.

Your CX team already knows which items come back the most and why. Maybe the color doesn’t match the photos. Perhaps the fit runs small, or the product description left out a crucial detail. 

Instead of pushing the product harder, reframe how you present it. Add real customer photos. Include fit notes or a sizing chart. Call out anything that might surprise the customer post-purchase. A little clarity upfront goes a long way in reducing returns and boosting retention.

At Pepper, an intimates brand specializing in bras for small-chested bodies, they recognized the importance of pre-sale education. When customers have sizing questions, their AI Agent, Penelope, can provide immediate assistance.

“Penelope takes the information we give her and responds better than a Macro. She tailors it so that it sounds like a natural conversation between two people,” said Gabrielle McWhirter, CX Operations Lead at Pepper.

By proactively providing instant support, Pepper improved customer satisfaction and saw an 18% uplift in average order value.

Ask your CX team:

“Which products get returned the most—and what could we do upfront to change that?”

CX + marketing = smarter campaigns, better results

Before you launch your next campaign, start with a quick sync with your CX lead. They already know what your customers need to hear. You just have to ask.

From fixing messaging gaps to surfacing the right products at the right time, these insights help you connect with customers in personal, timely, and relevant ways.

Tools like Shopping Assistant make it easier than ever to act on this data in real time. You can turn CX knowledge into dynamic recommendations, personalized nudges, and smarter discounts.

Ready to see how you can improve your online shopping experience? Book a demo to see how Gorgias Shopping Assistant engages customers in real-time.

How to Use CX Data to Improve Marketing, Messaging & Conversions

By Alexa Hertel
min read.
0 min read . By Alexa Hertel

TL;DR:

  • Your support inbox is full of marketing gold. CX insights can sharpen messaging and inspire high-impact campaigns.
  • Ticket data unlocks smarter segmentation. Use support interactions to build more relevant, behavior-based audiences.
  • Chat campaigns work better with CX insights. Tackle objections in real time and lift conversions with proactive messages.
  • Use objection data to reduce drop-offs. Identify common blockers and address them in product pages, ads, and chat prompts.
  • Help Center stats guide better content. Turn top-searched questions into FAQs, landing pages, and ad copy.

Today’s best marketing starts with your customers.

According to Forrester’s 2024 research, “Customer-obsessed organizations reported 41% faster revenue growth, 49% faster profit growth, and 51% better customer retention than those at non-customer-obsessed organizations.”

Support teams interact with hundreds or thousands of customers every week, collecting valuable insights in the process. This voice of the customer (VOC) data is a goldmine for marketers, but it too often stays siloed among CX teams.

Ahead, we’ll break down how ecommerce brands can tap into CX insights to drive better marketing.

5 ways to use CX data to improve marketing

CX can play a crucial role in driving growth, but many brands aren’t leveraging it for marketing insights yet.

When connected to marketing, CX becomes a proactive engine that fuels better segmentation, sharper messaging, smarter campaigns, and more personalized content. 

Support functions collect objections, complaints, compliments, and pre-purchase questions. When you capture and apply those insights, your marketing can target the precise roadblocks—and key sales differentiators—customers care about.

Here’s how to turn CX insights into a high-impact marketing strategy, with real examples from brands using Gorgias.

  1. Leverage ticket insights to improve messaging
  2. Segment customers based on support interactions
  3. Launch more targeted chat campaigns
  4. Reduce drop-offs and abandoned carts
  5. Monitor Help Center and Dashboard stats to craft smarter content

1) Leverage ticket insights to improve messaging 

When you want to sharpen your brand messaging, there’s no better place to look than your support inbox. Your support inbox is a rich resource full of information specific to your brand and your customers. 

Tools like Gorgias Ticket Insights help surface recurring themes, top questions, and friction points across all conversations. By analyzing these patterns, marketers can identify the exact words customers use to describe problems, questions, or product feedback and then reflect that language across ads, landing pages, and emails.

How to implement 

Spikes in tickets around specific topics (sizing, shipping timelines, and materials, for example) are insights marketers can use to update and improve corresponding content. 

This can increase confidence and conversion on key pages. 

By incorporating the same terminology and phrasing customers use in support conversations, brands can also increase resonance across ads, emails, and social media. Messaging that mirrors the customer’s language builds trust and helps audiences feel understood. 

Ask your CX team 💬 What product issues or themes have emerged this quarter?

A line graph showing trends in topics mentioned in tickets. Mentions about damage, refunds, and replacements are displayed.

For example, cordless heating cushion brand Stoov® used Ticket Fields in Gorgias to understand and resolve a ticket spike. By figuring out that some customers were dissatisfied with the battery life of its core product offering, the team was able to add an optional upsell. For €20, shoppers now have the option to purchase a larger battery. 

The results were meaningful: the brand saw 50% of customers opt for this battery, resulting in a 10% increase in average order value (AOV). And while the team saw a significant increase in revenue, they saw no increase in support ticket volume. 

2) Segment customers based on support interactions

Most marketers rely on transactional data—like past purchases or time since last order—to build audience segments. But support data reveals a whole new layer of context: behavior, concerns, sentiment, and urgency.

Tools like Gorgias’s Ticket Insights and Ticket Fields allow CX teams to customize different properties attached to tickets. Agents can fill these out to capture data more accurately. 

Here’s how these types of tools work: tickets come with a mandatory field for return reasons, product feedback, contact reason, etc. Before the agent closes the ticket, they use a dropdown menu to fill out the ticket field. 

How to implement 

Studying support interactions helps answer key questions around why customers are getting in touch. This data can provide marketing teams with a way to build smarter segments for campaigns or personalized journeys.

For example, if one product is getting a large amount of inquiries, marketing teams could segment customers interested in those products and launch pre-sales education campaigns.

Fashion brand Psycho Bunny switched from Zendesk to Gorgias to improve access to reporting tools that surfaced customer patterns and support trends. 

“By cross-referencing our Gorgias data with insights around basket size, product performance, and store performance, we can inform broader business decisions. For example, we can see if a certain store location generated more tickets or how many incoming queries are about a certain product,” says Jean-Aymeri de Magistris, VP IT, Data & Analytics, and PMO at Psycho Bunny.

By integrating insights like these with marketing workflows, teams can build more relevant segments that improve retention and engagement.

Ask your CX team 💬 Which customer segments are most likely to churn or repurchase?

3) Launch more targeted chat campaigns

Chat campaigns are proactive messages that trigger based on real-time behavior and context. You can use CX trends to design campaigns that directly address common objections, answer FAQs, or deliver tailored offers.

How to implement 

Start by reviewing your most common pre-purchase questions with your CX team. Then, create chat prompts that address those concerns exactly where they arise. For example, a sizing guide prompt on product pages or a shipping FAQ in the cart. 

Make sure your message feels helpful and not overly salesy. Conversational AI assistants like AI Agent can also tailor responses in real-time, helping customers get what they need without leaving the page.

Pepper product page showing wireless bras with a customer support chat box.
Intimates brand Pepper uses AI Agent to provide chat to help answer FAQs while customers shop.

Pepper, a size-inclusive bra brand, put this into practice by combining their AI Agent (named Penelope) with targeted chat campaigns to guide shoppers through one of their most common friction points: sizing. Thanks to insights from their support team, Pepper created messaging that helped customers find the right fit instantly. The result was an 18% uplift in average order value. 

“With AI Agent, we’re not just putting information in our customers’ hands; we’re putting bras in their hands. With Penelope on board, we’re turning customer support from a cost center to a revenue generator,” says Gabrielle McWhirter, CX Operations Lead at Pepper. 

Ask your CX team 💬 How are customers reacting to recent promotions or launches?

4) Reduce drop-offs and abandoned carts

When shoppers hesitate at checkout, it’s often because they don’t have the information they need.

Tapping into support conversations allows CX teams to identify common objections. They can then share those insights with marketing to refine product messaging, improve product pages, ads, and marketing campaigns.

How to implement 

Use customer service data to identify the top three objections customers have before converting. These might be concerns about sizing, compatibility, delivery time, or product setup. Then, pair that knowledge with a proactive AI sales tool like Shopping Assistant to offer timely answers that move shoppers closer to purchase.

For example, TUSHY, a modern bidet company, found that many prospective customers were hesitant because they weren’t sure how difficult the installation would be. By using a real-time shopping assistant to address these concerns directly on-site, TUSHY was able to guide shoppers past uncertainty.

TUSHY uses AI Agent helping a customer install an electric bidet on a skirted toilet.
TUSHY’S AI Agent can sense when a customer lingers for a while on a page, and offers help to guide them to checkout.

Ask your CX team 💬 What are the top three reasons customers contact us before they buy?

5) Monitor Help Center and Dashboard stats to craft smarter content

If you want to know what content your customers actually need, your Help Center holds the answers. Real customer questions are found right in Help Center search queries and article analytics.

By tracking which articles are most viewed, most searched, and most frequently updated, marketers can spot common knowledge gaps and fill them with high-value content.

How to implement 

Start by reviewing your Help Center Statistics to see which articles are performing well, which ones are underutilized, and what terms customers are searching for. 

If an article about “returns policy” is getting a spike in views, that’s your cue to simplify the policy or preempt questions with a dedicated email campaign. Marketing teams could also use this insight to build FAQ-rich landing pages, preempt questions in email flows, or even turn top-performing help content into organic blog posts or performance ad copy.

Dashboard showing support metrics by channel and ticket response performance.
Set up your Gorgias Dashboard based on your goals.

You can also use Gorgias's Dashboard to spot emerging trends across all your channels. This custom reporting feature lets you choose from various charts that reveal high-level patterns—like the most common contact reasons or sudden spikes in ticket volume—giving marketers early insight into shifting customer sentiment and trending topics across social platforms.

Ask your CX team 💬 Which articles in our Help Center are most searched right now?

Find alignment between CX and marketing teams

When support and marketing teams collaborate, you unlock a cycle of continuous improvement. CX teams surface the insights, marketing turns them into strategy, and both sides drive measurable results.

Here’s how to make it work:

  • Set up recurring syncs between CX and marketing teams to review insights from customer service reports.
  • Involve support in campaign planning to consider what customer objections might come up. 
  • Encourage CX to tag tickets based on themes or behavior that marketing can act on.

Unlock revenue by listening to your customers

We need to reframe CX as a proactive function that drives revenue.

Support teams already have the answers marketers are searching for. You just need the tools to tap into them. Gorgias makes that easy, with flexible reporting features, powerful AI, automated tagging, and integrations that bridge the gap between CX and marketing.

Want to connect your support data to better marketing?

Explore Gorgias’s analytics tools or book a demo to speak to a product expert about how to integrate your support strategy with marketing.

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Stop Resolving These 7 Tickets Manually (Use AI Agent Actions Instead)

By Christelle Agustin
min read.
0 min read . By Christelle Agustin

TL;DR:

  • Actions are tasks automatically performed by AI Agent for customers. From address changes and subscription pauses to order cancellations, Actions can fulfill requests for your customers, even when your human agents are offline.
  • Actions connect directly to your ecommerce apps. Currently, Actions have native integrations with Shopify, ShipMonk, ShipHero, ShipStation, Stay AI, Recharge, Loop, Subscriptions by Loop, Skio, Seal Subscriptions, and Wonderment.
  • Use pre-built Actions or build your own. There are 12 Action templates available, or you can build Actions using custom HTTP requests.
  • Watch out for setup snags. Conflicting Guidance, multiple matching Actions, older orders, or broken logic can block an Action from executing.

Automated responses don’t actually resolve anything. In reality, they increase customer wait time.

What a customer really wants is immediate resolution, whether they’re looking to cancel an order, change a shipping address, or pause a subscription.

So, how do you go beyond automated text responses? AI Agent Actions. 

Below, we’ll go over the 7 most common customer service requests you can resolve with AI Agent Actions, so your team gets time back to strengthen customer relationships, increase revenue, and improve your CX strategy. 

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What are AI Agent Actions?

AI Agent Actions are tasks AI Agent can complete for your customers, such as canceling an order or updating a shipping address. 

Instead of handing it off to a human agent, AI Agent resolves the ticket by connecting to your ecommerce apps and performing the action on its own.

You get maximum control over when and how Actions are executed. Before performing the Action, AI Agent asks customers for confirmation, respecting your processes and maintaining a high level of customer service. Once an Action has been taken, you can even share feedback with your AI Agent to reinforce its behavior or finetune it further.

How AI Agent works: Guidance, knowledge sources, and Actions.

Pro Tip: Unlike Guidance, which tells AI Agent how to respond in a conversation, Actions determine what happens. It’s the difference between saying “I’ll refund your order” and doing it.

Related: How AI Agent works & gathers data

Top 7 customer requests you should be automating with AI Agent Actions

Ready to resolve requests in seconds? Activate these pre-built Actions in Gorgias to keep your team efficient and your customers happy. 

Gorgias provides 12 Action templates. You can also create your own custom Actions.
Choose from 12 Action templates which you can edit to fit your workflow. You can even create custom Actions.

1. Customer wants to update their shipping address

Action to use: Update shipping address

Supported apps: Shopify, ShipMonk, ShipHero, ShipStation

Incorrect shipping addresses lead to costly re-shipments, delays, and even refunds. Catch errors early to keep customers satisfied and excited about their order.

AI Agent can update shipping addresses for customers.
AI Agent can update shipping addresses for customers without handing it off to a human agent.

Why do you need this Action? 

The reality is your agents aren’t available 24/7. Unless you hire a team to cover night and weekend shifts (which is unlikely), requests will be missed. AI Agent fills in that gap, handling time-sensitive issues when your team is off the clock. Missing them isn’t just about poor customer experience—it can also lead to extra costs, like reshipping orders.

2. Customer wants to cancel an order

Action to use: Cancel order 

Supported apps: Shopify, ShipMonk, ShipHero, ShipStation

Perhaps a customer ordered the wrong item, chose the wrong size, used the wrong card, or simply changed their mind. Allow them to quickly cancel their order and receive a refund in one go.

AI Agent cancels an order for a customer.
AI Agent can autonomously cancel an order for a customer.
“Actions responds to tickets within about 30 seconds and is available 24/7. Regardless of when a customer places their order, the likelihood of quickly catching and canceling the order has increased by 70% since we started using Actions. It’s an exceptional result."

—Jon Clare, VP of Customer Service at Trove Brands

3. Customer wants to replace/remove an item in their order

Actions to use: 

  • Replace item, or 
  • Remove item

Supported app: Shopify

It happens—shoppers order the wrong size or color and want to change their order immediately. Regardless of the reason, make their new decision easy to implement. Quick, accessible order updates prevent returns, lost revenue, and, most importantly, customer disappointment.

Here’s what the replace order item setup looks like in Gorgias:

Replace order Action settings in Gorgias
Before AI Agent can replace an item, it checks to make sure the order is unfulfilled.

Pro Tip: If you have unique workflows, you can create advanced, multi-step Actions and connect to your tools beyond our default integrations. This option requires some tech know-how (like custom HTTP requests), so feel free to bring in your developers for assistance.

4. Customer wants to skip or pause a shipment

Actions to use:

  • Skip next subscription shipment, or
  • Pause subscription

Supported apps: Stay AI, Recharge, Subscriptions by Loop, Skio, Seal Subscriptions

Subscriptions shouldn’t be all or nothing. Let customers skip a shipment or pause their subscription, so they can come back when they’re ready. Giving them full control lets them manage their subscription on their own terms, reducing churn rate in the process.

Here’s how AI Agent handles a skip shipment request: 

AI Agent asking a customer to confirm that they want to skip a subscription shipment.
AI Agent asks for confirmation before skipping a customer’s shipment.

5. Customer lost or damaged their order in transit

Action to use: Reship order for free

Supported apps: Shopify, ShipMonk

No customer expects a lost or damaged order. Let customers know that you have their backs by reshipping a new order free of charge. Fast resolutions during unexpected events demonstrate your commitment to customer satisfaction.

“An instant response builds confidence. We live in a world with short attention spans, so customers appreciate how quickly we can respond to their inquiries. Customers aren’t worrying unnecessarily for longer than they have to for an address change or order cancellation.”

—Mia Chapa, Sr. Director of Customer Experience at Glamnetic

6. Customer wants to know their return shipping status

Action to use: Send return shipping status 

Supported app: Loop

Customers want to know that their return package is on its way to you, so they can redeem their refund. Easily send them a shipment tracking link to give them that peace of mind.

7. Customer wants to know about order status

Action to use: Get order info 

Supported apps: Shopify, ShipHero, ShipMonk, ShipStation, ShipBob, Wonderment

Based on Gorgias data, order status ranks among customers' top 10 questions for support teams. Reassure your customers with quick updates on their orders, including product details, shipping progress, expected delivery date, and other helpful information.

What to know before turning on Actions

Here are a few helpful setup tips to make sure Actions run without a hitch:

  • Guidance can override Actions. If conflicting Guidance exists, it may prevent an Action from triggering, even when all conditions are met. Review your Guidance to avoid overlaps, or write your logic into the Action description instead.
  • Any Action that changes data requires shopper confirmation. Actions like canceling orders, updating addresses, or canceling subscriptions mean AI Agent will always ask the shopper to confirm before making a change.
  • Currently, only one Action can run per ticket. If multiple Actions qualify, none will run, and the ticket will be handed off. Use conditions carefully to ensure only one Action matches per use case.
  • AI Agent can only access the shopper’s last 10 orders. If the customer references an older order, the Action won’t trigger and the ticket will be handed over for manual handling.

AI Agent Actions speak louder than words

If you want…

  • Fewer repetitive tickets
  • Faster customer support
  • Happier customers who get what they need instantly
  • More time for your team to strategize
  • Lower costs and higher efficiency

AI Agent Actions can get you there.

You’ve now seen how Actions can resolve tickets in a snap—no unnecessary handoffs, canned responses, or long response times.

Book a demo to see AI Agent Actions work in real time and start automating what you shouldn’t be doing manually anymore.

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

By Holly Stanley
min read.
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. 

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

By Tina Donati
min read.
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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