Orthofeet Took a Step in the Right Direction by Automating 56% of Tickets in 2 Months With Gorgias

Challenge: Orthofeet’s CX team was juggling Freshdesk, Dialpad, and an outsourced team, none of which integrated well with Shopify. Managing thousands of weekly calls and hundreds of emails from customers with specific, health-related questions was overwhelming. They needed to scale support without growing headcount, while maintaining high-quality care.

Solution: By switching to Gorgias, Orthofeet replaced multiple tools with one centralized platform and automated 56% of support tickets in under two months. With full visibility into each customer’s order history and conversations, agents respond faster, provide more personalized recommendations, and drive more revenue, especially through live phone support.

About Orthofeet

Orthofeet is the largest provider of orthopedic footwear in the United States, and sells globally through wholesale, retail, and ecommerce channels. 

The footwear brand was founded in 1984 by a war veteran who lost the lower part of his leg. Orthofeet’s founder became a biomedical engineer to develop products to manage his own pain and then quickly expanded to help others. 

Today, Orthofeet alleviates pain for millions of people who are managing mobility issues or simply looking for the most comfortable pair of shoes they can find. 

The challenge: A siloed CX stack that didn’t scale efficiently

Before onboarding Gorgias, Orthofeet used Freshdesk, Dialpad, and social media platforms to manage its CX, alongside a third-party offshore team that handled live chats. “Our outsourced team did not have access to all of our platforms, which limited the level of support they could provide customers,” says Christine Diliello, Customer Service Manager at Orthofeet. 

Since none of the platforms integrated with each other or with Shopify, Orthfeet’s agents worked exclusively on one platform – designated agents for emails, chat, and phone, creating silos within the department. 

“We wanted to move all of our CX in-house and consolidate our platforms to improve efficiency, costs, and the consistency of providing customers with the right information every time.”

—Christine Diliello, Customer Service Manager at Orthofeet

Orthofeet has continuously scaled, achieving double-digit growth each year within the last five years. But as Orthofeet acquires new customers, the level of incoming tickets increases with it. 

New customers come with more questions about everything from finding the right shoes to international shipping policies.

“Four years ago, we had a team of six people managing both retail and wholesale. On a typical Monday, we would receive up to 1,400 calls, which was extremely difficult to manage.”

—Christine Diliello, Customer Service Manager at Orthofeet

Orthofeet’s CX team needed a scalable way to handle the increased ticket and phone backlog with care, without increasing headcount costs.  

The solution: One sole platform for efficiency, automation, and scalability

Orthofeet turned to Gorgias to unify their CX stack, automate routine tickets, and scale support without adding headcount. This gave their team more bandwidth to focus on quality conversations and revenue-generating opportunities. 

Consolidating for an all-in-one platform with Shopify at the center

After years of juggling multiple tabs and platforms, Orthofeet’s CX team immediately saw the value Gorgias brought as a consolidated, all-in-one platform.

For the first time, agents had complete visibility into a customer’s data, including their past conversation across phone, email, chat, and social channels as well as their Shopify order history. 

“With Gorgias, all of the information from our central ecommerce platform, Shopify, is just a click away. We don’t have to have multiple tabs open, it’s right there.”

—Courtney Bajek, Customer Service Lead at Orthofeet

Christine walks us through the benefits the team has seen since migrating, “Within a week, the team saw the advantage of Gorgias. For example, they can quickly access the Shopify order in the same view to check for a return and see the customer's history.” 

The efficiencies are particularly beneficial when customers reach out across multiple channels. “If the customer had called and spoken to someone else, agents can see what they talked about, read the AI call summary, and have the context they need.” 

AI that sounds human and resolves customer inquiries when it counts

Once Orthofeet migrated to Gorgias, they began leveraging AI Agent to automate routine inquiries around the clock. Since AI Agent can access Shopify order data, it autonomously handles repetitive tickets like order tracking or return requests. 

“AI Agent can automatically detect if a customer wants to start or check the status of a return. It sends the return portal link so that the customer can self-serve their return much faster than waiting in the queue, especially if they message us outside of business hours.”

—Courtney Bajek, Customer Service Lead at Orthofeet

In this example, AI Agent uses the customer’s order number to confirm their return eligibility based on Guidance on Orthofeet’s return policy. It provides the return portal link and clearly instructs the customer on how to proceed with the return.  

With AI Agent handling tier 1 support requests, Orthofeet’s team has more time to handle more nuanced queries, support customers over the phone, or dedicate time to VIP customers. 

As a brand serving customers with specific mobility and health needs, Orthofeet initially wondered whether AI would feel impersonal or limiting. Instead, customers quickly embraced the experience and found it genuinely helpful.

One customer even sent a handwritten card expressing that Orthofeet had “the very best/friendliest/most helpful/respectful AI system that I’ve ever dealt with!” 

Efficiency that saves time, headcount, and operational costs  

Orthofeet is a fast-growing business with revenue consistently increasing by +10% year-over-year, bringing a higher volume of email, chat, and phone tickets with it. Gorgias made it possible to manage this increase with the same headcount, without sacrificing quality. 

Before Gorgias, Courtney shared that the team responsible for emails would log in on Monday to “anywhere from 600 to 1,000 emails at the start of the day.” Sometimes, it could take them up to a week to clear the backlog. 

Since onboarding Gorgias, the same team only faces 200 to 300 tickets on a Monday morning. “By Tuesday, we’re often down to 50 tickets,” Courtney shares. 

“Gorgias has allowed us to focus on providing much better responses to our customers while the business grows, as opposed to just hiring 10 more agents to keep up.”

—Christine Diliello, Customer Service Manager at Orthofeet

The combination of Gorgias’s integrated platform and automation allows Orthofeet to operate with a lean team while simultaneously providing faster response times for customers. 

Prior to Gorgias, the CX team had SLAs of 24-hour response times for emails and 2-3 minutes on chat. Thanks to Gorgias’s AI Agent, first response times have dropped to 35 seconds for emails and 13 seconds for chat. 

“Typically, we would have to hire more agents on the phone to manage the thousands of weekly calls, or pay agents overtime wages during holidays and peak periods. With Gorgias, we’ve improved our SLAs by 50% while maintaining a similar headcount.”

—GianKarlo Casimiro, VP of Ecommerce at Orthofeet 

Turning phone support into a revenue stream

Many of the shoppers in Orthofeet’s target demographic prefer to ask product and support questions over the phone since they’re addressing very personal questions surrounding mobility issues, pain management, and comfort. 

Adopting Gorgias Voice, seamlessly integrated with customers’ conversation and order history, enables agents to tailor each call to the customer’s needs and preferences. Each call is an opportunity for the agent to build a relationship, establish trust, and offer live personalized recommendations that genuinely help the customer. 

The increased efficiency from automation also gives agents more time to spend on each call – they can explain each shoe’s benefits in more detail, tailor recommendations based on the customer’s main concern, and upsell or cross-sell in real-time. 

“We primarily sell online, but about 10% of our sales happen over the phone. Gorgias Voice has empowered the agents to give the proper recommendations live to the customer.”

—GianKarlo Casimiro, VP of Ecommerce at Orthofeet 

The results: Surpassing automation targets with 50 in 50 success

Orthofeet’s CX team set out to hit 30% automation in 30 days. Instead, they nearly doubled that goal, reaching 56% automation in less than two months. The team worked with Gorgias’s implementation team through the 50 in 50 program – automating 50% of tickets in less than 50 days. 

With Gorgias, Orthofeet achieved improvements in its support, like: 

• 56% of tickets automated, freeing agents to focus on complex, high-value conversations
• 99.96% decrease in email first response time, from 24 hours to 35 seconds
• 92.8% decrease in chat first response times, from 3 minutes to 13 seconds
• +50% fewer weekend tickets thanks to AI Agent, slashing Monday backlogs

Gorgias also unlocked cost savings and revenue impact for the overall business:  

• Double-digit business growth YoY, while maintaining headcount
• 12% conversion rate on phone calls /OR/ $300K/month earned by CX over phone

“When we first started with Gorgias, our goal was to hit 30% automation in 30 days. We surpassed that and are now above 50% automation, and we’re still climbing.”

—Courtney Bajek, Customer Service Lead at Orthofeet

Next steps: Introducing Shopping Assistant to provide personalized sales assistance 24/7

Orthofeet is excited to launch the Shopping Assistant to replicate their personalized phone support at scale. Even outside of business hours, Shopping Assistant will be able to answer customers’ hyper-personal pre-sales questions about finding the best orthopedic shoes for their needs. 

Customers can ask for product recommendations based on their mobility issues, and Shopping Assistant will surface relevant shoe suggestions based on the customer’s purchase history, browsing behavior, and other contextual factors. 

“We view every customer interaction as a chance to make a sale, and we feel that the Gorgias Shopping Assistant is going to enable us to do that.”

—GianKarlo Casimiro, VP of Ecommerce at Orthofeet 

Inspired by Orthofeet’s efficiency gains? Book a demo to see how Gorgias can help you automate support and drive revenue through CX.