What if you could deflect a third of your support tickets, automatically, without any agent interaction? With customer self-service and automation, thats possible. I see it all the time with our customers at Gorgias.
Customer support doesn't always have to mean direct communication with support agents. A healthy support organization also leverages self-service to help customers answer their own questions without waiting for (or dealing with) an agent. On top of helping customers, self-service also reduces ticket volume and first-response time for your support team.
Self-service isnt just a nice-to-have: 88% of customers in the United States expect company websites to offer a customer self-service portal according to a 2022 survey from Statista. Below, we'll explore the definition and types of customer self-service, the advantages of offering a suite of self-service options, and the best practices to help you meet customer expectations.
What is customer self-service?
Customer self-service is a combination of technology and resources that let customers resolve issues on their own. If a customer answers a question or resolves an issue using resources your company provides (and without messaging your support team), theyve successfully used self-service.
For example, a customer finding an answer to their question on your website's FAQ page is an instance of customer self-service. Getting information about your orders status from a chatbot is another. Even though the customer technically receives AI assistance in this second instance, it still counts as self-service because a human support agent isnt involved.
Does self-service work?
It's fair to wonder whether static resources will actually improve your brand's customer support and ultimately improve customer satisfaction.
But according to our research at Gorgias, customers with a robust mix of self-service and automation options deflect up to a third of tickets automatically. So theres no doubt about the benefit to your business.
And keep in mind, most customer issues are not overly unique or complex. Your support teams time isnt optimized if they spend a third of the day answering "how do I track my order?" and "how do I return a product?" And your customers time isnt optimized if these questions get routed through a human agent, since they now have to wait for the agents response.
Your customers dont care how they get their answers, they just want them now.
The 9 main types of customer self-service
Customer self-service channels can come in several different forms. While some of these self-service options are more popular than others, its typically best to create a self-service portal that offers multiple support options. With that said, here are the four most beneficial types of self-service tools for ecommerce stores.
Editors note: We developed a scoring method to represent the difficulty of setting up each method of self-service, as well as the volume of tickets each method usually deflects. More determined faces () indicates that the form of self-service is more difficult and labor-intensive to set up. Lots of tickets ( ) means that the form of self-service will likely deflect a high volume of tickets. Five emojis is the max for both scores.
FAQ page
Difficulty: /5
Ticket deflection: /5
A frequently asked questions (FAQ) page is a great place to start your self-service efforts. These pages list common customer questions that your brand receives, along with answers to each. FAQ pages typically answer straightforward questions that don't require in-depth explanation.
FAQ pages may be simple, but they are incredibly effective. Given that simple questions can eat up a lot of your support team's time, a single FAQ page can do wonders for reducing support ticket volume. If youre ready to deflect even more tickets, build out your FAQ page into a full-blown help center a series of FAQ pages organized into searchable categories. More on help centers below.
Quick win to get started: Create a page that lists the five questions that usually fill up your support inbox and answer them fully. If you don't have an FAQpage, use our FAQtemplate generator to get started.
FAQ page example:
Brmates FAQ page powered by Gorgias is a great example of an eye-catching, organized, and easy-to-navigate FAQ page. Brmate even separates its FAQs into multiple categories, making it much easier for customers to find what theyre looking for. And they include top articles that would be helpful for specific, common questions.
 [Brumate]Brmate
|
Knowledge base
Difficulty: /5
Tickets deflected: /5
A knowledge base is a digital library of customer support content. Written knowledge base articles (or technical documents) are most common, but a knowledge base can include video and audio files as well. This is the natural evolution of your FAQ page.
At Gorgias, we call knowledge bases help centers, and they can end up looking a lot like a company blog (with some important differences). For one, the resources in a knowledge base are specifically geared toward resolving customer issues rather than for general information. An effective knowledge base should also be searchable (or, at the very least, organized and broken into specific categories) so customers can find the answers they need without wading through page after page of irrelevant content.
Quick win to get started: Create a page that lists the ten questions that usually fill up your support inbox and answer them fully.
Knowledge base example
Branchs help center is a great example of a knowledge base that provides everything customers need (and nothing they dont). Its categorized by type of customer question, and even includes a section for the most popular FAQs.
Because this help center is set up on Gorgias, Branch shoppers can also track their packages, alert Branch of any issues, or even start a chat or email all from the help centers main page. Its a one-stop shop for customers who want to find their own answers.
 [Branch]Branch
|
Self-service flows
Difficulty (without Gorgias): /5
Difficulty (with Gorgias): /5
Ticket deflected: /5
Self-service flows and customer service portals have been around for a while, and they can be hugely helpful, both for ticket deflection and user experience. Unfortunately, many of the existing ones are difficult to set up and require a login, creating a lot of friction for the customer.
Gorgiass self-service flows give customers exactly what theyre looking for, nothing more. With seamless verification and an easy transition to a live agent when requested, these flows can automatically deflect a third of your support tickets (while providing customers efficient, low-effort service).
 [Gorgias self-service flows]Gorgias
|
Quick win to get started: Set up Gorgias native self-service flows on the default settings and track how many tickets are deflected. (Deflecting order status requests can handle 15%, alone.)
Self-service flow example
Unlike a chatbot, which mimics a human agent, self-service flows use menus. They are easy to navigate and make it clear to the customer that they arent yet interacting with an agent.
Our default self-service options are:
- Track an order
- Return an order
- Cancel an order
- Report an issue with an order
And if the customer needs help at any time, they can bring an agent into the conversation seamlessly.
Chatbots
Difficulty: /5
Tickets deflected: /5
Unlike live chat, chatbot software doesnt require human interaction at least at first. Instead, chatbot software connects customers with a chatbot that uses AI and machine learning to provide natural language answers to common questions. Unlike self-service flows, chatbots aim to mimic human agents.
Chatbots solve less complex issues and provide quick answers to your customers. And if you combine it with live chat, staffed by agents, you or your shoppers can easily tag in a human support agent for conversations that need a human touch.
Quick win to get started: It can be difficult to set up a chatbot, but integrating a pre-built chatbot like Ada (which works with Gorgias) can be a huge time saver.
Chatbot conversation example
If your customer breezes by your self-service flows and still wants to know the status of their order, theres still no reason to waste an agents time. Set up a chatbot (Gorgias makes this possible through an integration with Ada) or configure a custom automation Rule (see below) as a second line of defense before an agent receives the question.
Custom automation workflows
Difficulty: /5
Tickets deflected: /5
Questions that cant be answered through self-service flows and chatbot conversations can usually be handled by an automation Rule. Rules are another line of defense against the repetitive requests that eat up your agents time.
In most platforms, Rules follow a specific logic to make building them easier. And in Gorgias, they can include templated Macro responses that bring in customer and order information automatically, deflecting tickets without an agents attention.
If you get a simple question over and over, consider setting up a Rule to deflect that kind of ticket.
Quick win to get started: If you already have self-service flows set up, trigger an automated answer to Where is my order? for customers that bypass them.
Automation Rule example
One powerful automation Rule that isnt covered in self-service is a triage Rule that prioritizes tickets and sends them to the right teams while also sending a message to the customer that the team will be with them shortly.
This Rule can also take advantage of Gorgias unique sentiment and intent detection, which can process and tag your ticket automatically. The algorithms are quite precise after training on hundreds of millions of ecommerce tickets.
At Gorgias, we offer 24/7 support and dedicated managers who will help you get custom rules set up for these specific use cases.
Heres what the Rule would look like when youre building it:
Check out our guide to ecommerce email marketing automation to learn how automated emails can help you get customers, not just provide great service.
An informative blog
Difficulty: /5
Tickets deflected: /5 (but good for SEO/marketing)
A blog is a valuable marketing tool for ecommerce brands (and something that is sure to boost your website's SEO). And populating it with well-written, informative content can also be a great way to empower customers to resolve issues on their own.
Asking customers to search your blog for the answers that they need might not be the most straightforward approach to customer support. But an informative blog can certainly be a valuable self-service tool when combined with other tools such as a knowledge base that organizes your blog articles in a way that makes it easier for customers to search.
At the very least, an informative blog will proactively educate your customers, even if it's not the first resource they turn to when they are having issues. Remember: an educated customer base is likely to experience issues less frequently.
Quick win to get started: Blogs arent about quick wins they are long-term investments that only pay dividends over time, with consistent publishing. If you arent fully committed, hold off on the blog until you have more resources.
Blog example
Spoonful of Comfort is a great example of an ecommerce brand using its blog to find new buyers and serve current customers. The company sells care packages and uses the blog to (among other things) give customers ideas about what to send for specific situations like when someones in the hospital for Christmas.
 [Spoonful of Comfort]Spoonful of Comfort
|
Forums and communities
Difficulty: /5
Ticket deflection: /5
Most people don't consider browsing online forums as a customer service experience, but many companies host forums as a layer of self-service. Online forums allow customers to collaborate to resolve issues.
Once these communications between customers are live, future shoppers experiencing the same issue can see the solution. In other words, forums can serve as a shopper-generated knowledge base populated with support content your company doesn't even have to create.
Forums are more than a customer self-service strategy: they are also a great way to encourage a sense of community among your customers. That said, consider appointing a forum moderator to keep your forums a friendly, welcoming, and informative space.
Quick win to get started: Create a Facebook or Reddit community. Or show up consistently on existing forums dedicated to your space (or brand).
Forum example
Fitbit has an excellent forum called Fitbit Community. The forum is broken down in many ways: a section for each Fitbit device, features, challenges, and so on. Fitbit users respond to questions and can vote on the best answers.
 [Fitbit]Fitbit Community
|
If you want to get started without setting up forum infrastructure on your website, you can start a community on Reddit, Facebook, or a similar social media site to provide similar support. For example, Gorgias has a community where customers help each other and share ideas, and our support team monitors it to step in and add value.
How-to content or online webinars
Difficulty: /5
Tickets deflected: /5
How-to videos and online webinars can be an excellent way to educate your customers with step-by-step tutorials on the proper use of your brand's products. Customer education is especially relevant for companies in the SaaS space, where confusing or complex software can get in the way of customer adoption.
By saving recordings of your webinars so that they are accessible to anyone who visits your knowledge base, you can double your webinars value first as a lead magnet for those who choose to view the webinar live, and then as a permanent piece of support content future customers can access at any time.
Quick win to get started: Record a welcome video that serves as a product introduction and tour of the main features. Track views and other types of engagement to see if its resonating.
Webinar example
ActiveCampaign is a great example of a company that uses webinars to teach customers how to use its products. The above link goes to a page where ActiveCampaign aggregates all of their past webinars in specific categories and shares information on how to attend upcoming webinars live.
 [ActiveCampaign]ActiveCampaign
|
In-product tutorials
Difficulty: /5
Tickets deflected: /5
If you are a software company, in-app tutorials are one of the easiest ways to streamline your onboarding, reduce initial churn, and reduce your support costs.
In-app walkthroughs are powerful because they appear when theyre needed. Webinars, by contrast, are great for in-depth walkthroughs, but customers have to find the webinar when they need it. Many wont know they exist. In-app tutorials provide guidance automatically, at the ideal moment, to help your users understand how to get value out of your product.
Quick win to get started: Create an onboarding tutorial that guides new users around your platform, highlighting common tools to get started (and shepherding the user away from advanced features they can wait to discover). Candu and Appcues are our favorite tools for in-product training.
In-product tutorial example
We created in-app tutorials for Gorgias to strengthen our new-user journey, improve product adoption, and scale our onboarding efforts. When users log on or navigate to certain pages for the first time, a step-by-step tutorial appears to help them with setup.
{{lead-magnet-1}}
7 best practices for excellent customer self-service
Customer self-service is powerful, but requires a well-thought-out approach. If you would like to start empowering your customers to solve issues on their own, here are the seven most helpful customer self-service best practices to follow.
1) Aim for one-click resolution
Chatbots are a perfect example of self-service taking too many steps and turning customers against the concept. While there are chatbots that streamline the experience like Ada, which integrates with Gorgias may lead customers on a multi-message journey that leaves them begging for a live agent.
Anything more than a few clicks is a suboptimal customer experience. Thats why Gorgias starts with self-service flows as the first line of defense. These menus are clearly self-service (whereas a chatbot imitates a real agent) and lead customers to the solutions theyre looking for in one click, in many cases.
 [image]Gorgias
|
2) Start with your frequently asked questions
A knowledge base is one of the easiest options to start executing a customer self-service strategy, and that starts with a strong FAQ page. Compared to managing a community forum or routinely publishing blog posts, an FAQ page is a very light lift. It's also a resource that your customers are sure to find helpful since an FAQ page necessarily addresses the most common questions your customers ask.
Before you create an FAQ page for your website, take the time to truly understand your customers and the issues they experience. Start by speaking with some of the more experienced members of your customer service team to see which questions they encounter most often. Weed out questions that are situational (and don't have a generalized answer), and include the remaining questions on your FAQ page.
If you use a tool like Gorgias, analyzing your tickets at scale to see the most common issues you encounter becomes much easier.
3) Offer a mix of self-service options
Providing multiple self-service options for your customers lets them choose the option they prefer. Not only does this create a better customer experience, but it also increases the likelihood that customers will answer their own questions instead of messaging your agents.
Above, we offered a comprehensive list of self-service options you can use to help your customers help themselves. Once you have built your FAQ page and set up your self-service flows in your chat widget, continue adding self-service options based on what makes sense for your business.
If you have a more complex product, you might prioritize a knowledge base and webinars. If you have a strong community around your offerings, you might focus on building a forum and blog to keep them engaged. Theres no one-size-fits-all solution.
4) Provide useful content such as images, video, and audio
When creating support content whether its knowledge base articles, FAQ questions, or anything else don't underestimate the power of images, video, and audio to get your point across. Sometimes it's easier to show than tell, and a single image can often do more to resolve a customer's issue than an entire article of text.
For example, if you are helping customers navigate to a specific page on your website in an article on how to track orders, showing screenshots that point out which buttons they need to click makes the process much easier.
Plus, some customers simply don't like to read, and presenting support content in the form of images, video, and audio will make them more likely to enjoy their customer service experience.
 [image]Keurig
|
5) Improve and update content continuously
Unless your products and services never change, you aren't going to be able to publish support content once and just forget about it. Even if your overall business is relatively static, the rest of the world is not, and the needs and issues of your customers are sure to evolve over time.
While it's a good idea to try and make the content in your support portal as evergreen as possible, it's also important to continually improve and update your support content anytime there are changes to your product, business, or audience.
You'll also want to regularly improve and add to your content. If you notice that a lot of customers are struggling with a specific issue, then it's probably a good time to publish a new article on the topic to your knowledge base.
6) Enhance the mobile functionality of your self-service options
Every page on your website should be mobile friendly, including your self-service options. In fact, it's arguably even more important for self-service options to be mobile friendly because many customers search for solutions while they are actively using a product and may only have access to their mobile phones.
Given that mobile searches currently account for about 63% of all online searches, youll provide a poor experience to many customers if your self-service pages don't look, load, and function correctly on mobile devices.
 [Branch]Branch
|
7) Use automated chatbots as a customer support tool
Leveraging automation in the form of customer support chatbots is one of the most powerful customer self-service strategies since it often leaves customers feeling as if they've received immediate help from a live agent.
When integrated with customer service tools such as Gorgias, chatbots powered by artificial intelligence can detect a customer's sentiment and intent, then either answer the customers question or direct them to self-service resources where the customer can find what they need.
For example, Gorgias can detect when a customer is frustrated and auto-tag the ticket to trigger an automatic response, letting the customer know someone will be with them shortly. On the backend, that ticket can be prioritized to ensure they dont wait long and escalate their frustration.
How customer self-service benefits businesses & consumers
The data above shows us that customers expect and value self-service options when communicating with brands. But why, exactly especially when the conventional wisdom is that the human touch always wins?
Below, well explore a few ways that self-service options directly enhance the customer experience, which can help guide you as you build your self-service strategies.
Customer issues get resolved quickly
Unless a support agent picks up the phone immediately, it is almost always going to be faster for customers to solve their own issues assuming the self-service resources are truly useful. Given the value of swift customer service for today's customers, you cannot overlook the importance of resolving customer issues quickly.
Even if customers have to spend a few minutes to solve their own problem, the fact that they are actively working to solve the problem (rather than waiting on hold) goes a long way toward improving customer satisfaction.
Some customers prefer solving problems on their own
For the independent (and introverted) among us, reaching out for help can feel like an admission of defeat (or at least an unappealing effort). Some customers simply prefer to solve issues by themselves, and giving them the option to do so is an important part of improving their customer experience. In fact, if given the option, most customers would prefer to solve problems on their own before they go through the hassle of contacting customer support.
You can maximize the customer experience by providing a thoughtful mix of self-service features, so shoppers can choose their method of choice. For example, you could have a help center to help provide in-depth information, self-service flows in the chat to deflect conversations, and automation Rules and chatbot integrations for the customers who still want a more conversational approach.
Customer service costs go down
Providing customers with self-service solutions means you can resolve plenty of questions that would have otherwise turned into support tickets for a human agent. Fewer support tickets to deal with means that your company can reduce the size of its customer support team, allowing you to dramatically reduce the expense associated with providing great customer support.
Support team members will be happier and more productive
Most customer support teams spend a great deal of their time responding to mundane, repetitive questions. While these questions and issues typically aren't challenging to resolve, they are tedious and not very stimulating. By eliminating these simple, repetitive issues from your support team's daily routine, you can make their job a lot more enjoyable.
When support agents don't have to answer "where is my order?" a hundred times each day, they are free to focus on resolving more unique and challenging issues. Giving agents more time to tackle challenging issues will enhance their productivity and make their job more interesting and enjoyable.
Customer support is more readily available
Customer self-service tools such as knowledge bases and chatbots are available 24/7 without human intervention. Offering customers these tools is a great way to make omnichannel support options more readily available without any additional staffing.
It empowers your team to spend more time on the tickets that matter
The end goal of automation is not to remove agents from the support process or handle all incoming tickets automatically. Many tickets need a personalized, human touch.
However, your team won't have time to provide a human touch to tickets that need it most especially as your ticket volume grows. Automating 100% of simple, repetitive tickets is the best way to spend more time on the tickets that matter to your business.
With self-service and automation, you can drive revenue through support and spend more time handling inquiries from VIPs while other companies are busy responding to hundreds of Where is my order? tickets.
Provide customers more value, faster
When given the right resources, customers can often resolve issues on their own in much less time than it takes to get a support agent involved.
First response time (FRT) is one of the major metrics in evaluating customer service, and self-service options will help you decrease it dramatically.
Reduce your ticket volume (and spend on support)
A 2019 Microsoft study found two-thirds of customers try self-service before contacting a live agent. Imagine that kind of reduction in the support tickets coming through your inbox.
Whenever customers solve problems on their own, you don't have to pay a support agent to assist them. This means that companies with effective self-service options are often able to save money by reducing the size of their customer support teams.
Generate additional revenue
Use self-service to trigger an automated sales workflow or present customers with upsell opportunities within your self-service content. Customer support should be an important part of your company's sales funnel, and these tactics can help you put that process on autopilot.
Provide around-the-clock support
According to data from HubSpot, 90% of customers expect an "immediate" response when they have a customer service question. However, most companies cant provide immediate responses especially not around the clock.
Customer self-service tools such as FAQ pages and knowledge base articles are available at all times, enabling swift 24/7 support without staffing support agents at all hours. Rest easy: your self-service options are handling the night shift.
How Gorgias approaches self-service for online stores
As the team behind the market's leading customer support solution for ecommerce, we at Gorgias designed our self-service flows and portals for online stores, first and foremost. Every feature, process, and design choice was made to serve the specific needs of companies dealing with the shipment of physical goods to their customers.
And while a lot of that process can be unpredictable, you are fully in control of how your buyer moves through delays and issues with your support team.
Our innovative self-service approach includes three main lines of defense meant to deflect time-wasting tickets and save agent time for the tickets that matter.
This self-service process provides:
Proactive support through how-to content
The proactive customer service process starts with a customizable help center that can be populated with FAQs, how-to articles, instructional videos, past webinars, and more. This help center is the first page that customers see when they search for support and is designed to deflect support tickets by encouraging customers to first browse self-service options.
Self-service flows that deflect the most common requests
The second pillar of our approach to customer self-service includes self-service menus that can answer common ecommerce inquiries both inquiries that have general answers and inquiries with answers that are specific to the individual customer. Our self-service workflows include the following commands that move the customer into a dedicated menu:
- Track my order
- Return my order
- Cancel my order
- Report an issue with my order
In addition to these customer support commands, Gorgias also offers automated flows designed to answer common pre-sale questions such as "How do I pick the right size?" or "Are there any discounts available?" and help ecommerce stores improve their conversion rate.
One of the main benefits of these flows is that they keep users on your site to get the answers they need, instead of bouncing to the shipping carrier's website or elsewhere. And maybe theyll stick around to put in another order.
Chatbots and automation to mimic traditional support
If customers manage to get past your self-service flows with repetitive questions, a pre-built chatbot can engage them and answer their questions.
Any other advanced queries that arent covered by the above self-service options can still be answered automatically. Customizable automation Rules can be tailored to the questions you receive the most, as an additional line of defense against time-wasting tickets.
With intent and sentiment detection powered by AI, Gorgias can detect a customers question no matter how its worded. Gorgias also allows you to create customizable Rules and flows for each command, making customer self-service a dynamic process that is much more similar to traditional customer support.
Enjoy optimized customer self-service with help from Gorgias
With Gorgias, you can automate the answers to pesky and repetitive questions and deflect up to a third of the tickets in your support process. With a full suite of self-service and automation features, you can provide a mix of options so your customers can choose the ones that suit their needs.
If you would like to improve customer satisfaction while reducing your customer support costs, then Gorgiass cutting-edge self-service tools are the solution for your business. Find out more about what Gorgias can do to streamline and improve your self-service support strategies.
{{lead-magnet-2}}
FAQs
Customers like self-service options such as chatbots, an FAQ page, a help center, a knowledge base, interactive quizzes and tutorials, videos, and forums.
Questions that require handling sensitive information, technical issues, and customer complaints should be done by human agents to ensure accurate and empathetic support.
An FAQ page should include information about order tracking, shipping policy, returns and refunds, accepted payment methods, fees and taxes, location, business hours, and contact options.
A knowledge base is a centralized library of information containing articles, guides, FAQs, and resources to provide self-service support to customers. A help center is a broader customer support platform that includes the knowledge base along with additional support channels such as live chat, forums, and contact information. In other words, the knowledge base is part of the help center, which offers a more comprehensive support experience by providing various avenues for customers to seek assistance based on their preferences and needs.
Recommended Articles
Customer Service Messaging: Tips and Templates for SMS + Conversational Channels
Customer service messaging (also known as conversational customer service) is a powerful way to elevate the customer experience and delight customers beyond their expectations. For customers, texting with a support agent feels much more convenient and casual than slower channels like email. And, SMS is a much better channel for on-the-go communication, since most people always have their mobile phones and can usually reply to text messages quickly.
Thats why customer service messaging is one of many recent customer service trends shaking up how ecommerce and D2C businesses offer support.
In this guide, well discuss how your business can implement or improve this type of customer support and other conversational channels in your customer service strategy.
Lets get started with why its important for businesses to offer SMS customer service.
What is SMS customer service?
SMS customer service is when support teams resolve customer questions and issues via text message.
Why SMS text messaging improves the customer service experience
Customers love these one-to-one messaging channels for customer service because theyre so quick and convenient. When implemented well, conversational messaging allows customers to reach your CS team and get answers quickly within 42 seconds, most of the time. Especially considering that 42% of customers prefer communicating with customer service on messaging apps over any other channel, introducing a conversational channel may do wonders for your brands customer satisfaction.
Your customer support team can also use these channels to proactively reach out to customers with important updates and timely discounts.
SMS customer service is especially attractive to your customers because they dont have to stay glued to your website or check a social media app for new DMs. They can get answers to their questions on a device they already check 96 times per day. Lets take a closer look at SMS, a channel thats quickly gaining ground as a standard support option.
10 tips to successfully incorporate messaging into your customer service strategy
Adding each messaging channel at one time might overwhelm your customer support team. Likewise, a new channel may have low adoption if you dont announce it to your customers. As you begin offering messaging experiences as a part of your customer care portfolio, use our top 10 techniques to maximize the effectiveness of your workflows on those channels.
1) Funnel all interactions to SMS or messaging channels and then move to email or phone if needed
For issues with easy solutions, theres no reason for customers to engage with email or phone. Emails are slow and clunky and phone calls can lead to customer frustrations, especially if your wait times are excessive. Texts are far faster than either option and can provide simple, accurate information that leads to speedier solutions and happier customers.
For that reason, we recommend setting up your contact page and information so that text and other live channels are your first line of communication well, after self-service support. You can always move to email or phone if the customer requests it or if the problem youre trying to solve is better suited to one of those channels.
Tip: Speed is an important factor in all customer service interactions, but its critical when sending any sort of instant message. First response time (FRT) is a key customer service metric you can measure with Gorgias through the analytics dashboard. Make sure to track the speed of your responses when you start your support messaging program.
2) Consistently let your customers know that youre available on quick messaging channels
To inform your customers they can now text your brand, we recommend adding Text us, plus your phone number, in some or all of these places:
- The footer of your website
- The Contact Us page of your website
- Your Gorgias Help Center
- Transactional emails (order confirmation, return initiated, etc.)
- The signature of your support agents
You can put your messaging app information in the same spots, and make sure to say you accept support requests via DM in your social media bios so customers know they can shoot you a message.
Tip: Because conversational customer service usually takes place on a users phone, you need to keep responses short and friendly. The long, detailed macros and templates you might use for emails wont work when communicating through short messages depending on your platform and your customers phone, long messages might not send or might get broken into multiple text messages. Plus, depending on your brands tone of voice, conversational channels are a great place to use emojis, images, and GIFs to make the conversation even more friendly and casual.
Source: Berkey Filters
3) Use autoresponders for a lightning-fast first response
Start every messaging interaction with an autoresponder. This tactic lets your customer know that you received their request, and it gives your human agents a small buffer of time to finish up their current encounter before starting the new one. You can also include a link to your help center in case they want to look for their answer on their own.
You can use this tactic whether youre incorporating chatbots for basic query automation, or using your customer service agents for all customer interactions.
See page XX for an example of an autoresponder Rule for messaging.
4) Create a system to categorize and segment priority tickets
Some customer support tickets should take higher priority than others. A customer thats reporting a fraudulent purchase with their debit card needs a quicker response than someone whos asking if there are any discounts they can use.
You can start by prioritizing:
- Tickets that have been open the longest. These are the customers who may be growing impatient, or even angry enough not to shop or work with your business again. This can be set up with a View of tickets that have been open for more than X minutes, where X is an amount of time corresponding to your service-level agreement (SLA).
- Tickets from VIPs and loyal customers. You can tag these customers and make a View based on that tag to surface their questions and concerns.
- Tickets that fall into certain intents, like order/damaged, which Gorgias auto-assigns through our proprietary algorithms. You can auto-assign these tickets with a priority tag using a simple automation Rule and set up a View that has all open priority tickets.
You can even set up dual priority queues for all priority-tagged tickets: One for priority tickets that are about to go past the first response time in your SLA and another for all other priority tickets. Then prioritize the former, followed by the latter, followed by other tickets, to keep your first response time and resolution time down while giving attention to important tickets.
Beyond prioritizing tickets, its also helpful to categorize them if they share similarities. Grouping similar tickets together boosts efficiency. For example, your team can come up with one main solution (create a new discount code because the previous one is buggy) and easily resolve the entire group of tickets in a single pass.
5) Use Macro templates to respond faster to repetitive requests
If you are responding to customer service messages on a platform like Gorgias that supports Macro templates, you need to take advantage of this time-saving feature. But you cant just take your existing email templates and drop them into these conversations.
You need to create a specific set of Macros for messaging purposes, using the principles we mentioned earlier: short, friendly, personalized, etc. That means you need to use variables like [Customer first name] or [Last order number] to personalize messages. If you set up your Macros strategically for DM and SMS messaging, many can be reused for live chat, as well.
To prioritize building Macros that will have the highest impact, create Macro templates to respond to the most common questions that have come through your helpdesk. You can also ask your team which responses they end up writing out the most and add those templates too.
Once you create and launch these Macros, you can automatically add Tags to Macros for reporting to see which Macros are being used the most. This will help you understand where you have gaps (or unhelpful Macros) and can make tweaks to improve your agent workflow and customer experience.
6) Or deflect those repetitive requests altogether with automation Rules
If your customer service platform supports automation, as Gorgias does through our Automation Add-on, you can deflect up to a third of repetitive, tedious tickets instantly, with no human interaction. Much of this automation can be applied to customer service messaging, as well.
When we mention automated answers, some support professionals say something like, We dont want to send low-quality automated responses to our customers. We completely agree: For many tickets, automation doesnt provide the best customer experience.
However, as you know, most tickets your support team receives are repetitive and low-impact, like questions about order status (WISMO) or your refund policy. We recommend setting up automatic responses for these tickets, so customers get instant answers and agents have more time to respond to tickets that actually need a human touch.
Look through your reporting dashboards to see the tickets that are taking up the most time on your support team, and prioritize those requests for automation with Rules, where appropriate.
7) Go beyond text-only interactions with multimedia messaging
WhatsApp Business, Facebook Messenger, and SMS support images, and luckily so does Gorgias. This is a more engaging way to interact with customers, and it also allows you to exchange relevant images like broken parts, malfunctioning equipment, and screenshots for more helpful instructions.
If you want to go this route, maintain a catalog of fun, topical images that your support team can use in their customer conversations, and give them the freedom to collect their own images to insert. Its a great way to make your support feel more personal and human, but use common sense: Frustrated customers dont want to receive a picture or meme, they want their problem solved as quickly as possible.
8) Provide proactive support at scale on platforms that allow it
SMS and other personalized one-to-one support channels can get a little complicated because not everyone wants to interact on the same messaging application. True SMS support goes out over cellular networks and lands in users actual text messages, the same way messages from their friends and family do.
But you may need to be ready to handle other support channels that use similar short, text-based communication. These include Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and your websites web chat. Certain channels may be a better fit for your unique customer base for example, Instagram attracts a younger audience than Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp is more common outside the US. Likewise, you may have other specialized messaging channels or messaging platforms that you need to support.
As a rule of thumb, you need to be where most of your customers are, which varies across businesses and industries. But to reach the desired level of customer engagement, most businesses need to be reachable via most, if not all, the major applications and support channels.
Thats where a unified customer service platform can be really useful. By keeping all of your customer conversations in one feed, you can handle more channels more strategically, through triage and routing to dedicated agents for specific tasks. For example, you could have one agent who just handles messaging and route all messages to that person for a quicker response.
On platforms like WhatsApp Business, you dont have to wait around to hear from customers. This allows for a wide range of strategic and proactive support interactions.
For example, you can send out text blasts:
- When you have an issue affecting all customers (i.e. website downtime) to let them know whats going on (and avoid getting excessive tickets about the issue)
- When you have new product launches or add-ons, driving revenue and customer education
- When you have relevant announcements for customers: limit these to news that actually affects customers (i.e. shutting down your community or a time-sensitive sale), not company news (i.e. your latest fundraising)
A proactive approach builds trust with your audience they will see you going above and beyond with these efforts, and know that youll be upfront with potential issues.
9) Integrate your SMS support with your marketing efforts
SMS marketing is a useful tool for your ecommerce store, but it becomes even more powerful when you integrate your SMS marketing tool into Gorgias. Send out SMS blasts and have support agents on hand to handle any questions you get in response, to help nudge those customers closer to a sale.
Source: Gorgias
With certain integrations Klaviyo, for example you can even use Gorgias attributes to segment and build campaigns. Use this function for win-back campaigns, or to send a special offer to customers who posted low CSAT scores.
10) Conduct surveys using text messages to collect feedback from customers
Text messages are an effective method for collecting feedback from existing customers, too. Once customers opt in to SMS communication, you can use this point of contact to launch quick surveys that provide valuable feedback.
Response rate is always an issue with email surveys, and other channels see higher response rates. Using a multichannel approach will supply you with more responses and help you make more data-driven decisions with the results.
Note: In a customer service tool like Gorgias, you would use one of our integrations with Klaviyo or Attentive to send the survey to entire segmented lists of customers or prospects, all at once.
SMS customer service templates for common response types
Ready to start implementing an SMS customer service strategy but not sure what to say? We get it: Staying concise yet friendly is tough, and so is conveying all the needed information in such a short space.
Weve put together a collection of proven templates you can start using today. Adapt as many of these as you need to fit the contours of your business, and bring them into your customer service platform of choice. In Gorgias, you could auto-populate these responses through our Macros.
Note: Were sharing these templates as text messages, but they can easily be adapted to other conversational channels like social media DMs and live chat.
Ticket received template
As we mentioned earlier, its a good idea to set up an autoresponder. This tactic can buy your team time to finish up a previous interaction or send an email, yet it shows youre on top of the interaction and will be back soon.
Heres our template for a ticket received autoresponder:
Thanks for texting {Brand Name}. An agent is reviewing your question now. Well get back to you shortly :)
Introduction message template
The introduction message is the point where your autoresponder or chatbot passes off the reins to a human agent. Its the first point of personalization, and you want to make a solid impression. Still, your agents dont need to be typing these out every single time. Use a template like this one to break the ice (just with a little less repetitive stress injury):
Hello, {Customer First Name} {Customer Last Name}! Im {Your Name} from {Brand Name}. Thanks for messaging us. What can I help you with today?
Hours of operation template
There are two frequent scenarios where an hours-of-operations text makes sense. One is as an answer for when customers message you on social media or elsewhere just to ask when youre open. In those cases, use this template:
Hello, {Customer First Name}! Im {Your Name} from {Brand Name}. Our hours of operation are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Best, {Your Name}
The other scenario is when a customer reaches out via a messaging channel and theres no one on the other end. If your helpdesk isnt open 24 hours a day, use a template like this when the team isnt live:
Hello, {Customer First Name}! Our live chat helpdesk is open {list hours}. Youve reached us outside those hours. Leave a short message here and well get back to you tomorrow.
By the way, if around-the-clock coverage is a goal of yours, you might be interested in introducing contact forms into your live chat widget. These forms let you keep your live chat on 24/7 and, when nobodys available to answer, they ask customers for contact information so you can be sure to follow up. Learn more about Gorgias automation add-on and contact forms.
Order status template
This ones pretty obvious: You want to let the customer know the status of an order, and theres no reason to manually type a whole message to do it.
Use this template when a customer asks for their order status. You can create variations of this one for delays or other order status updates, and even customize it further to include tracking information.
Hey {Customer First Name}, great news: Your order has shipped! It will arrive on {delivery date}. Let me know if I can help you with anything else!
Payment reminder template
Customers with recurring subscriptions sometimes forget the frequency they sign up for or when their next payment will be. Use this template if customers frequently ask your brand when their next payment is:
Hello, {Customer First Name} {Customer Last Name}! Im {Your Name} from {Brand Name}. Your next payment of {amount} is coming up. Your card on file will be charged {due date}. Questions? Reply here or call {phone number}.
Pro tip: While theres nothing inherently wrong with soliciting payment via SMS, many consumers will view this with suspicion. Text channels may not be the best avenue for inviting bill payments or collecting credit card information. It could also lead to more cancellations, which makes it a balancing act, though customer clarity is important to have. Always track the impact of changes to your process and be mindful of how new touchpoints could affect it.
Deals or rewards template
If youre trying to build brand loyalty or win back an upset customer, sometimes a simple discount code can go a long way. At the end of an SMS conversation, there may be times when you can surprise and delight customers by sending over an exclusive deal. Heres a template (though youll certainly need to customize this one further to fit the details of your offer):
{Customer First Name}, thanks for being such a loyal customer. Wed like to give you {details of the offer}! Click to redeem: {short URL}
Refund issued template
Refunds happen, and they dont always require a massively complicated interaction with your contact center. If youre able to resolve a ticket and issue a refund with a simpler interaction, this template can finish the one-to-one portion of the encounter.
Notice the template specifies that the interaction will finish up asynchronously (via email). Its a great way to tie off the synchronous, real-time interaction and lead the customer right to the next step (check your email.)
Heres the template:
Hey {Customer First Name}! Weve issued a refund for your last order. Well send all the details to your email, but feel free to let me know here if you need anything else.
Pro tip: You can tie discounts and future order credits into this template, but make sure your entire team is aligned on your official policy as you update the Macros to match it. You may also want to have different tiers of intervention (and offerings) depending on the severity of the issue.
Customer check-in template
The customer check-in is another asynchronous message that occurs outside of an active conversation. Perhaps the customer walked away from a previous encounter or seems to be stuck on the customer journey based on other CRM data.
Whatever the reason, a gentle, well-timed message can sometimes get the customer back on track.
Heres a model:
Hello, {Customer First Name} {Customer Last Name}! Im {Your Name} from {Brand Name}. Just checking in to make sure everything is working well for you. If you have any issues with our {products/service} or need anything else, let me know!
Templates for SMS marketing and relevant integrations
Though a customer service platform can handle the above templates, youll likely want to expand even further through additional integrations with the platform. If you take that approach, here are some opportunities that open up:
Discount template
If youre running a sale or trying to drive traffic to your site, a great way to do so is by texting a discount code to customers on your SMS list. Because their phone is probably close by, its great way to promote your sale and make sure it gets noticed. Heres a template you can use (but remember to update with your own promotion!):
Flash sale, this weekend only! Up to 40% off, including our latest collection. Shop now: {insert URL}
Appointment reminder template
Medical offices and other organizations that schedule appointments or meetings can bolster attendance and reduce no-shows by providing yet another reminder one that reaches patients and customers directly via phone.
If your SMS system supports it, you can invite an auto-reply to confirm or cancel an appointment, too. Use this template:
Hello, {Customer First Name} {Customer Last Name}! Im {Your Name} from {Brand Name}. Your appointment is scheduled for tomorrow at {appointment time}. See you then! Reply Y to confirm, N to cancel.
Order confirmation template
Order confirmation messages simply confirm that your business has received and is processing a customer order. These dont typically take place during an active one-to-one customer service interaction. Instead, theyre sent automatically and asynchronously, whenever the order confirms.
Still, you can set them up as personalized messages and enable replying so that, if something happens to be wrong, the customer knows how to reach out.
Hello, {Customer First Name} {Customer Last Name}! Im {Your Name} from {Brand Name}. Your order #{order number} has been received, and were working on it now! Well message you again when it ships. Questions? Reply here.
Pickup notification template
If youre in an industry that offers pickup services (whether curbside pickup, custom goods like eyeglasses, or anything else), a text message is a great way to let someone know their order is ready for pickup. SMS reaches customers when theyre on the go in a way that email frequently doesnt.
Heres an example:
Hello, {Customer First Name} {Customer Last Name}! Im {Your Name} from {Brand Name}. Your recent order #{order number} is now available for pickup at {location}. Stop by to grab it anytime today before {closing time}!
Survey or poll template
This message asks your customers to respond to a survey or poll. Its a data-gathering tool that can pull in responses from people who ignore your emails or the messages at the bottom of store receipts. Try a script like this:
Hello, {Customer First Name} {Customer Last Name}! Im {Your Name} from {Brand Name}. We value your opinion as a customer and wed love specific feedback on {topic}. Heres a 5-minute survey: {short URL}
Membership renewals template
Membership renewals, like payments, ought to be set up as automatic occurrences. Still, its helpful to remind a customer that a charge will hit their bank account soon you dont want to track down non-payments, and you dont want angry customers who werent prepared for a bill.
Heres an example:
Hi, {Customer First Name} {Customer Last Name}! Im {Your Name} from {Brand Name}. Your annual membership renewal is coming up on {date}. Your card on file will be charged on that day.
{{lead-magnet-1}}
Is conversational and SMS customer service right for your business?
At Gorgias, we believe any industry can find value in conversational support, though some industries and brands will get more bang for their buck with these channels.
For ecommerce brands that deliver physical products, conversational support is a no-brainer. Imagine your customers get shipping updates via SMS and can just respond to the message if the package isnt delivered correctly to get immediate help. No need to open up a laptop and log into a support portal or compose an email.
If youre on the fence about offering conversational customer support, consider whether any of these points are relevant for your business:
First, consider your primary audience. If you sell to millennials and Gen Z, conversational customer service deserves serious consideration. These groups value speed and convenience more than anything: Millennials prefer live chat over every other channel, and 71% of people between 16 and 24 agree that faster customer service would drastically improve the shopping experience.
These two generations grew up texting. Its a very natural communication style for them, so theyll feel right at home texting and DMing your brand. Theyre also absolutely massive groups combined, they make up a staggering 42.3% of the U.S. population.
If youre targeting an older generation, texting may not feel as natural. They have a higher tendency to prefer email or phone, although thats changing by the day.
Is your marketing team already sending SMS campaigns?
One of the biggest hurdles to implementing conversational support is getting the systems, hardware, and staff in place to respond to SMS texts and messaging app requests at scale. If youre already sending SMS marketing campaigns, then you already have some of that infrastructure in place.
So, if youve already made the investment in SMS for marketing purposes, then integrating messaging with your customer service platform and team requires minimal additional investment.
Fortunately, your helpdesk and SMS marketing software may integrate to give you a centralized way to spark conversations if customers reach out via text or respond to SMS campaigns. With Gorgias and Klaviyo, for example, customer responses to SMS marketing campaigns get assigned directly to an agent for fast response times.
Are customers abandoning conversations on other channels?
One of the benefits of messaging is that customers dont have to stay on the phone or by their computer they can easily continue talking even if they have to take the dog out, go to work, or even fall asleep and respond in the morning. Plus, while email conversations often span multiple days which is frustrating for customers with simple requests, requests on messaging channels usually get resolved before customers lose interest or patience.
If you notice that your brand currently sees lots of unresolved email threads or phone calls, you might need to offer customers a more convenient and flexible channel to talk to your team. This is a perfect use case for SMS and other messaging channels.
Are you already active on related channels?
Its important to show up where your customers are. Thats why most brands post and engage with customers on social media pages. But if youre posting on social media and not providing support to customers who reach out via DM, youre missing a big opportunity.
By adding conversational support via Facebook Messenger and Instagram and Twitter DMs, you can maximize your presence on those platforms and provide an omnichannel customer experience for both existing and prospective customers.
Are you struggling to gather customer feedback?
We often discuss the importance of customer feedback to monitor brand perception and constantly improve the product and customer experience. But as most brands know, getting feedback via email can be a challenge because of low survey open rates and lack of follow-up from customers.
Business texting lets you ask your customer base for feedback on a channel they are less likely to ignore. Text messages have a whopping 98% open rate. Consider sending CSAT, NPS surveys, and other requests for customer feedback on this channel to raise your response rate for more accurate customer support metrics. Of course, with great power comes great responsibility: Spamming customers will quickly damage customer relationships, so dont send too many messages to their personal devices.
What to look for in text messaging tools
SMS customer service is an avenue that customers are growing to expect. But managing yet another communication channel much less one that demands real-time responses takes careful planning.
Implementing a messaging strategy requires using tools built for that purpose. Some customer service messaging platforms offer SMS support natively, while others integrate a third-party SMS integration tool to add this functionality.
As you consider the available options, make sure the one you choose offers the features you need. Some tools are full-fledged SMS marketing solutions. Others focus specifically on SMS as a support channel.
Its easier for most businesses to use an all-in-one customer service platform like Gorgias to support an omnichannel approach. With this kind of helpdesk platform, SMS tickets can be handled in the same feed as your other tickets and benefit from the same workflows and automation.
Here are some other features your customer service tool needs to have to handle SMS ticket effectively:
- Conversation history (for SMS and other text-based channels like Facebook Messenger or webchat) so your agents know what this client has asked about or needed support for in the past
- Ability to create and customize macros as replies to SMS questions
- Ability to send and receive images or videos (this is great if your support teams need to see the damaged item to issue a refund, for example)
- Routing or triaging capabilities to make sure SMS conversations dont get lost in a queue of tickets
- Integration with other ecommerce tools so your agents have all the context they need to reply in a single space (e.g., surfacing Shopify customer data or CRM data during a support interaction)
Ecommerce SMS marketing tools to complement your customer experience
As we mentioned earlier, SMS marketing lets brands connect with consumers in a personalized and measurable way, just like with customer service. According to Attentive, average read rates of 97% within 15 minutes make SMS a prime channel for connecting with prospects and customers.
If youre looking for the right SMS marketing tool to work in tandem with your new SMS customer service channel, consider these four leading tools. Each one integrates with Gorgias, along with most of the rest of your tech stack.
Each tool offers a slightly different feature set. Revisit the list of features we compiled earlier in this article to help determine which are the most important to you, then vet these four tools against your customized list.
- Klaviyo, a Gorgias preferred partner, is a leading customer data and marketing automation platform that leans heavily on SMS communications. Automatically create tickets in Gorgias if customers reply to Klaviyo SMS messages, and send Gorgias events into Klaviyo to create targeted audience lists based on support experiences.
- Attentive, also a Gorgias preferred partner, sends automatic text messages to your subscribers at each step of the customer lifecycle. It collects real-time behavioral data on customers as well, and the Gorgias integration allows you to see that customer data within the Gorgias sidebar. If a customer replies to an Attentive SMS, itll automatically create a ticket in Gorgias for agents to reply to.
- Postscript is an SMS messaging tool that drives revenue growth and improves the customer experience over SMS. If a customer replies to a Postscript SMS, itll automatically create a ticket in Gorgias for agents to reply to.
- SMSBump is a D2C focused SMS customer journey automation tool by Yotpo that boasts powerful results: 45% conversion rate and 25x ROI for D2C brands. By connecting SMSBump with Gorgias, tickets will automatically be created if customers reply to SMSBump campaigns.
Integrate your SMS tool with your helpdesk for a seamless customer experience
Integrating any of these SMSmarketing tools with Gorgias is a great way to unify your marketing and support efforts to improve the overall customer experience.
For example, if customers respond to an SMSmarketing blast from a tool integrated with Gorgias, the response gets brought into the helpdesk. The agent can see the initial marketing message and the customers response, so they can answer any follow-up questions. It's like an alley-oop from your marketing to your support team.
Also, these integrations help your marketing team be more aware of active support conversations to avoid tone deaf marketing.For example, by integrating Gorgias and your SMS marketing tool, you can pause marketing campaigns on customers awaiting a response from support. (Nobody wants to get marketing messages if they're waiting on a delayed order, or troubleshooting their last purchase).
Message your customers in real time with Gorgias
Customer service messaging across a wide range of message-based platforms can be a powerful addition to your customer service channels. Of these, the SMS channel is one of the most powerful options for businesses that want to reach customers directly where they are.
The scripts and tools provided in this guide should put you well on your way toward a successful SMS support rollout. But make sure that at the core of your customer service operation, you have a platform robust enough to handle everything you need to do and whatever functionality you might add in the future. For more examples and tactics to launch a successful rollout of SMS support, check out our playbook of Berkey Filters, an online store that released SMS support to great adoption.
{{lead-magnet-2}}
Gorgias is the customer support and helpdesk platform built for ecommerce businesses like yours. Our live chat tools and 150+ integrations equip you to reach your customers whenever and however you choose.
See how Gorgias supercharges customer support and helpdesk via SMS. Alternatively, check out more information about our integrations with:
Chatbot vs. Live Chat Software: What's the Right Solution?
Imagine leaving your angriest customers to spar with an automated script in your websites chat window. Now picture your support team reading Where is my order? for the hundredth time and glancing at the clock, only to find six hours left in the workday.
Who do you think is more frustrated?
Luckily, you wont have to answer that, because these are completely avoidable problems. Once you learn the important distinctions between chatbot software and live chat software, youll understand how to use them both more effectively and lower blood pressures across the board.
Chatbots rely completely on automation and artificial intelligence (AI) while live chat software connects customers with human agents via a real-time chatbox. A third option, self-service chat, is an appealing alternative.
To determine which solution(s) is best for your business, lets compare chatbots and live chat software and go through the top use cases for each.
What is live chat software?
Live chat support connects customers with human support agents who can answer their questions and assist them with any issues. When a customer opens the chat box on a live chat support solution, they are connected with a real person from the company's customer support department.
Support agents then use live chat messaging to address customer inquiries and walk customers through the solution to their problem.
Interested in getting live chat software? Check out one of these lists for tailored recommendations:
- Best live chat software for ecommerce
- Best live chat software for Shopify stores
- Best live chat software for general use
Pros and cons of live chat
Pros:
- Live agents have the knowledge base to answer complex queries and customer issues
- 73% of customers state that live chat is the most satisfactory form of customer communication with a company
- Enables multitasking for support agents so they can assist multiple customers at the same time
- The personalized touch of a real human can go a long way toward improving your customer satisfaction
- Support agents can find opportunities to convert visitors or turn support interactions into additional sales
Cons:
- Not available after-hours when your customer team is off the clock
- More expensive to employ agents to respond to chats
- Responses will be slowed down by high volume which impacts resolution times
- Much of your agents time will be spent answering the same simple questions over and over
{{lead-magnet-1}}
What is the difference between chatbots vs. live chat?
Unlike live chat software, chatbot software doesnt connect customers with human agents. Instead, chatbot software connects customers with a chatbot that utilizes AI and machine learning to provide natural language answers to common questions.
Automation assists customers with less complex issues and provides quick answers. Chatbot technology enables companies to reduce their average response time, and frees up support agents to focus on more complex queries.
Pros and cons of chat bots
Pros:
- The ability to answer questions 24/7 without paying for agents to work around the clock. According to a survey by Drift, 64% of customers say that 24/7 service is the best feature of chatbots.
- Chatbots offer instant responses to common questions like pricing inquiries, improving customer experience with quick resolutions to common issues
- Chatbot solutions are a highly cost-effective option, as they allow companies to resolve more customer issues without having to hire new customer support reps
- By answering commonly asked questions and resolving simple issues, chatbot solutions can free up support agents to focus on more complex questions
Cons:
- Chatbots cant handle complex inquiries requiring human intervention
- Automated responses are a colder, less human form of communication, which can impact customer satisfaction
- No opportunity for agents to elevate an inquiry into an exemplary customer experience, such as offering personalized live chat offers
- Customers will become frustrated if the chatbot cant properly answer their questions or solve an issue
{{lead-magnet-2}}
Live chat vs. chatbots: Evaluating their strengths to help you choose the right one (or both)
When comparing chatbots with live chat solutions, it's important to recognize that each category offers its own unique advantages. Many companies choose to employ both live chat and chatbot apps on their ecommerce websites.
With that in mind, let's explore the strengths of each solution.
Response times and customer expectations
One of the biggest advantages of chatbot solutions is the fact that they allow for immediate responses to customer inquiries. Live chat solutions can also help companies reduce their wait times, though not to the same degree.
Chatbot advantage: Answers are immediate
According to data from HubSpot, 90% of customers rate an "immediate" response as important or very important when contacting customer service, with 60% of customers defining "immediate" as 10 minutes or less.
With a chatbot app, offering immediate response times to customer queries is a much more attainable goal. Best of all, these immediate response times are a 24/7 offering for customers, whereas live chat agents may not always be on the clock.
Live chat advantage: Solve complex issues
The problem with relying solely on chatbots to reduce customer wait times is the fact that even the best and most intelligent chatbots are often unable to resolve complex issues. Chatbots are excellent at pulling information from internal databases to answer common questions, such as providing the status of a customer's order or editing it.
But for uncommon questions or complex issues, a chatbot alone may not be sufficient. Because they can only handle one thing at a time, it can take forever before you get all of your questions resolved.
Solution: Use both chatbots and live chat
Many companies use chatbots alongside live chat support. This allows businesses to offer both immediate responses, as well as more in-depth support for complex issues.
For example, a customer may first be connected with a chatbot that provides instant responses to their query and assists with gathering initial information. If the chatbot determines the customer's question or issue is too complex to resolve, the customer is then connected to a support agent via live chat.
This combination is an ideal solution for many companies, allowing them to quickly resolve common issues without the need for a live chat agent. At the same time, customers have the option to speak with a real person in cases where assistance from a chatbot alone isnt sufficient.
Human touch and personalization needs
While chatbot apps can help reduce customer service wait times and the number of customer service reps needed, many customers prefer speaking with a person.
Live chat advantage: The human touch
A CGS study found that 86% of customers would rather interact with a human agent than a chatbot. Further, 71% of customers say that they would be less likely to purchase from a brand that did not have real customer service representatives available.
Chatbot advantage: AI learning
Chatbots have come a long way toward replicating natural language and determining customer intent for better customer engagement. Today, the best chatbot applications can come quite close to sounding like actual human beings.
Chatbots leverage AI and machine learning to deliver personalized responses, as opposed to only canned responses, and can better serve your customers.
Solution: Use both chatbots and live chat
Even the most advanced chatbots still fall short of a live representative when it comes to delivering a personalized, human touch. Theyre also lacking when it comes to handling more complex questions or customer issues.
Once again, a combination of automation and live chat support is typically the best approach.
Consistency and accuracy
Chatbots and live chat applications have unique advantages when it comes to delivering consistent and accurate responses to customer queries.
Chatbot advantage: Consistency
Chatbots are excellent at delivering consistent, on-brand messaging. They can be programmed to systematically follow templates or scripts to provide a consistent customer service experience.
When working with human customer support agents, this high degree of consistency can be a little more difficult to achieve.
Live chat advantage: Accuracy
While live chat support may not offer the same consistency as chatbots, human support agents do tend to be more accurate when determining the intent of the customer they are assisting.
For example, a simple spelling error can sometimes confuse chatbots, whereas a human customer support agent would be much more likely to look past the error and correctly figure out what the customer needs.
A human agent is also much more likely than a chatbot to accurately interpret questions that are worded strangely.
Solution: Use both chatbots and live chat
For companies that are choosing between chatbots and live chat support, its a question of whether theyd like to prioritize consistency or accuracy. This is yet another reason why a combination of chatbots and live chat support is often the best solution.
More chat features to provide self-service support without the bots
Many of the issues your website visitors have with bad chatbots involve their mimicry of support from real people. Its easy to tell when youre chatting with a robot, but its not always made clear to you by the chat widget.
But theres a third chat option that you should consider in addition to live chat and chatbot software.
Self-service chat options make it clear to your customers that they are receiving automated help. By presenting menus instead of imitating a human conversation, self-service customer support empowers customers to find the answers they need on their own.
Its a win-win, because the customers get the answers they need in real time, at any hour. And your team can focus on support tickets that are more important to the business.
Here are a few ways self-service chat options can work.
Self-service order management
Up to 30% of incoming customer service tickets are shipping status requests. With self-service order management in the chat widget, customers are empowered to make these queries on their own providing fast answers and reducing your support tickets.
These automated options are easy to add with Gorgias. This self-service adds buttons to the chat widget to automatically:
- Track an order
- Return an order
- Cancel an order
Quick service with chat automation provides quick, responsive customer service, which means better customer experience and a positive impact on revenue.
Barcelona-based shoe brand ALOHAS added self-service order management flows with Gorgias after experiencing a high chat volume. This allowed customers to find information on their own without a human needing to respond.
Heres how a track order request looks in action:
ALOHAS
Quick answer flows
When using a chat widget, youll notice the same questions come up again and again. You can satisfy those FAQs by adding quick answer flows into the chat widget.
These automations can be set up in the widget for questions like:
- What is your shipping policy?
- Are there any discounts available?
- Do you have any new products?
- What materials do you use?
These automations can be customized for whatever FAQs are most relevant to your ecommerce store.
Heres how it looks, for example, when an ALOHAS customer wants to find out more about the brands shipping policy.
Luxury jewelry brand Jaxxon has used these self-service quick responses with great success. The customer service team found themselves overwhelmed with customer questions and unable to respond as quickly as desired.
Jaxxon upgraded their live chat widget with Gorgias Automate with Quick Responses for customers. The result, combined with using Gorgias helpdesk, reduced live chat volume by 17% and lifted the on-site conversion rate by 6%.
Jaxxon
Autoresponders
Even when a customer chooses to type out a question, automation can be used to provide quick, customized service through the chat widget.
Gorgias can detect questions that come in through chat and provide automatic answers using Rules and Macros.
Heres how the flow works:
- Intact detection scans the incoming message.
- Rules is triggered when a relevant message is found (such as some asking about where their order us) is responds to the customer.
- Macros is where you create the templated response sent to the customer. The Macro can be set up to pull in a customers unique information like order number, their name, and their tracking code.
The best part is this can not only be used for chat, but for responses to tickets coming in through other communication channels like email, social media, and SMS.
Keep customer service running 24/7
With Gorgias, you can make sure your chat widget isnt missing a single ticket, even if your customer support team is offline.
First, you can set up your business hours to correspond with when you have live chat available. This will show up on your sites chat widget by either showing the current status as online or offline.
From there, you can create automated responses for whether youre offline or online. During business hours, this message can tell customers youve received their request and give a time by which they can expect a response.
After business hours, the responder can tell customers that although youre offline, they can expect a response during the next days business hours via email.
Absolute Collagen
You can also use a contact form which turns a chat into an emailed ticket. This is great to use after-hours and to make sure chat requests dont get lost overnight.
Combine automation and human interaction for the strongest customer experience
The use of automation within customer service is multifaceted. As we discussed earlier, a human touch is critical for many customers, and speaking with an automated chatbot can be a turn-off. However, automation certainly has its place in the customer service process.
On the customers side, starting with self-service chat helps them receive quicker customer support at scale a more satisfying experience. On your teams side, automation allows for sorting, segmenting, and prioritizing tickets.
When self-service chat cant solve an issue, someone from your support team can easily step into the conversation. You can use Macros scripts that automatically bring in the customers information to scale the human touch on your support team.
So in reality, its not automation vs human support. These are two complementary tools that work better together. And the result is a stronger and faster customer experience for your website visitors, which can increase your conversion rate by as much as 12%.
Still not convinced? In 2021, brands using the Gorgias chat widget generated an average of $38,702 from conversations involving chat. We have a whole post on live chat statistics that can help illustrate the impact our chat widget can have on your business.
Gorgias brings intuitive live chat to your ecommerce business, alongside your other channels
If youre an ecommerce business looking for an all-in-one customer support solution that includes live chat support and AI-powered chatbots, Gorgias is your one-stop shop.
Our algorithms are trained on hundreds of millions of ecommerce tickets, so you can be sure your customers are getting the right responses every time.
Plus, you can manage both live chat and chatbot conversations in the same dashboard that you use for all your other channels, including phone, email and major social media platforms. Bring in chat from other channels, including Facebook Messenger. Well even be supporting Whatsapp in early 2023.
Our customer support platform is available for Magento, Shopify, and BigCommerce users.
Read more about our chat offerings by clicking here.
Customer Delight Is A Losing Strategy in Ecommerce: Heres Whats Better
Most ecommerce businesses understand that offering great products at a reasonable price isnt enough. We know that customer experience is key to gaining long-term loyal customers, obtaining reviews and referrals, and growing in the long term. But too many brands believe that a great customer experience means surprising and delighting customers.
Frankly, handwritten notes and freebies dont make for a great customer experience or a winning strategy. Thats not why customers reach out to your brand, nor is it what drives customer retention. They reach out to support for quick, helpful, effortless experiences; this is what makes top-notch customer service so important. Then (and only then) should you put the cherry on top with surprising, delightful extras.
Why surprise and delight is not a viable customer service strategy
Top-notch customer support is like an ice cream sundae, and efforts to thrill customers are the sprinkles and cherries on top. Sprinkles and cherries are great, but they dont make for a satisfying sundae on their own.
Customers wont be that amused if you make them wait on hold for 45 minutes and greet them with lighthearted jokes. Likewise, youll make a customer feel frustrated if you spend your budget on freebies but ignore implementing customer feedback about the product.
More than anything, customers who contact a brand's customer service team want their problems solved quickly and well. Fast, helpful, low-effort experiences are the base of your sundae, and any extra efforts to delight the customer are sure to fall flat if you can't do that.
Customer service interactions tend to drive disloyalty, not loyalty
According to Emplifi, 49% of consumers have left a brand in the past year due to a poor customer experience. Also, according to The Effortless Experience, an influential customer service book by best-selling author Matthew Dixon, customer service interactions are 4x more likely to drive customer disloyalty than they are to drive customer loyalty.
 [Most customer service interactions make customers less loyal, not more loyal.]The Effortless Experience
|
If 20% of support interactions leave customers delighted and 80% leave customers frustrated, your greatest opportunity is to reduce frustration, not chase after hard-to-achieve delight.
Ecommerce customer delight isnt linked to loyalty (and its expensive)
The Effortless Experience also reveals that going above and beyond isnt even what drives that 20% of loyalty-building interactions. While companies assume exceeding customer expectations generate superfans, customers are generally just as satisfied when companies simply meet their expectations.
And 80% of companies who use customer delight as a strategy say they spend heavily on providing this delight: More overhead from giveaways, VIP kickbacks, refunds, and policy exceptions. Given that these delightful experiences dont correlate to customer loyalty, this is not money well spent.
Supports biggest impact is to mitigate disloyalty by reducing customer effort
If we zoom into what drives customers away, the most common issue is a high degree of effort not a lack of gifts or delightful conversations. Common reasons for high-effort experiences include:
- Multiple contacts to resolve an issue
- Repeating information
- Getting transferred between channels
The negative impact of these high-effort experiences is staggering. According to The Effortless Experience, a whopping 96% of customers who had high-effort experiences feel disloyal to those companies afterward.
To put it simply, most companies are trying to go above and beyond before they effectively provide the baseline of customer service, which is a helpful and low-effort experience.
How to minimize customer effort: The better version of surprise and delight
The key to customer retention is reducing customer effort. 94% of customers intend to purchase after a low-effort experience compared to a slim 4% after high-effort experiences, making it an essential part of a best-in-class customer experience. Lowering customer effort involves designing an intuitive user experience, decreasing the number of steps required to complete tasks, improving reply and response times (along with other key customer support metrics), and using forward resolution in support.
Here are five more quick wins to reduce customer effort in ecommerce:
1) Offer self-service functionality on your website
88% of customers expect your online store to offer some kind of self-service. Self-service resources could be as simple as a frequently-asked questions (FAQ) page or more interactive functionality to manage orders without having to reach out to customer support.
For merchants using Gorgias, you can set up a Help Center that does both in just a few clicks. Customers can read articles about your brand and shipping policy, and check their delivery status (which they do an average of 4.6 times for every order) instantaneously.
Heres a great example of self-service order management on Steve Maddens Help Center:
 [Steve Madden]Steve Madden
|
Learn more about self-service order management with Gorgias.
2) List answers to pre-sales questions in a help center
Once you have an FAQ page or customer knowledge base, one type of question to proactively answer is pre-sales questions. These are questions potential customers have while mulling over a purchase in their heads before hitting Place order at checkout:
- Is it the right size for me?
- Is it compatible with products I already own?
- Can I return it if Im dissatisfied?
- Will it arrive before the holidays?
If customers have to reach out and wait for an answer, they might just abandon the purchase and look for another online retailer that better addresses their questions. At least, thats the case for the 63% of customers who attempt to solve issues via self-service support before reaching out.
So, dont delay in making clear sizing guides, shipping policies, returns policies, and other self-service information that your customers need to confidently make a purchase.
3) Use forward resolution in customer support to avoid unnecessary follow-ups
Forward resolution is the practice of solving anticipated issues for customers before the customer even thinks to ask.
Lets look at a real-world example: A customer inquires about shipping times to their local region. The support agent can see they have items in their cart that are on pre-order and, while answering the customers question about shipping time, also tells them that pre-order items are sent separately and that they can track delivery status through self-service. The agent has answered the initial question and forward-resolved two potential issues reducing effort for the customer.
If you can, audit multi-touch tickets from the past few months to understand which questions tend to have natural follow-ups you can proactively answer. Then, add that follow-up information to your templates, or Macros if you use Gorgias, to improve your customer experience.
Heres a Macro that not only answers a customer question about the location of an order, but lets them know when that order will be shipped:
Learn more about resolution time from Gorgiass Director of Customer Support.
4) Know more, ask less
One of the most damaging mistakes is making customers repeat themselves. Agents need that information to do their jobs well, but asking a customer to repeat their story at every juncture is a surefire way to damage a valuable customer relationship.
Instead, give customer service representatives all the customer context they need from the jump. Gorgiass customer sidebar gives agents valuable context like purchase and communication history (from Shopify or BigCommerce), reviews information, cart data, social media engagement, and much more so customers dont need to constantly retell their story.
5) Make your support more convenient with automation and omnichannel
90% of customers say an immediate response is important, and 78% of customers prefer a variety of support channels to get in contact with customer support.
To answer questions faster, consider using a customer support platform with automation features to help your team move faster and automatically respond to repetitive customer questions. Gorgias automated system can help you prioritize customer service requests, tag the appropriate agent, and close no-response tickets so you spend less time on admin work. And, with the help of pre-written Macros, automated Rules, and chatbot-like self-service flows, you can send instant, personalized responses to questions like, Where is my order?
Additionally, explore expanding to an omnichannel or multichannel ecommerce customer service strategy, which gives customers more touchpoints for your brand. Customers value the convenience of texting your brand, calling your brand, and hearing from you on social media. If youre only available via email, you will likely lose customers due to high effort.
Read our guide to omnichannel customer service or check out our unified helpdesk to learn more.
{{lead-magnet-2}}
6 ways to delight ecommerce customers (once they have a low-effort experience)
Dont get us wrong, customers usually enjoy an extra bit of pizazz or a freebie. And those sprinkles can even boost your brands conversion rate in the short term and boost customer loyalty in the long term as long as theyre not associated with a high-effort experience.
Take a look at the following customer delight strategies and consider adopting them only once youve developed a low-effort customer experience as a foundation.
1) Offer free shipping (the new normal for customer satisfaction)
According to a 2021 survey, 66% of customers expect free shipping with every online purchase. This means that free shipping is often more of an expectation than a bonus thanks, Amazon. Nevertheless, offering free shipping to your customers can still be a great way to encourage customer delight in many cases.
Customers love the word "free," even if the money that they are saving is only a few dollars. In fact, many stores can raise their product pricing slightly to make up for shipping costs and still see a boost in conversion rate from offering free shipping.
If you cant offer free shipping to every customer, setting qualifying amounts is a good way to delight customers with free shipping while also driving higher average order values.
Woxer is one ecommerce brand that offers free shipping on all domestic orders and some international orders. Plus another best practice Woxer makes this information easily accessible as a Quick Response in their live chat widget.
2) Launch a customer referral program
Creating a customer referral portal or program offers dual benefits. For one, it helps your brand attract new customers by encouraging them to refer their friends, family, and colleagues through word-of-mouth advertising. Along with introducing your brand to new potential customers, referral programs can also be a great way to blow away your customers: Everyone loves the opportunity to earn discounts and rewards!
If your ecommerce company has a strong net promoter score (NPS), youre positioned to launch a referral program, capitalize on that goodwill, and delight your customers. If you want to start a referral marketing program, check out tools like Extole which systematically reward customers who bring you business via word of mouth.
3) Post user-generated content on social media
Recognition is its own reward, and a shout-out on social media is something most customers enjoy. Highlighting customers who use your products, positive customer reviews, and other delightful interactions allow you to celebrate customers and add social proof to your social media profile. It also reduces the number of content marketing materials you need to produce on your own.
Marine Layer's Instagram is full of customer shout-outs and other user-generated content that your brand may be able to pull inspiration from:
 [Marine layer]Marine Layer
|
4) Use loyalty programs to reward VIP customers
Like a referral program, a loyalty program rewards customers for repeat purchases and continued brand loyalty. If your customer experience is already smooth enough to bring in repeat customers, delighting those superfans with rewards is a strong strategy.
If you already use Gorgias, you can integrate loyalty platforms like LoyaltyLion to make the customer experience even more seamless. For example, esmi Skin Minerals uses Gorgias and its integration with Loyalty Lion to bring loyalty data into Gorgias and provide even more personalized, automated service to shoppers. Thanks to this powerful integration, esmi achieved a 58% boost in brand loyalty program enrollment and a 2X increase in average loyalty program member spend.
5) Celebrate customer milestones for loyal customers
Even if you dont have an official loyalty program, you can celebrate your VIP customers at key milestones like birthdays or the anniversary of their first purchase. On top of sharing some warm and fuzzies (and maybe free product), one benefit of this kind of celebration is to potentially get a shoutout from customers on social media for your surprise.
Check out our CX Growth Playbook to learn how to implement this tip with Zapier, plus read about 18 other tactics to drive growth through customer experience.
{{lead-magnet-1}}
6) Optimize proactive customer service across the customer journey
One way to delight customers is to move beyond purely reactive customer service, which requires customers to reach out to get help. With proactive customer service, a combination of directly reaching out to customers and creating self-service resources, you can help more potential customers, reduce cart abandonment, and improve your brands customer experience.
Proactive customer support could include self-service resources, like those described above. It also includes non-intrusive chat campaigns, which let you automatically reach out to customers who display certain behaviors to offer support. For example, you could reach out to customers who linger on a product page to ask if they have questions about the product or need a recommendation on sizing.
Heres what Ohh Deer, an online retailer that sells delightful stationery, says about chat campaigns:
With chat campaigns, the goal is to remove any customer equivocation and get the customer to the product they really want.
Alex Turner, Customer Experience Manager at Ohh Deer
Learn how Ohh Deer drives $12,500 each quarter through Gorgias chat.
Delight and retain your ecommerce customers with low-effort support
The key to great customer service isnt some sparkly delight. Its efficient, convenient, and helpful support that customers can access in a variety of ways.
With Gorgias, ecommerce brands can access the tools and integrations they need to automate time-consuming tasks, provide instant answers, and reduce the number of times customers have to write in and wait for your customer support teams answer. Through our platform, your customer support team becomes more than just a team to answer customer questions it becomes a revenue-generating machine.
Book a demo to see how Gorgias can help your ecommerce brand.
![[]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e4ff204e7b6f80e402d407a/669a5ab4a69be50c3a94800a_Gorgias%20Logo%20-%20Black.svg){kind=link}
![[]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e4ff204e7b6f80e402d407a/6941344cdf1014658c7333dd_Chevron.svg){kind=link}
![[]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/65bbbca6cc8a6ef661b3aba8_07c38295-bcaa-4d5f-8a6d-ec1ef6437dfa.avif){kind=link}
![[Brumate]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/63a9c40ef3af997435562d74_62ed48cf2ebe98e094074a9f_brumate-help-center-self-service.webp){kind=link}
![[Branch]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/63a9c40ef3af9975cc562d6e_62ed48f2c8aa52846e56cdb1_branch-help-center-self-service.webp){kind=link}
![[Gorgias self-service flows]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/63a9c40ef3af99c149562d79_62ed4924c7ceeacec774ff23_chat-bot-self-service-flows.webp){kind=link}
![[Self-service chatbots give customers answers without agent effort.]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/63a9c40d90b0ca9fded196c6_61faef2a0c76cf2e2eb9d369_X5BqIbIsHDfSP1c42rSZJbvdNCsxXHiC28ir2nRCNnHx2dm8gHnLrsRrkIwr-TGJ7w38hGdY5elrO9JB0y2CiNhLFMM0W9lm3XH8MtbbVgJx2O9LtbTwV1biySTT-8siylrsezYA.webp){kind=link}
![[Automation Rules in Gorgias make self-service emails, so the customer can get a response without agent effort.]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/63a9c40ef3af99c567562d73_62ed2c41a4f21f59fba963f6_self-service-rules.webp){kind=link}
![[Spoonful of Comfort]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/63a9c40ef3af99493f562d6f_62ed495bc8aa52e00a570b6b_blog-articles-self-service-content.webp){kind=link}
![[Fitbit]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/63a9c40ef3af99e818562d6c_62ed4976ec18e442dfe43ed5_customer-community-self-service.webp){kind=link}
![[ActiveCampaign]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/63a9c40ef3af99fc9d562d71_62ed2ce29147fe461c3e0ec4_self-service-webinars.webp){kind=link}
![[image]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/63a9c40ef3af991629562d77_62ed2a170836b8e67266aa6e_irIqB9GRiq0_nm1O0uwewWN27dJbWzTr1JKXypdeZ2LuEoJ6MuzT0hv71zcFrhC9P1rMIDCKgUxUeGAvaaSpSj1X-_TRUnlgaW3Wfm_KJlhSqW2FFSzpR80UHKmUqu1SWVcYcAdZm90tZw2AEluttQ.webp){kind=link}
![[A mix of self-service options: FAQ page, help center, self-service flows, chatbot, custom animation, blog, forum, webinar, and in-app tutorials.]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/63a9c40ef3af990432562d78_62ed4b358a5f2c50aab537eb_Customer%2520Self-Service_5.webp){kind=link}
![[image]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/63a9c40ef3af9953f5562d6d_62ed2a18dd39ffb825e06961_J3-DXl1npKHYUcYfwWkByDgMTt3cAqHScFmlO1wuzGTuDw_8fjUefbXR2f3lne82VZUHCGovgMyTp3P89UWOTxVfBl6_yG5A6HuMVr9Rh7ybW0xa2wFcdoop7XOfNpIL-TP-BIJGuoevLnIPnsw6bA.webp){kind=link}
![[Branch]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/63a9c40ef3af994cb4562d76_62ed4a0459db903db860cc96_customer-self-service-manage-orders.webp){kind=link}
![[Average resolution time, with a live chat widget of an agent redirecting a refund to an exchange.]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/63a9c40ef3af992331562d75_62ed48989c1cb152944e324f_average-resolution-time.webp){kind=link}
![[3 lines of defense with self-service: how-to content, self-service flows, and chatbots/animation.]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/63a9c409fde34bc6b3e3a532_62f67ba4ff2f5417870e4422_1MixRydAhy6iqW5Kp1qcMz_KVM-uqIt5dFJ7y24XpIdpwRy8u6DTHg0fDZYYyFAjrlBIGdT4_9O6Ue31S6ehf-wL6wRyZ1BIslV9aO16cFoAJ8gjMTGZIBVTA607s9Bbd6D2XJya1yc_uCY0NGGpWqs.webp){kind=link}
![[Gorgias live chat flows for customer self-service]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/63a9c40ef3af998499562d6b_62ed4a390bc9106cd6a144cf_self-service-flow-in-live-chat.webp){kind=link}
![[Sentiment detection self-service chatbots]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/63a9c40ef3af9947e3562d70_62ed2e6dfea76e02d6a4cac5_sentiment-intent-detection.webp){kind=link}
![[]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/63861b342d8614ed57646ff4_1ckp11y50xm3u7wz2x2vt0nxcx87g8cp.avif){kind=link}
![[]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/63861b3abe81760f987220a0_37k9bk0bc8c77zxpzfpm4u89um2pvwu7.avif){kind=link}
![[]](https://no-cache.hubspot.com/cta/default/1725341/f37a5e6a-fc64-4ea5-a802-c56d15be0e6c.png){kind=link}
![[]](https://no-cache.hubspot.com/cta/default/1725341/dfd67d94-2983-48d0-8ce6-dcb907f0cf2c.png){kind=link}
![[]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/65526f7cd2bedc7a315d8803_b0fde343-3773-407f-9b7d-9b6c0263f101.avif){kind=link}
![[]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/651eefd629ae15d10c5481e8_cs%20messaging.avif){kind=link}
![[Example of SMS in Gorgias helpdesk]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/63b4747613f9e751e8734622_N6vASiF4K9INg1Ho3addc4EQPkmk7tq6teYQsDM3mIm0m77exojgOEMgt-0dT-dNuM5M4XJWHektqvdZaXJ2JJQv89stCGLruWt-AImN-q9nZegdMa2HpUEAFkB5GIdkI__Nk3ozAAwZqNY7GRuxxF-KKDEbb6BngdFZovHJhc2VKwjhrf53s2SvH4xjJA.png){kind=link}
![[Fast reply to an SMS conversation]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/628b95195bed030faf8f64ef_nlu9oZ7JZGpy1fhJ5yYtMKvUBaNNdNxiII0a_-eFPvSxjgiTuZ4hsrY5KEFPUMatqeywTRXyRtnX6BczZwzaOhbHY_5OPkVZVy2Qy37oc9WsgQrPysuRWCuMm2ehDLzx-NNpbM5NzDyPrOrE4A.png){kind=link}
![[Berkey Filters chat prompting people to use the messaging chanel]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/62bf04ed1a5e13057d0c801a_iYeTbXmRzDk8_aMAA6VyqJi1Jf2OP5xCIdPVN8NC68mSyJK2MHBFdUy9wVbym6EXZYAjxEyy4OazolpyDme4Ao8-BXtTOCa4O6ydVK0q-pvAqURenkYk0o7vqlkKxBa98lBP1rTAkVKkzQtxKA.png){kind=link}
![[Gorgias' Intent detection can be auto-tagged for prioritization and organization]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/630ccd4ab949e432ad06a186_vI2MGllXqdV_qfVX2sfuYwruElT4i6hzl-tS1lMJTsR_K_DoJJV1hgvaL-VysEbElOt_9mmeV3ftFF8rhHtnvSQr3rCmLHQ4-_slQ2qaNVbSnoCHUFuVkmqAEqDOA-3hzakeiXLQv7oQcpDEmxB6d48.png){kind=link}
![[Gorgias automates answers to repetitive questions (like WISMO)]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/630ccd4a966749734156677d_PwuL1mu8M5xym6lTK1yxiyCUXGvmDCLgkFcFnXcEG526_-vB0ESp44LMaDAUFgY1li2R0jaLBdNvhx2OvE8dLncJ6fziH8eBj9zWP5yvhNCcjzd35nLPlsO5U6bpxtcMGFRVg8LbxpAXt0tt_tdRrgs.png){kind=link}
![[Gorgias lets you send multimedia text messages]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/630ccd4ae697c2bf8950db4e_fPknuBQ50t3og6JxNwIstgY_lMYyoyzapEj4Tnqm2sZaJxG4D_9IPn8yhcG3fyHTJ-hFzg6Opm_bw1PyG3eKhurCBy8gX14SXO-7ixTDYqIvPw2ObUAYg1X_l5JJDq6ls1INSa97D5ceHQ-vcNTuAMU.png){kind=link}
![[Gorgias has SMS, Messenger, and live chat functionality]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/628b951a74069c6f1692de33_VXLXqatWOOmYDFHBOD0UxNqDnjNhWAqvE-FGcus28tOI5E03iYwjhdEf4UUr-jKGigYGmR43J0U5N3dQNf_BN_YUMAAMIoSKAp_2zHOTTHQKsJ7oN18KCU5-BVqy0NeykdX95QIYELi2n9I-eA.png){kind=link}
![[Gorgias and Klaviyo integration]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/630ccd4acd08342a553e6f24_VUK7asmKjxRoMSPfFR8N2Asi0GgtYroE730P3oARSZE8ImNb7ud6vFuyRP3_F104s4WXwuZ0ss3ATPg4jF48tWduqkabBSEDQDw4xzE6X6Huv2qrb3lv6-6M709QE1H3iFGbC9dR8rCz0F16RUJUo_Q.png){kind=link}
![[Agent introduction template for SMS]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/628b951a6b3d5b77d2eb7270_IL7BJXSKMrY-MuTV3j_YQGccPXY0I7D5CnizqFoZoyLx7q_QaVKQ9m8biBExtLhFT3-gZZAY8c2dRnCH7Qhd0zO7kT9RCaoipPrgirGvv7EcG6vHGg9pmYmHr1sqkEGdJm1ZuFkA149Gq7MDAA.png){kind=link}
![[SMS template for order status requests]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/63b474772bf491a6dfeb6cbe_YuUpQ9Q6DcQRpAev4F0_rgdkPTdqShYyJQyjYWVtRR85qvMWiwdgb3gOZg-myVBzaFDYxB7yQVIsq9RtTO6yEOXOKJUyyvlQ74_1eio315cbwcRvq9f8b5IWOjY6hYrLNK7r4esX-LooOD4KibhPjFfbTXw_TjKY-dJhZ7iTUxI7niUtij2vv5WU1tF7ew.png){kind=link}
![[SMS template for refund issued]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/628b951ad0b0e92475b201d8_A7Yd_OXw9KUy0xmsTVvlLV7IjfAkbJZU7eXsQAwq-bTf9cflB4rdeV4BgQZRYbk9tDU4eSr3sDoWE-o3radX0l9BEWLeRKb_pUYoPePmjPhkkajvFVHwPYf2JN0KktMmssw0QMEliirVUQ9Phw.png){kind=link}
![[Discount template for SMS]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/628b951a86b5e2058c83705d_onk34CErMuO07ZT4L341JiWlFDr0w4wSSsWxJoXUw7DmFCGv9coGveZ2KIHmqtbgdiWNjiML9Ol_2y3khsvOCJywdX7jzn9qga9Ty8Y64vvHNXmyvxc_UXUDweypUHc3A871XBQolVeKKxWaJw.png){kind=link}
![[Order confirmation template for SMS]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/628b951a229f576e35243bb8_x2O8SOQJVXqCPKnj4wUYSRsjVRFTbEk6S-08F2zbpbej4BIwEQGGuZvdf2qKCUs_iFDzAWComSq2HMK_EPJ3zzRLMqmVvzPD0sDkB70zHCqgOXV5hQEeUme0UXcrTNN0yLo95AxI5d20cu8vLQ.png){kind=link}
![[Klaviyo Gorgias integration example]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/628b9519d0b0e9da6cb20149__i_sV3gcgcvTibd7IKWU1BvSW3mWuKx83jAqsjle8Tv3zPuSaRmuwnPtUdgNI-HXwk25lMYXfbuXMlcSZnSt2sZubjDCOmXMSTucNAGoArENGpI5c1v7S8B1TcLd5xsr6Uo2krY5FaD4wXVhaQ.png){kind=link}
![[Customer service helpdesk with SMS]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/63b474769c3e3fb2e7d1d77e_sPJun0LMYVDpOW0PtyKOAUUGHpoc1v108L8WwK2FLgL6kSM01OgY_1DIrxavZgpdSgb8_noSo07kA-m7em2htqrhG12x9iMRQDrowJ04Z9Yn8YPakA8OfsyXZwMiaQYBEA9ja6pdlyjA_oVtvxsrDFqtRZVbbGa130688kXvYyVTSBo_c_V6gaOjEy9XMg.png){kind=link}
![[Logos of Shopify, Recharge, ShipBob, and others to power up your messaging and customer service]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/628b951aed4b86e5feeec341_P5txDsCObSOX6rM-ZBMIvV1zR0ZkEsEVxRCX7yxFMRFHzD-yfs3CbOTQ8Q7j4f0Qw0-SVsYgMCCB9AvrL_FYvs6JiRutq_JOEKqqECWT1q9vsCx3Tps4t7p-BJm7hQ9udhYRsIAufy6XSkyaGw.png){kind=link}
![[Gorgias, Klaviyo, Attentive, Postscript, and Yotpo SMSBump]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/63b474779c3e3f3367d1d783_AWMyi6e2tzlk1Y8MJUC-wijR0DepGaK0eJl9NjymWQ_DdadUDEmu9DX4gB0SIEHAxJxsT2Wz6S1N8dQfCSWXGJNMWfMBrMsIZAcBjLQM8o-njO5gksiz8ecfUoIfgUxXXvdPVm3K1wxUS_mc3M1zHH9zVbwyoga8p9mpc9hxEmXjEOYU9GzmKB7jRZd8sg.png){kind=link}
![[]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/640114e110bedc00f57f66ff_Customer%20service%20messaging%20-%206.png){kind=link}
![[]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/655291062aca96b8cc58ec41_720338e6-bcf8-4aec-a961-ad5c70d06cd3.avif){kind=link}
![[Live chat conversion and sales. ]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/63a2213947b5265f5d2375b7_aU3YU1awNamdTChKqcUsjxBP3ZS1Kob0mDrL387eOD4EMSrdcG30R25wA6EN7L0T2ZqGXFYOqs6_anjEKVghr2-abavje8o_9cT1eELpukZwTf72qRrp9fthLxTA31vdFl7t12TBuaLfpuAqVS5rgIvvGJyWhBdpYr50KT70qn-8cmib2zSwiZmYhoNMQw.png){kind=link}
![[Order management in live chat. ]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/63a221396e14ea5a1663e1c4_BdiALsOzfKu12ucD02WgJ1NSRdsbZ9FDGbDmBzPEDqvQXvHC0eDHHuWMVLxEjWzk8TdANL-gmOgJKUTwsVqXDh__9mhxEx7bv_UWHYNy7PZxK_TXUGn_ZkQ16m2TPcoVlWZ0MIaWlZmtM4rBPFyfHsRH5z09TyGyZXycE0n7uKB2JAIC55xVXXLz-6IXZA.png){kind=link}
![[Quick Response Flows in chat widget. ]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/63a2213ac12e99c715dcee90_blpZ3swmRgI-I2Gd4pcKyIgGBEm_Zaes6LJrfLNkbjmqm81AO4n_6AdKH9vi9QdfZGv9IeNCVhLw5l0Jf104vu-gHy0dg_IiKiALdtMZUhxnP1o_QGKJsJG58Q0s9qaGjc78aRADfjMmf8abora6ANQP0iNbdrKwZhLqZafCOihihSNu66Vuu8Yxq7PsoA.png){kind=link}
![[Self-service in chat. ]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/63a2213947b52637d22375b8_wyI_A-7PWeOGBeC89FhGXNmC98ursOMhqGmTjHzKv6nsP0vd2eBMpXvvtLaZwHGVuytSnmUxZWQ4FJGmgrTtfvzDjgO7i4rU1sYiMVuwLFAPu38bRPgzQI8mF-amu0lrmH3fOITWbzpFdE3aqVWr5RP_A_vjjHY1gL7jDzRkRg3KIFvWztCm1RA6UZkaMQ.png){kind=link}
![[Offline mode in live chat for follow-ups. ]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/63a221397ecc5114650d2659_FMEtaBrbXJkhJowOMSj9MissbPndfidzh0KjB2VY-lwU6W1_C6NJGlQ8C9XLIKVDeGl2yailn0IdwSh9RbuSURkGwCLOSU4LRaB1suFNXlaABE7MiWJ98YN0BXW62NBVZi-tAOTOV13cysHsKijS-8M9BMBjBZFCxxU32SvX7pMMwFQahLB0hy4tIa4Q6Q.png){kind=link}
![[]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/65b977b75db61ab6d3e3bfc1_afb946b0-cbbe-42d3-a58f-0715b6351018.avif){kind=link}
![[Most customer service interactions make customers less loyal, not more loyal.]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/63a9c4120aa2443cb39a0594_632dd664911b786d936ac684_NSGKiV6n9a2hG-OKNY0KMINnr0wFgGHEsUh4_aeMMhz2H2kCykfz6_RKKd5yztsnlN25_aNtN8eMyPih9nERkZq1bn8Sk-sgnk4DICXWiQcCONXta_Yz_vGdzxx7i_DWT0SBBhcAakEKsOVgT72fmPT_KNhvUpKh1Npy6FQrY3WRv5y4dGuPESNJGA.webp){kind=link}
![[image]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/65b977b85db61ab6d3e3bfe4_29c39ef1-7142-4343-aa1e-d698ef4b4ac5.png){kind=link}
![[Steve Madden]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/63a9c4120aa2446eeb9a0596_632dd6655b653f456fe6c52c_42H82KkMr_YBL-glF-t7ThBvkpYbfMcSm1RDickBGt2u7Nov_5T3Sakv776e1UXLKejSGOb4gQ-ovC7-vbF2GP_7eLL-O_hOV-m4soUHXO0FsziwIEYlhaB7y_tC47eAs_M1Ujw7Kmh3HpJ93mcKWAYXN9zcHPKQ7cvang6LVXzn8Nuk3cWziB-FyA.webp){kind=link}
![[image]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/65b977b85db61ab6d3e3bfea_794726ab-1205-4efe-9b55-6a2cb998298e.png){kind=link}
![[image]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/65b977b85db61ab6d3e3bff2_18e4db59-9061-4c30-93a8-40863c853e7e.png){kind=link}
![[Gorgias]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/65b977b85db61ab6d3e3bfe0_d438fff0-9ecc-410b-9481-105a2821b8b6.png){kind=link}
![[Woxer delights customers by offering free shipping on qualifying orders.]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/63a9c4120aa24423aa9a0595_632dd665ae1747633ee8ad17_lhAoQP1Vp1_tiDno0bvwxKgnogshNCSBCzu3ckSvYKInW0VV8gxNAQpFGeDJjZZYqkGBkOcQYWB7u98M1m1oykBRKOG2KdtAMPAcDrMNVT-EqEoh9AQcH74WrtiheHlconPCNA-fu9PTf3RUACBda-303KhMj57k62CA2qhlDApBDQdNPtlMCJAYMg.webp){kind=link}
![[Marine layer]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e78f62c08f1bb8c2d788576/63a9c412cefc0fc53ecb37e2_62bf5a1ea045627de2ab9b1c_sEHQ1V1IjE4Z2_jEKvCKHVH81ADJQ5vKeNmpWyZLCmwP_bFYtu7iG9mujujL_CLnuhJZiF11GJbBBl3oh5Uu0iBTrYvO_HDJZt_XW7WLks6x1hfAQZiWMIay-es5Mw9rXGBw3AuqHiMwncY88tw.webp){kind=link}
![[]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/5e4ff204e7b6f80e402d407a/65429e2888818d29ed07ff5a_Vector.avif){kind=link}
Table of contents
| Web Proxy Viewer | New URL | Original Page |