At webshops, the vast majority of questions are about one thing: an order. Where is it, is the invoice correct, how do I send it back. Yet at many companies, customer service works in a system that doesn’t know those orders.

The hidden time loss

Without a connection, the employee only sees the text of the message. For the answer, they have to go to the webshop, search by name or email address, find the right order, look up the status and go back to the inbox.

Per question that’s a few minutes. At a hundred questions a day, you’re talking hours. And that’s just the time — the mistakes that happen because someone looks at the wrong order come on top.

What a connection makes visible

A good connection puts the customer data next to the conversation: open and completed orders, status and shipping information, returned items, payments and invoices, and the order history.

That last one is underestimated. The difference between a one-time buyer and someone who has ordered forty times should weigh in how you handle a complaint. Without a connection, you don’t see that difference.

What it does for AI

Here’s the biggest leap. AI without order data can only write generic replies: “we’ll look into it for you”. AI with order data writes: your parcel with order number NL-88214 was shipped yesterday and will be delivered today between 4pm and 6pm.

That’s the difference between a draft the employee has to rewrite and a draft they only need to check. And it’s the precondition for ever handling questions automatically: without facts from your own system, nothing can be safely automated.

Which systems to connect

Start at the source of most questions. For most webshops that’s the order system: Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento or Lightspeed. If the delay is mainly in logistics, your fulfilment system such as Picqer delivers more, because that’s where the current shipping status lives.

You’ll find an overview of what’s available at integrations.

Where it goes wrong

Matching customers by email address alone

People order with their work email and message from their private address. Or their partner ordered. Make sure you can also search by order number, phone number and name, otherwise you won’t find half of them.

Outdated data

A connection that syncs once a night doesn’t show parcels shipped this morning. With order status, that’s precisely when the customer calls. Ask how current the data is.

Showing everything

A screen full of fields is just as unusable as no data. Show what’s needed for the answer, and keep the rest one click away.

Privacy: connecting doesn’t mean sharing everything

A connection gives access to customer data, and the same rules apply as elsewhere. Record which fields are retrieved, who may see them and how long they are kept. Limit yourself to what’s needed to answer the question. More about this at security and privacy.

What you’re left with

Less switching, shorter replies, fewer mistakes and a foundation on which automation can really start to work. Of all the steps you can take to improve your customer contact, this is usually the one with the shortest payback time.

Curious what’s possible with your webshop? Book a demo and we’ll look at your own setup together.