Chat in every market: the setup, step by step
For the person who switches it on: the app, the helpdesk, the policies per country, the test sheet your team fills in, and the numbers to read after.
- What to prepare before day one
- What goes live, in order
- What to measure in week one and week four
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What to prepare
The Shopify app
Install the app on each store or market. It brings the catalog with stock, sizes and prices, and the customers and orders the chat may answer about.
Your helpdesk
Connect Gorgias, Zendesk or Freshdesk. A conversation that needs a person goes there with its context, inside the same chat.
Policy per market
Write down, per country: returns window, refund method, return address, shipping times. The chat applies the policy of the shopper's market.
Documents and the test sheet
Size guides, care instructions and FAQs the chat should learn. Then two or three hours of your team's time to fill the test sheet: the hard questions, per language.
What goes live, in order
Load the catalog and the documents
Check a few products in the chat: stock, sizes and prices must match the store now, not last week.
Set what the chat may say about orders
Order status and tracking only for a matching, signed-in customer. For anyone else it refuses and redirects. Test both.
Load the policies and the languages
One policy per market, in the market's language. The chat switches language with the shopper.
Run the test sheet
Your team asks the difficult questions in every language and marks each answer right or wrong. Fix the wrong ones before go-live, then run the sheet again.
Go live on one market
The market with the most conversations first. Watch handovers for a week, then open the others.
Set the handover rules
When the shopper asks for a person, when the chat is unsure, and on any complaint. The thread moves to your helpdesk with everything said so far.
What to look at, and when
| When | What to look at | What good looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | Conversations answered, conversations handed over, wrong answers reported by the team | The test sheet passes in every language; handovers carry the context |
| Week 4 | Share of conversations resolved without a person, questions the chat could not answer, orders after a conversation counted once in Shopify | Fewer tickets for the questions the chat now answers; every order after a chat counted once |
| Month 3 | Order value and buyer rate of shoppers who used the chat, against the rest | The pattern from the two-store case study: buyers the agent advises spend two to nearly three times more per order |
Common mistakes
One returns policy for every market. A shopper in Australia told the Singapore window stops trusting the chat, and the store.
Letting the chat answer order questions for anyone. Only the matching, signed-in customer. Test with a wrong email before go-live.
Skipping the test sheet. Two hours of your team's questions find the answers a shopper would find in week one.
No handover. A chat that cannot pass to a person sends the shopper to another store.
See which of last week's visitors you missed
Thirty minutes, with your store and ad accounts open. Then 30 days free. A holdout group decides: if the agent doesn't add orders in 30 days, you don't pay.
Book 30 minutes
You'll talk to one of us.