A case study on how a leading retail firm stopped missing customer queries and started responding within seconds using an AI chatbot across social media comments, DMs, and emails.
The Client
The client is a global retail and bulk gifting brand focused on offering a wide range of curated products across multiple categories. Their portfolio includes premium gifts, utility items, return gifts, and corporate gifting solutions, designed to cater to different occasions and customer preferences. The brand works closely with skilled artisans and suppliers to bring thoughtfully designed products to market. With a growing presence across both online and offline channels, the client serves a large and diverse customer base. Their operations involve handling high volumes of customer interactions daily, especially during peak seasons and large-scale gifting requirements.
Challenges Faced by the Client
Customer interactions happen across multiple channels every single day in the client’s organization. Most queries come through emails and social media platforms, typically around product details, order status, and availability. The customer support team was manually reviewing these messages, checking internal systems, and responding one by one. Over time, this approach became difficult to manage as the volume of customers kept increasing. At the same time, expectations also changed, with customers looking for faster replies and more personalized conversations. This added further pressure on the team, leading to:
- A noticeable drop in response coverage: As customer interactions increased through emails, comments, and direct messages (DMs), the client’s support team was unable to track every query. This led to missed messages and delayed responses, especially during peak engagement on social media posts.
- Inconsistent communication across interactions: Since responses were handled manually by different team members, the tone, clarity, and helpfulness of replies varied. As a result, customers did not always receive smooth or satisfying interactions.
- Delays in resolving common customer queries: Common questions related to orders, delivery timelines, discounts, and product availability were taking longer than expected to resolve. This frustrated customers who were expecting quick answers.
- Limited clarity on customer buying intent: When customers interacted via comments or messages, it was difficult to determine whether they were just asking a question or expressing interest in buying. As a result, potential sales opportunities were often missed.
- Lack of a structured support approach: The client’s leadership team wanted a more organized way to handle repetitive queries and reduce manual effort. However, the existing setup did not provide a clear way to standardize or scale customer support operations.
Solutions
Understanding the client’s challenges, our Microsoft-certified experts at UBTI built a smart chatbot that handled customer interactions while maintaining a natural, human-like conversational style. The bot was designed to understand customer requests, respond naturally, and guide them to the next step without sounding robotic. To make this work at scale, automation workflows were built using n8n, which acted as the backbone for orchestrating interactions across platforms. These workflows were combined with an AI Agent (powered by Azure LLM) that could interpret queries, understand multiple languages, and respond contextually by:
- Connecting all customer interactions in one place: Queries from emails, Facebook, and Instagram (comments and Direct Messages/DMs) were connected into a single automated workflow. This ensured that every interaction was captured and processed, rather than handled by different team members.
- Responding to social media comments instantly: For posts and reels, the system reads the caption to understand the context. Based on this, the bot identifies customer intent and responds to each comment within a few seconds directly in the comment section.
- Understanding customer intent with AI: Instead of using fixed replies, the AI model analyzes what the customer is asking. Whether it’s a simple query, product enquiry, or purchase intent, responses are generated in a natural and conversational manner.
- Handling direct messages with structured responses: When customers reach out through DMs, the system handles queries such as order status, discounts, payments, shipping, and FAQs:
- For order-related queries, real-time data is fetched from an eCommerce platform via APIs.
- For discounts and offers, the system refers to internal trackers maintained by the team.
Hence, the responses were always based on the latest available data.
- Identifying products from shared content: Customers often share reels, screenshots, or videos while asking about products. The system first identifies the content type and then extracts product details using unique identifiers. If the details are unclear, the bot guides the customer to provide the required information.
- Suggesting products based on customer preferences: When customers ask for variations, the system continues the conversation to understand preferences like color and price range. Based on this, it fetches relevant options and presents alternatives.
- Capturing and routing interested customers: In scenarios where customers showed a clear intent to buy, the bot encourages further interaction through DMs. Their details are captured and shared with the support team, enabling timely follow-ups until closure.
- Handling unrelated queries with clear responses: If a customer asks something unrelated to the business, the system responds politely while setting clear boundaries on what it can assist with. This keeps conversations focused without confusing the customer.
- Redirecting complex queries to the right team: For scenarios requiring human involvement (like logistics coordination or manufacturing-related queries), the system collects the required details and redirects them to the appropriate team.
Solutions Benefits
With our humanized AI chatbot-driven customer support system, the client was able to handle customer interactions more efficiently without increasing manual effort. In fact, quicker responses and more natural conversations helped keep customers engaged, especially during high-intent moments. As a result, both support operations and sales interactions became more structured and responsive with:
- Increased sales driven through contextual conversations: By suggesting relevant product options during ongoing conversations, the system contributed to upselling opportunities, resulting in 40 to 50 additional customer conversions, directly influenced by the bot.
- Improved customer reach across platforms: Since every comment and message was responded to without delay, more customers were actively engaged across social media channels, increasing overall visibility and interaction.
- Higher volume of qualified customer interactions: The number of calls handled by the customer support team increased from around 230 per day to nearly 450-490 calls, indicating a rise in serious customer enquiries and follow-ups.
- Significant reduction in response time: Customer queries that previously took hours to address were now responded to within seconds, ensuring faster resolution and better engagement at the right moment.
- More natural and human-like customer experience: Even though the process was automated, the conversations felt humanized and context-aware. Eventually, customers experienced a human touch throughout interactions, rather than feeling they were interacting with a bot.
Conclusion
The client faced a challenge managing a growing volume of customer interactions, which, over time, began affecting response quality and resulting in missed sales opportunities. This directly affected how quickly customers were supported and how effectively potential buyers were converted during such conversations. To address this, our experts at UBTI introduced a humanized AI and automation-driven system built on n8n, designed to converse, understand customer intent, and respond across multiple touchpoints in real time. With our chatbot, the client responds to every prospect’s query within seconds, guides customers during their decision-making process, and ensures that genuine buying interest is not lost due to delays or missed interactions. UB Technology Innovations, Inc. continues to support global retailers with AI and automation solutions designed to deliver connected, human-centric experiences.
About Us
UB Technology Innovations, Inc. (UBTI) is a leading global technology solution provider with over 3 decades of experience across all industries, specializing in Capital Markets, Logistics, and Healthcare. We are the preferred Microsoft Solutions Partner backed by a world-class team of Microsoft Certified experts with rich experience in Azure Cloud Platform and Data Analytics.
