Retail & e-commerce
AI agents for Retail & E-commerce
Deflect the routine questions, recover the follow-up, and read what customers keep asking.
Most of a retail support queue is the same handful of questions: where is my order, can I reorder, how do I return this. Answering them by hand is slow and thankless, and the volume buries the messages that actually need a person — the complaint, the damaged parcel, the customer who is upset. The opportunity is to let an agent clear the repetitive contact so your team can spend its attention where it matters.
The configurations below are examples of how Orkivanta's agents do that, over WhatsApp and voice: deflecting status questions, running gentle reorder follow-up, triaging inbound messages, and reading a week of conversations to show what customers keep asking. They are built to escalate the emotional and the non-routine, not to power through it. These are patterns to tune to your catalogue and channels, not published results.
How an Orkivanta agent works
A bounded workflow loop, not a chatbot.
Every configuration below runs the same shape of work. It starts from a real event in a system you already use, takes a small set of actions you approved in advance, records the decision it made, and hands off to a named person the moment it reaches the edge of its authority. It is not a general assistant you chat with, and it is not left to improvise on your customers.
A real trigger
The loop starts from something your systems already record — a new lead, an overdue invoice, an inbound message, a missed appointment — not from someone opening a chat window.
Approved systems only
It acts through the tools you connected and nothing else: your CRM, your calendar, your order system. It cannot reach for data or send a message outside that boundary.
Visible decisions
Every action is logged with the reason behind it, so a supervisor can read back what happened and why. There is no black box to take on faith.
Human escalation
When a case is ambiguous, sensitive, or outside its rules, it stops and routes the full context to the named owner. Escalation is the design, not a failure.
Example configurations
What we would put into production.
Each card is a worked example, not a published result. Tune the trigger, the rules, and the escalation to your own process.
Order-status deflection
- Trigger
- A customer asks 'where's my order?' on WhatsApp or web chat.
- Automated action
- The Employee Productivity Agent looks up the order, replies with the real status, and escalates anything that isn't a simple lookup.
- Human owner
- Support lead — takes exceptions, refunds, and complaints.
- When not to automate
- Status and simple FAQs only. Refunds, damages, and disputes go to a person — it does not make goodwill decisions.
Reorder & lead follow-up
- Trigger
- A customer is due for a repeat purchase, or a lead has gone quiet.
- Automated action
- The Calling Agent places a voice reminder or hands off to WhatsApp with the reorder link, and logs the response.
- Human owner
- Sales / CRM owner.
- When not to automate
- Gentle, frequency-capped follow-up — not repeated pressure. The limits are set before it runs.
Support triage
- Trigger
- Inbound messages arrive across channels.
- Automated action
- The agent classifies each by type and urgency against your rules, routes it, and drafts routine replies for approval.
- Human owner
- Support manager.
- When not to automate
- It sorts and drafts; a person approves anything non-routine or emotionally charged.
Voice-of-customer read
- Trigger
- A week of support conversations closes.
- Automated action
- The Data Analysis Agent reads them, groups the recurring issues, and shows the exact messages behind each theme.
- Human owner
- Ops / CX lead.
- When not to automate
- It surfaces patterns; it does not decide policy or product changes. That call is yours, on evidence you can see.
The loop, step by step
Trigger, action, record, handoff.
The trigger is caught
A customer messages, a reorder falls due, or a week of tickets closes. The loop starts from the event — an inbound question or a scheduled follow-up — not from a person watching the queue.
One bounded action
The agent looks up an order and replies, sends a capped reorder nudge over voice or WhatsApp, or triages and drafts — working only through your order system and messaging channels.
The decision is recorded
Every reply, nudge, and routing decision is logged, and a week's conversations can be grouped into themes with the exact messages shown, so a pattern is evidence you can read.
It hands off to a person
A complaint, a refund, a damaged order, or a message carrying real emotion stops the loop and goes to the support lead — the agent is built to spot exactly these and step back.
The agents behind it
Same products, arranged for Retail & e-commerce.
Operations · The work between the work
AI Data Entry Agent
Does the re-keying, chasing, and compiling nobody was hired for.
See AI Data Entry AgentVoice · Outbound & inbound
AI Voice Dialer
Makes and takes calls, qualifies leads, and scores intent.
See AI Voice DialerAnalytics · Ask your data
AI Data Analyst
Answers questions from your data, and shows its working.
See AI Data AnalystYou stay in control
You decide what the agent can resolve on its own — order status, simple FAQs, a reorder link — and everything else is set to escalate. Refunds, goodwill gestures, and disputes are not the agent's to grant; it hands them to a person with the order and the conversation attached. Follow-up is frequency-capped so a reminder never turns into pestering.
Every action is logged, and the voice-of-customer read shows the real messages behind each theme rather than a summary you have to trust. The agent surfaces what customers keep raising; the decision about what to change — policy, product, process — stays with your team, made on evidence it can see.
Rollout stays incremental. Start the agent on order-status questions alone, watch its escalations, and let it take on more only as its judgement about what to hand over proves out. Messaging frequency is capped so a helpful nudge never tips into spam, and a customer can reach a person at any point. The agent's job is to shorten the queue, not to guard it.
When not to automate this
If a message carries a complaint, a safety issue, or real emotion, it belongs with a person — and these agents are built to escalate exactly those. Point them at the high-volume, repetitive contact: status, reorders, routine FAQs. Keep humans on the moments where a customer needs to feel heard. An agent that argued with an upset customer to keep a ticket out of a human's queue would cost you the relationship to save a minute.
Will it reach production on your workflow?
Score your workflow first, or estimate what it would cost. The readiness test is six questions, the result is immediate, and it will sometimes tell you not to hire us.