Automations
Automations answer and message customers without anyone on your team typing. They cover the moments that come up again and again: a customer's first message, a message after hours, a common question, a birthday.
Ecomm+ covers what happens in your Shopify store. Automations cover what happens in the chat.
The four automations
| Automation | What sets it off | Where you set it up |
|---|---|---|
| Chatbot flows | A customer sends a keyword you chose | Flow Builder |
| AI agent | A customer asks a question in their own words | Agents studio |
| Welcome and off-hours replies | A customer messages you, inside or outside your working hours | Manage → Live Chat Settings |
| Birthday messages | A customer's birthday | Manage → Live Chat Settings |
Step-by-step conversations built by dragging blocks: questions, buttons, products, and a handover to your team. See Chatbot flows.
An agent that understands what customers ask and answers from your website and documents. See AI agent.
An automatic reply during working hours, and a different one outside them. See Welcome and off-hours replies.
A template sent to each customer on their birthday. See Birthday messages.
Flows or the AI agent
Both answer customers on their own. They work differently.
| Chatbot flows | AI agent | |
|---|---|---|
| Understands | The keywords and buttons you set up | What the customer means, in their own words |
| Answers from | The steps you built | Your website, files and text you give it |
| Best at | Fixed journeys: browse products, collect details, pick an option | Open questions: delivery areas, policies, product details |
| When it cannot help | A fallback you set, or a handover to your team | A fallback message, or a handover to your team |
The two can run on the same number.
Start with a flow if your customers mostly do the same few things. A menu of "Shop", "Track order" and "Talk to us" handles most chats for many stores, and you control every word.
Add the AI agent when the questions vary. If your team spends its day answering "do you deliver to Pune?" and "is this cotton?", an agent trained on your website answers those without anyone building a step for each.
Automations and opted-out customers
Chatbot flows skip customers who opted out. Birthday messages have their own Skip Opted-out users switch. See Opt-in and opt-out.
Keep a person in the loop
Every automation should have a way out to a human. A customer stuck in a loop with a bot, repeating themselves, is a customer who leaves.
In a flow, the Request Intervention step hands the chat to your team, and it appears under Requesting Chats in Live Chat. The AI agent has a Human Handoff skill for the same job. Either way, someone has to be watching for it. See Live Chat.
Updated about 1 month ago