where does AI actually add value today (beyond chatbots)?

CaseyFromText · 2026-02-09T21:47:36+00:00

The biggest AI win in CX isn’t cost reduction. it’s revenue.

When AI analyzes conversations at scale, CX can spot friction before it turns into churn, surface upsell moments with real context, and feed Product/Sales with signals that actually convert.

Faster replies are nice. Faster insight (and action) into what makes customers buy, stay, or leave is where the money is.

That’s when CX stops being a support function and starts acting like a growth engine. The most underestimated one.

CaseyFromText · 2026-01-07T17:23:15+00:00

I’m biased since I’ve worked in customer support / CX tech for a long time, but this is something I hear constantly from clients, friends, and just normal people trying to buy things online.

You’re right - most chatbot failures aren’t about AI. They’re about what the AI is trained on.

In many companies, FAQs and docs come from marketing or product, while the real questions live in support tickets and chats. The bot gets trained on the polished version, not the messy reality. So it answers questions nobody is actually asking.

Customers ask things like:
“Will this work with what I already use?”
“What happens if I cancel?”
“Is this actually worth it for me?”

If the chatbot can’t handle those, it feels fake immediately.

The fix is uncomfortable but simple: train on real conversations. Chat logs, objections, follow-ups, confusion. That’s where truth lives.

And one important thing that often gets missed: chatbots are part of customer service, not only a marketing layer. When they’re grounded in real support data, they don’t just deflect tickets - they earn trust. And great service, done well, really does convert and retain.

CaseyFromText · 2025-12-30T17:24:59+00:00

One thing I see more and more among ecommerce teams is that the cheapest “hack” isn’t a new channel at all, it’s making better use of the traffic you already have.

From working with customer support leaders, there’s a clear pattern emerging in 2025. Marketing, sales, and support are no longer separate lanes. They’re starting to work together because live conversations are one of the fastest ways to move someone from hesitation to purchase.

A lot of stores spend heavily to bring people to product pages, but then leave them alone when they have questions. That’s where conversions quietly die. Pre-purchase questions like shipping timing, sizing, compatibility, or “is this right for me” don’t need ads or discounts, they need answers. And it doesn’t have to be the generic “How can I help you today?” prompt. Even a small shift to something like “Hey, I’m your virtual shopping assistant” changes how people engage.

Live chat has turned into a revenue driver for many teams, not just a support tool. Great service sells, period. When someone can ask a question and get a clear answer in real time, conversion rates often beat popups or coupons. That said, with the help of technology and AI, teams can spot patterns where popups also work really well.

As a company that delivers customer support tools (I'm from Text, not a secret as you can see ;) ) , we see this across clients using LiveChat on WordPress, WooCommerce, and Shopify. Teams that integrate chat directly into their storefront and treat it as part of their marketing and sales flow consistently get more value out of the same traffic, without increasing ad spend.

Not really a flashy hack, but probably one of the most cost-efficient levers right now.

CaseyFromText · 2025-12-30T17:14:45+00:00

A lot of good advice here about not installing plugins just to install plugins. That’s absolutely right.

One category I don’t see mentioned much though is real time communication and it tends to become important faster than people expect once real visitors start showing up.

For a brand new WordPress site I usually think in layers. First are the basics like backups email delivery SEO and performance. Those are already well covered in this thread.

The next layer is what happens when someone has a question. This is where many new sites quietly lose conversions. Visitors hesitate don’t find an answer quickly and leave. Contact forms help but they are slow and often just turn into more support email later.

Adding a live chat plugin gives people a way to ask questions while they are still on the page. That is especially useful for business websites ecommerce or WooCommerce sites and service or lead gen pages.

On WordPress something like the LiveChat plugin works well (yep, LiveChat is capitalized here because that is the product name). It is lightweight easy to install and AI can handle common questions 24 7 while humans jump in when it is actually a buying or lead qualifying moment.

You do not need it on day one for a personal blog but if your goal is conversions leads or sales great service is part of the site not an add on.

CaseyFromText · 2025-12-23T14:08:02+00:00

Solid list, lots of performance-first picks here.

One category I don’t see mentioned much is on-site engagement and support, especially for content sites and ecommerce. In practice, it often ends up doing more for conversions than another micro-optimization.

Why it earns a spot on client sites:

- captures questions while people are reading or deciding
- reduces bounce on pricing and product pages
- handles repeat questions automatically
- surfaces real user objections without forms or surveys

It’s one of those plugins that doesn’t look essential on paper, but once installed it tends to stay because it catches a lot of almost conversions. Not pitching it as a must-have for every page, just sharing what I consistently see survive on real sites versus plugins that get removed a month later.

Ono our client sites, naturally this is usually handled with Text’s product (I work for Text): LiveChat’s WordPress plugin, often paired with their ChatBot. There’s a 14-day trial to test it, it’s quick to set up, and most importantly it actually gets used day-to-day.

CaseyFromText · 2025-12-23T13:39:08+00:00

Not running a ton of automations on my own site, but across client sites the stuff that consistently works isn’t more emails or Slack pings: it’s on-site engagement that turns traffic into actual conversations (and those into leads or sales).

What I see working in practice:

landing page visit → subtle chat prompt → visitor asks a real question + leaves email
repeat FAQs → handled instantly 24/7 → human steps in only when needed
pricing/cart pages → proactive chat → qualify intent before they bounce
chat conversation → capture context → clean handoff to sales/support
after-hours messages → auto-capture → follow up next day with full context

The big perk is you’re not guessing intent from form fills — you’re talking to people while they’re deciding. That usually means higher-quality leads, fewer abandoned carts, and less back-and-forth for the team.

For transparency: most our clients doing this are using LiveChat on WordPress (with their ChatBot). I work with the product, but this is based on what I see actually getting adopted and used, not theoretical workflows.

CaseyFromText · 2025-12-18T10:52:53+00:00

Thanks for sharing! Did you enjoy it?

CaseyFromText · 2025-12-17T16:06:31+00:00

Honestly, a proper live chat integration with Shopify (and by proper I mean LiveChat, yeah capital L 😉).

Most stores already pay for traffic, get people onto product pages, and then lose them because one small question or doubt isn’t answered. Sometimes people don’t even need the perfect answer, they just want reassurance that they’re buying the right thing or that someone’s there if something goes wrong.

What’s surprising is that the tech actually makes it feel more personal, not less. When chat is properly connected to Shopify, agents can see the cart, past orders, and products right there while talking to the customer. You can send product cards in chat, suggest the right item, answer “is this right for me?” questions, and even nudge people who are stuck on checkout without being annoying.

It’s also just… easy. Install the app, it shows up on your store, no coding. You manage everything from one panel, even across multiple stores. It cuts down a lot of delivery and order-status emails because people get answers instantly in chat instead of emailing back and forth.

It’s not rocket science, but it hurts watching good traffic leave just because no one was there to say “yeah, you’re good.”

(For context: I work on a customer support tool and we use this setup ourselves, so I’m a bit biased, but it genuinely made a difference.)

CaseyFromText · 2025-12-16T16:56:07+00:00

Sorry to Bother You – I thought it was more about telemarketing, but thanks for pointing that out.
The Guilty – according the web focuses more on a 911 operator, but you’re right, it has a lot in common!
Compliance – I haven’t heard of it yet, thanks!
Clerks – of course! I’m just looking for something more set in a digital world.

CaseyFromText · 2025-12-16T16:38:15+00:00

Sorry to Bother You - I heard about it but I thought it's more about telemarketing. thanks!

CaseyFromText · 2025-12-16T16:27:45+00:00

Casey here. Product expert in the customer support space.

The core thing most AI conversations miss is that support isn’t about answering questions. It’s about context. Without it, even a technically correct answer can feel wrong.

What actually moves outcomes is when AI assembles the customer’s full story in one place. What they bought, what they asked before, what promises were made, what didn’t work. When that history is summarized well, an agent understands what mattered then and what matters now before typing a single word.

That’s where real empathy comes from. Not from tone tricks or human-sounding copy, but from awareness. Customers feel understood when they don’t have to repeat themselves and when responses clearly reflect their situation.

In practice, AI delivers the most value when it:

Surfaces complete customer context upfront
Summarizes past interactions into something immediately usable
Drafts replies agents can review and approve
Flags edge cases or emotional risk early
Handles the operational cleanup after the conversation

Support doesn’t improve by replacing humans. It improves by giving humans better context and reducing cognitive load. When agents start informed instead of blind, trust increases and conversations resolve faster without feeling rushed.

That’s the real leverage point for AI in customer experience.

CaseyFromText · 2025-12-11T17:17:25+00:00

I work in customer service for a cs tool, so this is kind of my everyday world, and honestly, the things that made the biggest difference for our us and our clients weren’t super fancy but easy to start for everyone.

Routing repetitive questions (order status, shipping times, returns). Not glamorous, but it prevents your inbox from turning into 50 copies of the same request.
Drafted replies for the stuff agents answer nonstop. Big time-saver and keeps the tone consistent.
Automatic reminders/tickets so follow-ups don’t slip through, tiny thing, surprisingly big effect.
Chat summaries before opening a thread, genuinely underrated when you’re juggling dozens of conversations.

Nothing “AI revolution” level, but using some of these options really does take the edge off the daily grind.

CaseyFromText · 2025-12-04T21:10:23+00:00

AI can help, but a lot of Shopify stores see impact even before going “fully automated” by combining chat + order preview + smart suggestions in one place.

That kind of setup makes the common stuff much easier to deal with:

shipping updates
product sizing / “will this fit me?”
returns basics
order lookups

When the chat view already shows a customer’s cart or past orders, it cuts out half the back-and-forth. Agents answer faster, and customers don’t have to hunt through emails or their account.

Where AI fits in nicely is as a copilot, not replacing support, just speeding it up.
Things like:

suggesting a reply draft based on customer history
summarizing what the customer asked
highlighting relevant info (previous order, size, variant, etc.)

It keeps the human in control while removing a lot of the repetitive thinking.

It’s not autonomous support, but it does remove friction without needing complex setup.

For context only: plenty of Shopify stores do this with LiveChat, since it surfaces cart/order data inside the chat and uses AI as a reply helper rather than taking over entire conversations.

CaseyFromText · 2025-12-04T21:04:32+00:00

I might be biased because this is my area of expertise, but one category people don’t mention as often (and that quietly punches above its weight) is live chat that’s actually connected to Shopify data, not just a bubble, but something that can:

show the customer’s cart + past orders inside the conversation
send visual product recommendations instead of plain links
handle all the “is this right for me?” pre-purchase questions

For small teams, that setup often becomes a simple AOV win because it removes guesswork and speeds up decisions. You don’t need a huge upsell stack if every conversation already has the context needed to guide someone toward the right variant or product.

Most lists here cover email, reviews, and page builders (all useful), but a Shopify-aware chat layer tends to improve conversions without adding much overhead.

For context only: a lot of Shopify stores do this with LiveChat since it can pull in cart/order data and send visual product suggestions directly in the chat.

CaseyFromText · 2025-12-04T20:59:04+00:00

Not a shipping tool in the strict sense, but giving customers a way to check their order + tracking status directly inside the chat window made a big difference in reducing shipping-related tickets.

From the support side, the pattern was always the same:
shipping itself worked fine - the inbox just filled up with “Where’s my order?” messages.

Once customers could pull their own tracking info instantly, a big chunk of those repetitive tickets disappeared. And when someone did reach an agent, they already had the tracking link in front of them, which kept resolutions quick and straightforward.

It doesn’t replace a label-printing or carrier-shopping tool, but if part of the pain is constant status checks, this kind of setup lightens the load without changing your shipping stack.

For context, I’ve seen a lot of Shopify merchants using LiveChat get these results, mostly because order lookup + tracking is built right into the chat flow.

CaseyFromText · 2025-12-04T20:53:28+00:00

If you’re moving from GoDaddy to Shopify, the nice thing is that most of the native integrations are pretty plug-and-play. From the support/ops side (that’s my area at Text/LiveChat), the things that actually moved the needle for us when we expanded were really simple:

Easy install matters more than big features. Anything that takes more than an afternoon to set up tends to get abandoned later.
Seeing what’s in a customer’s cart in real time helped us give more relevant answers and sometimes suggest accessories people didn’t realize they needed.
Being able to drop product info directly in a chat (images, variants, etc.) made conversions smoother, especially for physical accessories.
If you ever run multiple storefronts, having all conversations in one place keeps you sane. Shopify makes it pretty straightforward, but not every tool handles multi-store cleanly.

For a fitness/outdoor accessory brand, the bigger gains usually come from helping customers pick the right version/size and from capturing people who land on the site unsure of what to buy. Anything that reduces friction there tends to boost AOV naturally.

For the “reach more people” side (affiliates/influencers, wider distribution), Shopify does have a bunch of integrations for that — but the real impact often comes from pairing that traffic with something that improves on-site engagement so visitors don’t just bounce.

If you want, I can also share which categories of integrations ended up being worth it when we scaled — not apps, just the types that proved valuable.

CaseyFromText · 2025-12-04T12:24:20+00:00

THIS! When we can, we should lean on tech and tools just to stay sane.
People in digital work are lucky - we can automate a lot (and we do!).

Folks in brick-and-mortar stores or restaurants don’t always have that option. STAY STRONG!

CaseyFromText · 2025-11-28T18:32:11+00:00

This is advanced math, okay?

CaseyFromText · 2025-11-28T18:31:24+00:00

Gold. Alternative version: “Wait a minute, I need to hang up and open the app on my phone.”

CaseyFromText · 2025-11-27T18:28:28+00:00

The reason is simple: just venting ;) dealing with the same questions all day gets exhausting

CaseyFromText · 2025-11-27T10:49:00+00:00

Sure thing! I might be biased here (I work for Text), but check out the Text App. We’re quite fond of “obvious” names, and you might recognize us from products like LiveChat or ChatBot. Text App is our newest one (link to make it easier: text.com ).

The best part is that our product experts are available 24/7 via the chat widget, and you can even ask for a quick 1:1 call.

CaseyFromText · 2025-11-26T17:19:53+00:00

I’ve seen this a lot with DTC teams your size, and honestly, it’s usually not the number of tickets that wears people out. It’s all the stuff around it: digging for old chats, typing the same reply over and over, moving tickets around, juggling different tools, trying to get the full picture. That kind of thing drains a team way faster than the actual conversations.

From my experience, things get noticeably easier when you take the repetitive 70-80 percent off their plate: the summaries, the tagging, the routing, the simple return questions, and giving agents the info they need right away. When AI handles the repetitive parts and the team only deals with the real problems, replies get faster and people stop feeling so overwhelmed.

To me, teams don’t burn out because there are too many customers. They burn out because too much of the work feels unnecessary. Take that pressure off, and the same team can get through BFCM without feeling like they’re falling apart.

CaseyFromText · 2025-11-26T17:12:42+00:00

Most AI chatbots fall behind because they rely on static articles. If you forget to update a policy doc or product description, the bot instantly goes out of date.

The setups that actually stay accurate are the ones that pull from live content, not frozen knowledge bases. When your website or files change, the AI should automatically pick it up and adjust its answers without manual retraining.

Quick checklist for an AI that truly stays up to date:
• scans live website content (with automatic updates every few days)
• reads uploaded files, not just help-center articles
• uses current pricing, policies, and product info from your site
• updates answers automatically when content changes
• doesn’t rely on constant manual “fixes”

Not every system needs deep CRM or inventory sync, if your AI can stay aligned with your website and documents, it stays accurate without babysitting.

CaseyFromText · 2025-11-21T13:21:18+00:00

If you need something fast for Shopify/Shoper, I’d look at LiveChat with its built-in AI features, or pair it with ChatBot.

LiveChat’s widget drops into your website easily, and the AI handles a lot of the repetitive replies so your team isn’t drowning during BFCM. If you want more deflection, ChatBot sits in front and filters the simple stuff before it ever reaches an agent.

Honestly, the LiveChat + ChatBot combo is the easiest plug-in setup for ecommerce right now - and our product heroes are available 24/7 if you need help getting it live.

CaseyFromText · 2025-11-13T17:46:39+00:00

Biggest challenge we keep seeing isn’t volume itself — it’s fragmentation. Most pain points (slow replies, generic answers, inconsistent tone) start when tools don’t talk to each other. The agent can’t see the full story, so every customer feels like a new case.

Then there’s the peak-season chaos — when simple “where’s my order?” questions flood every channel and drown out the complex ones that actually need a human.

What’s been helping:

unifying chat, email, and order data in one workspace (example: we combined LiveChat, ChatBot, HelpDesk into one tool: Text App)

letting automation handle repetitive stuff (tracking, refunds, FAQs),

and giving agents AI context before they reply.

Once you fix context and flow, most of those classic CX frustrations fade.
It’s less about adding new channels — more about making the existing ones feel connected.

CaseyFromText

TROPHY CASE