AI customer communication for retail stores.
Auto-resolve 70% of customer questions across phone, Instagram DMs, email, and web chat. Cut response time from 4 hours to under 5 minutes. Get your unanswered DM rate under 5%. We build custom AI customer service wired into the inventory, order, and loyalty data your stores already run on.
Free 30-minute call. Written report in 48 hours. No pitch.
Some of the businesses we work with
The problem you're trying to solve
A customer messaged a retail brand on Instagram at 7:43 PM on a Saturday asking whether the Blush jacket was in stock in medium at the Westmount store. Nobody saw it until Monday. That month, 42% of the brand's Instagram DMs went unanswered completely — and most of them were purchase-intent questions about stock. According to Zendesk's 2024 CX Trends report, 60% of customers switch to a competitor after a single poor service experience.
The cause is almost always the same in multi-location retail: five inbound channels, three people, three schedules. The social media manager watches Instagram during business hours. The e-commerce coordinator gets to the shared inbox when they can. Phone calls land at whichever store the customer dialled. Web chat forwards to an inbox three people can see and nobody owns. Same question, three different answers, three different wait times — and Zendesk found 71% of customers say repeating themselves to multiple agents is the most frustrating part of service.
The fix isn't another seasonal hire in November. It's one queue behind every channel, with live inventory, order records, and your return policy sitting behind it — so the answer at 9 PM on Instagram matches the answer at 11 AM by email and the answer at the till. The brand in our case study below got to 70% auto-resolution that way with no change in headcount. For the wider set of workflows we automate for stores and online shops, see our e-commerce and retail automation solutions.
What We Build
What we build for retail stores and chains
Every system is custom-built around your locations, your inventory, and your return policy. These are the building blocks we usually deploy for retailers running physical stores alongside an online shop.
Stock checks by store, not just online
"Do you have the Blush jacket in medium at Westmount?" The AI checks live in-store and online inventory, answers with the location that has it, and offers an in-store reservation link. Purchase-intent DMs stop going cold overnight.
Store hours, locations, and holiday changes
The AI answers with the hours for the store the customer asked about, or all locations if they didn't say. Extended December hours and statutory holiday closures get updated once and answered correctly everywhere, on every channel.
Order status and in-store pickup
Customers get looked up by email and told exactly where their order stands, with a tracking link. Pickup orders come back with the store holding them and how long it'll be held. No staff member has to walk to the back to check.
Returns and exchanges, self-serve
In-policy returns run end to end: intake, verification against the order, label generation, refund initiation. Outside-window or damaged items route to a human with the purchase history attached. Our case study brand moved 70% of returns to the portal within 60 days.
Instagram and Facebook DMs after closing
Peak DM volume lands Friday nights and Saturday evenings, exactly when no one is watching. Coverage in those windows went from zero to 100% with responses under 60 seconds, and the unanswered DM rate fell from 42% to under 5% in the first month.
Voice AI for seasonal phone overflow
For chains fielding 40+ calls a day through December or back-to-school, AI voice agents answer the routine ones — hours, stock, pickup, return policy — and route the rest to the right store. Floor staff stop being the accidental call centre.
How it works
What working with Builts AI looks like
Audit your channel coverage
A senior automation engineer reviews 30-60 days of email, Instagram and Facebook DMs, web chat, and store phone logs, sorts every message into question categories, and measures the unanswered rate per channel. Most multi-location retailers find their worst gap on the channel nobody formally owns.
Build one queue on your product and order data
Every channel feeds a single inbox with the customer's purchase and return history attached. The AI classifies each message and answers from live inventory by location, order records, loyalty balances, and your policy documents. Anything it can't answer escalates with the full thread pre-loaded.
Launch in 4-6 weeks, then widen the coverage
We start with your two highest-volume channels — usually Instagram DMs and web chat, since those carry the most purchase intent — then add email and phone in month two and returns self-serve in month three. The retail brand in our case study hit 60% auto-resolution by day 30 and 70% by day 90.
Real Result
How a 3-store retail brand auto-resolved 70% of inquiries and cut unanswered DMs from 42% to under 5%
70%
Inquiries auto-resolved, no human touch
4 hrs → 5 min
Response time across all channels
42% → <5%
Unanswered Instagram DMs
A retail brand running three physical stores plus an online shop had five inbound channels split across three people on different schedules. Evening and weekend messages got no coverage at all. Returns took three days to process, which turned exchange candidates into refund requests. The team's own service audit found 42% of Instagram DMs never got a reply — those customers didn't complain, they just stopped buying.
We unified email, web chat, Instagram DMs, Facebook messages, and SMS into one inbox with purchase and return history attached to every thread, then layered classification on top. Six categories answer automatically from live data: store hours and location, product availability across stores and online, return and exchange policy, order status, loyalty program balances, and discount code validity. Product recommendations, complaints, custom orders, and out-of-policy exceptions escalate to a human with the full thread and purchase history pre-loaded.
Result over 90 days: 70% of inquiries auto-resolved (60% by day 30), response time down from 4 hours to under 5 minutes, unanswered Instagram DMs from 42% to under 5%, manual returns from 100% to about 30%, team time on routine replies from 3-4 hours a day to under 1, and e-commerce email volume from 80-100 a day to 25-35. Staff recovered roughly 3 hours a day for floor sales and content. Read the full case study for the channel-by-channel breakdown.
Book Your Free Audit
See exactly what we'd build for your stores
Pick a 30-minute slot. We'll map your channel coverage, flag where unanswered messages are leaking revenue, and send a written report in 48 hours with the auto-resolution rate you could realistically hit in 90 days. No pitch.
Honest Comparison
Why custom-built beats off-the-shelf for retail
You already have autoresponders on some channels. Here's how the options actually compare.
| Per-channel autoresponders | Generic chatbot | Builts AI custom build | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Same answer on every channel | Depends who replies | Website only | One logic layer across DMs, email, chat, phone |
| Live stock by store location | No | No | Checks in-store and online before answering |
| Order status and pickup lookups | Manual | No | Looks up by email, returns status and store |
| Evening and weekend coverage | "We'll get back to you" | Canned answers | Under 60 seconds when peak DM volume lands |
| Returns handled end to end | Manual, multi-day | No | In-policy self-serve, exceptions routed |
| Customer history on escalation | Fragmented per channel | None | Full thread, orders, and returns attached |
FAQ
Common questions from retail owners and managers
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes. The AI reads live in-store and online inventory, so "is this in medium at Westmount?" gets a real answer instead of "let me check." If another location has it, the AI says which one and offers an in-store reservation link. Product availability is one of six categories we automate first.
Six categories: store hours and location, product availability across stores and online, return and exchange policy, order status and tracking, loyalty program balances, and discount code validity. Together they cover 65-75% of total inquiry volume for most multi-location retail brands. Our case study brand auto-resolved 70%.
They get answered in under 60 seconds instead of Monday morning. Friday nights and Saturday evenings are peak DM windows for retail and they're usually unstaffed. The brand in our case study cut its unanswered Instagram DM rate from 42% to under 5% in the first month after launch.
Standard returns, yes — in policy, original packaging, receipt on file. A self-serve portal handles intake, verification, label generation, and refund initiation without a human. Outside-window or damaged items route to your team with the customer's order history attached. Our case study brand ran 70% of returns through the portal within 60 days.
No. The brand in our case study kept the same headcount and shifted the work up-market. Their social media manager recovered 2-3 hours a day for content and community, and e-commerce email dropped from 80-100 a day to 25-35. Store staff stopped being the accidental escalation point for online questions.
The automation layer doesn't need seasonal training, and it answers the same way at 400 messages a day as at 40. Routine volume gets absorbed, escalations still route to a named human with full context, and your seasonal hires spend their shifts on the floor instead of on the phone.
Yes. We connect to your inventory system, order records, loyalty database, and discount code rules, plus Shopify, Lightspeed, Square, and most cloud POS platforms. Those systems stay the record of truth — the AI reads from them rather than holding a second copy that drifts out of date.
Most of the gain lands in the first 30-45 days. Our case study brand hit 60% auto-resolution by day 30 and 70% by day 90 as the knowledge base absorbed new question patterns. Response-time improvements are immediate — 4 hours down to under 5 minutes the week the layer goes live.
More Industries
AI customer service for other service businesses
We build customer service automation for service-based businesses across these verticals.
Stop losing sales
to unread messages.
Book a free 30-minute audit. We'll map your channel coverage and show you which questions your stores can hand off first — no obligation.
Written report in 48 hours. No pitch, no pressure.