Automated 67% of support tickets for a pet supplier
By connecting their order database to a simple AI chat, customers now get tracking updates without calling the office.
Paws & Whiskers Retail is a specialist pet food supplier based in Northampton. We built a bot that connects to their DPD and Royal Mail feeds to answer tracking questions that used to clog up their phone lines.
The challenge
Before June 2024, the team of 3 in their Northampton office spent nearly 4.2 hours every day just looking up tracking numbers. They handled an average of 42 phone calls a day from customers asking about parcel locations. This left very little time for handling complex issues like damaged items or specific dietary advice for pet owners.
Their email inbox usually had 118 unread messages by Monday morning. About 31% of these were simple requests for a status update. The owner noticed that their response time had slipped to 1.6 days, which was starting to result in 3-star reviews on public feedback sites. They needed a way to give customers answers without hiring a fourth person.
Our approach
We spent the first 9 days of June auditing 187 past support tickets to see exactly what people were asking. We found that most queries were repetitive and followed a clear pattern. Our lead developer, Mark, mapped out the connection between their Shopify store and our chat interface to ensure data was pulled in real-time.
We did not try to automate every single conversation. We focused only on the 'Where is my parcel?' and 'Is this in stock?' queries because they were the biggest time-wasters. We set up a test environment where the bot would only trigger for 12% of visitors during the first week of July to check for accuracy before the full rollout.
The solution
The final solution is a TTM Bot widget that sits on the Paws & Whiskers website. It uses a direct API link to their warehouse management software. When a customer enters an order number like PW-8492, the bot checks the status and gives a clear answer in under 2.4 seconds.
If the parcel is still in the warehouse, the bot explains the 24-hour packing window. If it is with the courier, it provides the tracking link directly. If a customer asks something the bot does not know—like a question about a refund—the bot gathers the order details and hands it over to the Northampton team with all the facts already listed. This means the staff do not have to ask for the order number again.
Results
The system now handles two-thirds of all incoming queries without any staff involvement, allowing the team to clear the Monday morning inbox by 11:15 AM instead of Tuesday afternoon.
Timeline
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June 4, 2024Audit of 187 support tickets and data mapping
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June 18, 2024Shopify and DPD API integration setup
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July 2, 2024Limited test rollout for 12% of site traffic
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August 14, 2024Full system launch for all UK customers
"I was worried customers would hate talking to a bot. But when it saves them a 10-minute wait on the phone just to get a tracking code, they actually prefer it. It fixed our Monday backlog."