Case studies · E-commerce
The support lead who built her own team — in software.
The repetitive 80% of tickets gets handled before a person looks, so the human crew takes the cases that actually need them.
Tidewater sells direct, which means a small support crew and big seasonal spikes. Most tickets are the same handful of questions: where's my order, I'd like a refund, how do I return this. During peaks the queue blew out and replies slipped to the next morning.
Hiring temps for the busy months never really worked. By the time they were trained, the rush was over, and quality dipped in the meantime.
The support lead, who doesn't code, described the triage rules and refund policy the team already followed. harnesst built agents that look up the order, draft the reply, and process refunds up to a set limit — handing anything unusual straight to a person.
The rules are hers to change. When the return policy shifts, she edits the agent that afternoon instead of filing a request and waiting.
Agents they stood up
- order-lookup — answers “where is my order” from the live status
- refund-desk — refunds within policy, escalates the rest
- returns-guide — walks a customer through a return start to finish
- escalation-router — hands the tricky 20% to the right human
First response dropped from the next morning to a few minutes, even at peak. The human team stopped drowning in “where's my order” and spent its time on the cases that need a person.
Last holiday season the crew didn't hire a single temp — and, in their words, didn't dread Mondays.
80%
of tickets resolved before a human looks
0
seasonal temps hired last peak
minutes
to first response, even at peak
“My team used to dread Mondays. Now the agent has cleared the easy stuff overnight and we handle the cases that actually need a human. Same team, better week.”
Renata Alvarez · Head of Support, Tidewater Goods
Build your first agent before the meeting ends.
Photograph by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash.