AI-powered chat assistant for online stores

The Challenge

Every website has questions whose answers are just three clicks away from the visitor: “Is size M available?”, “Where is my order?”, “How much is shipping?”. Many people do not look for the answer themselves and simply leave. Meanwhile, managers spend their time answering the same questions and explaining the same things over and over.

I wanted to create an assistant that could be trusted to handle customer conversations: it does not make things up or promise more than it can deliver. If it cannot answer a question, it asks the customer to leave their contact details so that you can get in touch with them personally.

What the assistant can do

Answers based on your website. It studies pages, articles, and products, and automatically updates its knowledge whenever the website changes. If the materials do not contain the answer, it says so honestly. I can configure the AI assistant to index only certain types of pages or exclude specific pages from the index.

Displays products It checks the catalog and provides the price, sizes, and colors, as well as a link to the product. If the requested color is unavailable, it will show the available options.

Provides order status updates. Registered customers only need to ask. A guest (an unregistered user of your online store) provides the order number and the e-mail address used at checkout. Other customers’ orders are never shown, and attempts to guess the details are blocked.

Accepts inquiries through a conversation. Instead of a lengthy form, the AI assistant asks for the customer’s name, contact details, and a brief description of their request. The inquiry is sent by e-mail and saved in the website dashboard. Nothing is sent unless the visitor voluntarily provides their details and chooses to submit an inquiry.

Speaks multiple languages. Russian, English, and Lithuanian are supported out of the box. The language is determined by the site version, and the list can be customized.

What the site owner gets

• Conversation log. It shows what customers are asking about and what information is missing from the site. IP addresses are not stored, and old conversations are deleted automatically.
• A list of inquiries with contact details and descriptions of the requests.
• Protection against abuse: request limit per address and question length restriction.
• Full customization. The greeting, tone, colors, size, and behavior can all be changed in the settings.

How it works

The plugin for WordPress works with Microsoft Azure OpenAI. It searches the website content for excerpts relevant to the question and sends only those excerpts to the model, along with instructions (a prompt) to base its answer on that information. For online stores, tools are provided that can access the WooCommerce catalog and orders.

Technologies used:

Azure OpenAI
A fully managed cloud service from Microsoft that enables developers and businesses to securely integrate advanced AI models from OpenAI into their projects.

Wordpress
The world's most popular open-source content management system (CMS), written in PHP and using MySQL or MariaDB databases.

WooCommerce
This is the world's most popular free, open-source eCommerce plugin, built specifically for WordPress. According to analytics, it powers more than 25% мирового рынка of all online stores, surpassing many specialized competitors.

Design tailored to your brand

An orb in the corner of the page is just one option. We tailor the assistant's appearance to your website and your requirements:

The icon itself. It can be a soft glowing orb, like the one in our example. Alternatively, you can use a logo, mascot, icon, team member's avatar, or any other shape. The size, shape, glow, shadows, and animations are tailored to your needs, including blinking, following the cursor with its gaze, pulsing, fading in smoothly, and responding on hover.

Colors and style. The color palette, gradients, fonts, rounded corners, and shadows are adapted to match your brand identity. The assistant looks like part of your website rather than a third-party widget.

Chat pop-up window. We customize the entire window, including the header, message colors, input field, buttons, dimensions, and opening behavior. On mobile devices, the chat can expand to fill the entire screen.

Placement. The icon doesn't have to sit in the bottom-right corner. It can be placed on the left, in the header, within a section on the page, next to a product, or anywhere else on the website.

Copy and personality. The greeting, tone of voice (formal, friendly, or humorous), prompts, and labels are tailored to your audience. Each website language has its own copy.

A communication style tailored to your industry. You can define the assistant's role and rules: how to address customers, what to offer first, and which topics to avoid.

Results

Visitors get instant answers in their own language, any time of day. Your team is freed from routine tasks. The business owner can see which issues matter most to customers and receive inquiries without unnecessary forms.

Want an assistant like this on your website?

You can submit a request to create a unique assistant for your business here.