Ran the numbers on a few DTC brands last month and found the same pattern every time: 60-70% of support tickets are the exact same 5 questions — 'where's my order', 'can I return this', 'do you have this in stock', 'how do I use a discount code', 'when will it restock'.

Most brands still route every single one of these to a human. That's not a staffing problem, it's an automation gap.

Here's the actual fix, in order of ROI:

1. Order status first. Connect your order data to an AI agent that answers 'where's my order' instantly, 24/7, without a human touching it. This alone kills 30-40% of ticket volume.

1. Policy Q&A second. Feed your returns/shipping/sizing policies into the agent. It should never need a human for anything documented.

1. Review capture on autopilot. The highest-leverage automation nobody does: trigger a review/UGC request automatically X days after delivery, not manually. Brands doing this consistently get 3-5x the review volume of ones that don't.

1. Escalation, not replacement. The agent should hand off to a human the moment it's uncertain — not guess. This is where most DIY chatbot attempts fail; they try to answer everything and erode trust.

If you're an e-commerce brand doing $10k+/mo and still eyeballing every ticket manually, this is the highest-leverage hour you can spend this week. Happy to break down what this looks like for your specific stack — just ask.