For growing ecommerce stores, managing customer phone calls can be challenging.
When customers have questions about orders, returns, or products, they expect quick answers.
AI receptionists can help by offering 24/7 availability, ensuring you never miss a customer call.
One option for small businesses is Dialzara, which is built for general use across many industries.
This guide will explore what Dialzara offers and discuss specialized Dialzara ecommerce alternative options for online stores, particularly those on Shopify.
What is Dialzara?
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Dialzara is an AI phone answering service for small businesses that receive a high volume of inbound calls. Its main purpose is to automate call handling, answer common questions, book appointments, and capture leads at any time of day.
To use it, businesses forward their phone number to an AI agent from Dialzara.
The company states the setup takes about 15 minutes, so it's fairly quick to get started. It serves a broad market, with customers in fields like law, dentistry, and home services.
Dialzara's features and capabilities
Before looking at how it applies to online stores, it is helpful to understand the core features that make Dialzara a viable choice for general business needs.
Call management and voice options
Dialzara provides 24/7 call answering and can handle multiple conversations at once, so callers are not placed in a queue. It also has features like call transfers to route callers to the right person, though this is not available on their basic plan.
To help match a business's brand, the platform offers over 50 different voice options.
For businesses serving diverse communities, bilingual support for English and Spanish is available on the Pro and Plus plans. After each call, the system sends summaries, recordings, and full transcriptions by email.
Knowledge base and setup
You can train the AI agent by uploading documents, providing call scripts, or adding a website URL for it to crawl and learn from.
This process gives the AI the information it needs to answer common questions about business hours, services, or location.
The number of documents you can upload is limited by your plan. The Business Lite plan allows five uploads, and Business Pro allows ten. Only the Business Plus plan offers unlimited uploads, which is a consideration if you have a lot of information to share.
Integrations
Dialzara can connect to other applications, which is helpful for businesses that already use a set of tools. This is done through third-party automation platforms like Zapier and Make.com.
While these tools are useful, they require an extra subscription and some technical setup.
They can pass data to a CRM or other software, but they are not native integrations. This means they can send information but cannot perform complex, real-time actions inside another platform.
Dialzara pricing
Dialzara uses a subscription model based on a certain number of call minutes per month, which is standard for AI answering services. They offer a 7-day free trial so you can test it out before committing.
Here is a quick look at their plans.
With a per-minute model, costs can be unpredictable. This can be the case if you receive a high volume of calls or if customer conversations tend to be long, which is common in customer support.
The overage rate of $0.48 per minute can increase monthly costs during busy periods or if you have a few complex customer issues to resolve.
Limitations of a generalist tool for ecommerce
While Dialzara offers a solid set of general features, ecommerce businesses have specific needs that may require a more specialized tool.
Here are some areas where the platform might not be an exact fit for an online store.
Lack of native ecommerce integration
A key consideration for an online store using Dialzara is its lack of a direct, native integration with ecommerce platforms like Shopify.
Without this live connection, the AI cannot access real-time data about orders, shipping status, or customer history. Here's a visual breakdown of how a generalist tool compares to a specialized one for ecommerce:
This means it cannot answer the most common question in ecommerce: "Where is my order?" It also cannot do things like process a return, check if an item is in stock, or look up a customer's past purchases.
As a result, many calls may still need to be passed on to a human agent.
A dedicated Dialzara ecommerce alternative like Ringly.io provides a native Shopify app.
This allows its AI phone rep, Seth, to look up order details and handle returns on its own, resolving the customer's problem directly.
Challenges for specialized industries
Dialzara is designed to serve a wide range of businesses, from law firms to plumbers. Because of this, its features are broad. Ecommerce has its own language and workflows, with terms like SKUs, tracking numbers, and RMAs that a general AI isn't trained to understand.
This means store owners may need to invest time in manually training the AI with scripts and documents. Even then, it might face challenges with the specifics of ecommerce problems.
For example, when a customer calls to start a return, the AI needs to access order data. Without a native integration, it cannot find the order and must escalate the call to a human.
A system built for ecommerce, however, can find the order in Shopify and process the return based on the store's policy, all without assistance.
Pricing considerations for support teams
A per-minute billing model with a high overage rate can be a consideration for customer support. A single long call about a complicated return or a faulty product could become expensive. This makes it difficult to predict monthly costs, since support call lengths can vary.
Specialized alternatives are often priced in a way that is well-suited for a support team. For example, Ringly.io's Grow plan includes 1,000 minutes for $349, with a lower overage rate of $0.19 per minute.
This structure provides more predictability and value for businesses that handle a high volume of support calls.
Specific ecommerce feature considerations
Generalist tools may not include built-in features that are common in specialized ecommerce solutions. These can include automated return and exchange processing, real-time order status lookups, and a deep understanding of a product catalog.
While it can answer basic questions from a knowledge base you create, it cannot perform important actions within your ecommerce platform.
This means a human agent will still need to handle most of the important calls, which limits the potential efficiency gains.
Ringly.io: A specialized alternative for ecommerce
For ecommerce stores, an AI receptionist without deep integration may need to forward a significant number of calls. A specialized Dialzara ecommerce alternative can often resolve customer issues directly.
Ringly.io's AI agent, Seth, was designed specifically to solve these challenges for over 2,100 Shopify brands. It differs because of its:
- Native Shopify integration that lets it handle order lookups, returns, and exchanges in real-time.
- Proven performance, with an average resolution rate of 73%, meaning it solves most customer issues without any human help.
- Risk-free guarantee, where you pay nothing until Seth proves it can resolve 60% of calls, so you can confirm it works for your store before being billed.
- Support for over 40 languages, making it a great choice for brands with a global customer base.
- A simple, 3-minute setup process that does not require any technical skills.
Ready to see how an AI phone rep built for ecommerce can change your customer support? Try Ringly.io for free.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the main advantage of choosing a specialized Dialzara ecommerce alternative?
A specialized alternative, like Ringly.io, integrates directly with ecommerce platforms like Shopify. This allows it to access real-time order data to handle tasks like order lookups and returns automatically, which a general tool cannot do.
How does the pricing of a Dialzara ecommerce alternative compare?
Many specialized alternatives offer pricing models better suited for support teams. For instance, they might include more minutes and have lower overage rates, making costs more predictable for businesses with fluctuating call volumes.
Can a Dialzara ecommerce alternative handle specific ecommerce tasks like returns?
Yes, that is a key benefit. An integrated tool can process returns and exchanges based on your store's policies directly within your ecommerce platform, saving your team a lot of time.
Why is a native Shopify integration important for a Dialzara ecommerce alternative?
Native integration allows the AI to perform actions, not just answer questions. It can look up live order details, check inventory, and process returns, resolving customer issues on the first call without needing a human agent.
What should I look for when choosing a Dialzara ecommerce alternative for my online store?
Look for a solution with deep integration into your ecommerce platform (like Shopify), a pricing model that fits a support environment, and features designed for online retail, such as automated returns and real-time order tracking.
