E-commerce businesses face growing customer support demands, but hiring more staff isn't always practical or cost-effective. Here's the solution:
AI phone support.
It helps businesses scale support without adding headcount, delivering faster, consistent service at a fraction of the cost.
Key Takeaways:
- 90% of customers want immediate responses; 65% still prefer phone support.
- AI operates 24/7, handles routine inquiries, and reduces costs by up to 90%.
- AI eliminates the $260,000 annual expense of a 4-person call center.
- AI handles seasonal surges (e.g., Black Friday) without hiring or training temporary staff.
- Tools like Ringly.io connect directly to e-commerce platforms, offering real-time order tracking, multilingual support, and even upselling opportunities.
Automate Shopify support calls with AI
Why Phone Support Still Matters More Than You Think
When something goes wrong, nobody wants to submit a ticket and wait.
A delayed order.
A missing package.
A big cart where someone is unsure about the size or materials.
In those moments, they want an answer right now.
And when right now matters, most people still pick up the phone.
Even with strong chat, email, and help docs, phone support carries the load when money, timing, and emotions are on the line. It is often the difference between abandoning a cart and completing the purchase.
Customers Want Real-Time Help
For complex or costly issues, calling is still the default.
Late shipment.
Expensive return.
High-value order with questions.
Hearing a real voice gives instant reassurance.
During peak moments like Black Friday, phone calls spike as people chase order confirmations, shipping updates, and payment fixes. A call lets your team verify orders, process refunds, and sort out damaged items or sizing questions in real time, with less miscommunication than back-and-forth text.
Phone Support Builds Customer Loyalty
One great phone call can flip a bad experience into long-term trust.
The way a problem is handled shapes how someone sees the brand, whether they come back, and whether they recommend it.
For subscription-style businesses, fast phone help on billing or product issues can stop churn before it starts.
The hard part is doing this consistently as you grow.
Problems with Scaling Phone Support Teams
Phone support works.
Scaling it is where things break.
Costs climb, quality wobbles, and you feel the strain every peak season.
Hiring and Training Costs Add Up Fast
A small in-house phone team can easily cost more than $140,000 per year in salaries and benefits, plus around $5,000 to $10,000 per new hire for recruitment and training.
Hiring can take about 42 days.
Onboarding can take 30 to 90 days.
Agencies often charge 20 percent of the starter salary.
Then you stack on training per agent, VoIP (about $50 to $100 per seat per month), CRM (about $150 per seat per month), and office space.
A simple four-person call center can end up costing around $260,000 per year.
"When you compare costs, you aren't just looking at wages - make sure to include training, technology, and overhead when considering in-house teams." - Intelemark
Service Quality Varies Between Agents
High turnover means you are always ramping up new people.
Peak seasons force rushed training.
That creates uneven answers, slower resolutions, and a weaker brand voice.
All of that matters when 93 percent of customers are likely to make repeat purchases with companies that provide excellent service.
"The faster an eCommerce business scales? The greater the risk of inconsistent answers, diluted brand voice, and rushed resolutions that erode trust." - LTVplus
Human Teams Can't Scale Quickly
E-commerce demand is lumpy.
Seasonal surges can push contact volume up 200 to 400 percent.
Promotions can spike it 500 percent or more.
Scaling humans to match that means more space, more equipment, more licenses, and long hiring cycles that do not match real-time demand.
"For organizations with rigid corporate rules, compliance procedures, or budget restrictions, scaling internally can become a slow and expensive process - one that doesn't always match the speed and unpredictability of e-commerce traffic." - Axendi
On Black Friday, Americans can spend up to $989 billion, and retailers may generate nearly 40 percent of their yearly sales.
About 90 percent of customers expect a response within 5 minutes.
Businesses that hit this are 21 times more likely to convert.
Keeping a huge permanent team for that window leads to overcapacity later.
Relying on temps risks bottlenecks, burnout, and bad experiences.
"A shopper who encounters long wait times or inadequate support during holiday shopping may not only abandon their current purchase but also avoid the retailer in future seasons." - Jedemae Lazo, Digital Marketing Champion | Strategic Content Architect | Seasoned Digital PR Executive, PITON-Global
As teams grow, leaders get pulled into QA, scheduling, and firefighting instead of strategy.
"Every hour spent managing customer support is time not spent on innovation, growth, or product development." - SuperStaff
These limits are exactly why more teams are looking at AI-driven support that can scale without the same operational drag.
How AI Phone Support Changes E-commerce
Scaling human-only phone support has always been hard.
AI phone support changes the equation by cutting costs, standardizing quality, and scaling instantly, without the constant hiring treadmill.
What AI Phone Support Can Do
AI phone support is available 24/7.
That lines up with the 72 percent of customers who expect immediate responses, no matter the time of day.
During events like Black Friday, AI can handle thousands of calls at once, without scrambling for temps or overloading your core team.
Every caller gets the same, policy-accurate answers.
No off days.
No missed details.
By automating routine work, AI can reduce customer service costs by up to 90 percent.
It can also support multiple languages without building separate native speaking teams.
AI Connects with Your E-commerce Tools
Modern AI phone systems plug directly into your store.
When someone calls about an order, AI can instantly see their history, status, and tracking.
That matches the 81 percent of customers who want personalized experiences.
It can:
- Process returns
- Update profiles
- Send SMS notifications
- Check live inventory and answer stock questions
For Shopify users, AI phone support can read from your store backend to answer questions about product availability, shipping, and returns without waiting on a human.
It can also act proactively, sending tracking updates or delay notices before customers even reach out.
Get Data from Every Call
Traditional phone support leaves most insight trapped in call notes.
AI turns every call into structured data.
It can:
- Spot patterns in questions and complaints
- Track resolution rates
- Run sentiment analysis to flag frustration
Generative AI in customer service has been shown to improve resolution rates by 14 percent per hour.
Automatic summaries and tagging create a searchable history of conversations, so you can see seasonal trends, recurring product issues, and policy friction.
From there, AI can suggest script changes, fill knowledge gaps, and highlight process fixes.
Support stops being just a cost and becomes a source of insight that can improve product, marketing, and operations.
Ringly.io: AI Phone Support for E-commerce
Scale Phone Support Without Scaling Your Headcount
Scaling support without wrecking response times or your budget is hard.
Ringly.io exists to solve that.
It gives you an AI phone agent built for online stores that plugs into your stack, answers real customer questions, and quietly turns support calls into more revenue and repeat business.
What Ringly.io Actually Does
When someone calls about an order, Ringly.io can:
- Pull their purchase history in real time
- Share live tracking info and send SMS with tracking links during the call
- Answer questions about specs, availability, and compatibility
- Suggest alternatives when something is out of stock
- Recommend relevant add-ons based on cart and history
Returns and refunds are covered, too. The AI explains your policies, walks people through the process, and hands off to a human when needed with smart call transfers.
It is also built to sell. By watching inventory and purchase history in real time, it can upsell and cross-sell naturally during support calls.
Service stays consistent in more than 30 languages and accents, so customers get the same experience wherever they are.
Setting Up Ringly.io For Your Store
Setup is simple.
You:
- Upload your website content, policies, FAQs, and any scripts
- Tell it how you want to sound. Formal, casual, playful, or anything in between
- Connect your store so it can read orders, inventory, and customer details
On Shopify, this is mostly plug-and-play through the direct integration. Once connected, the AI can start handling real calls with live data from your store.
The system learns over time. As it handles more calls, it refines answers and needs humans less often.
On the Scale plan, you get white glove setup. That means:
- Custom agent personalities
- Deeper integrations
- Ongoing optimization support in a private Slack channel
Cost Savings With Ringly.io
Instead of hiring more agents, you pay a predictable subscription.
- Start: $99 per month for 250 call minutes
- Grow: $349 per month for 1,000 call minutes, then $0.19 per extra minute
Compared to salaries, benefits, training, and tools for another full-time hire, the gap adds up fast.
Ringly.io also comes with built-in QA:
- Call analytics
- Mood detection
- Resolution tracking
- Practical suggestions to improve scripts and flows
You do not need a separate quality team watching calls all day.
During big seasons like Black Friday and holidays, the pricing stays predictable while call volume goes up. The platform scales with demand, so you do not have to scramble for temps or overstaff for the rest of the year.
Ringly.io also connects to more than 7,000 tools through Zapier and Make.com. That lets you automate things like:
- Updating CRM records
- Creating tickets
- Sending follow-up emails or SMS
All of which quietly cuts operating costs and manual work.
How To Start Using Ringly.io
You do not need a dev team to get value. You need a plan.
1. Pick The Right Use Cases
Start where the volume is highest.
Common first wins:
- “Where is my order?”
- Shipping delays and delivery questions
- Product availability and basic specs
- Return and refund policy questions
- Abandoned cart recovery with outbound calls
Look at your call logs and tags. The repetitive stuff is what you give to AI first.
If you sell internationally, Ringly.io can run 24/7 in 30+ languages, so you do not need an overnight or multilingual team.
2. Feed It Your Store Data
The AI is only as good as what you give it.
Upload:
- Return and warranty policies
- Special rules by product category
- Detailed product info. Materials, compatibility, common use cases
- Website content so it can match your voice
If you already have call scripts or guidelines, add those too.
On Shopify, real time orders, inventory, and customer data sync in automatically once you integrate.
3. Monitor And Improve
Ringly.io comes with an analytics dashboard that tracks every call.
Watch:
- Resolution rate. How many calls the AI solves without a human
- Satisfaction scores after calls
- Call categories and trends
- Mood and frustration signals
If you see certain topics underperforming, you add training examples or tighten responses.
Over time, the AI suggests tweaks like:
- New FAQs to add
- Product info to clarify
- Response templates to refine
You end up with a support system that keeps getting better without needing more headcount.
Scale Your Support With Ringly.io
Traditional phone teams hit a wall fast. Costs grow, training drags, and quality gets inconsistent.
AI-powered phone systems change that. They can:
- Cut call center operating costs by billions at scale
- Handle 60 to 80 percent of common queries on their own
- Shrink resolution times from 10 to 15 minutes to 1 to 3 minutes
Ringly.io brings that power to stores of all sizes.
Its AI plugs into your ecommerce data to handle:
- Order tracking
- Product suggestions
- Returns and policy questions
It keeps answers consistent, matches your tone, and reduces the need for extra hires.
The pricing is clear:
- Start at $99 per month for 250 minutes
- Grow at $349 per month for 1,000 minutes, with self learning AI and advanced analytics
- Scale with a white glove setup for bigger operations
No salaries. No benefits. No months of training.
With AI systems expected to automate most call center interactions in the next few years, now is the moment to upgrade your support.
Ringly.io offers a 14-day trial so you can see it in your own store. Let the AI handle the repetitive calls and free your human team to focus on higher-leverage work.
FAQs
How does AI phone support compare to a traditional call center?
AI phone support can cut the cost per interaction from several dollars to under a dollar while keeping quality high. It handles routine questions, scales with demand, and works 24/7 so your team can focus on complex issues instead of answering the same questions all day.
What challenges should you watch for?
AI can struggle with very complex or sensitive edge cases if it is not trained on them. It also needs access to customer data, so you have to set up permissions and security correctly. Internally, some teams may resist the change, so it helps to position AI as support for humans, not a replacement.
How does Ringly.io help with satisfaction and loyalty?
By cutting wait times and giving fast, accurate, human-sounding answers at any hour. Customers feel heard, problems get solved faster, and the experience stays consistent. That combination of speed and reliability is what keeps people coming back.
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