An AI Assistant for Order Support

Solution design

The reply and its evidence share one view

The order-support assistant combines permitted order context with approved policy guidance to prepare a sourced draft reply. The agent sees the evidence alongside the answer and checks details that affect the response. Refunds, exceptions and customer commitments remain subject to application permissions and human authority. Quality review includes corrections, uncertainty and the work involved in checking the draft.

Support agents can inspect the order facts and policy passages behind a suggested answer before sending it. Missing information stays visible, and unresolved cases pass to the appropriate team with the original question, verified facts and attempted steps.

• Inspectable policy sources beside each draft
• Limited access to the order information required
• Agent review for replies and consequential actions

Business context

An online retailer handling delivery, product, returns and order-change questions across digital support channels

Core capability

AI & Automation

The same question can require a different answer

A customer asks to change a delivery address. The next step depends on whether the order is still being prepared or has already been dispatched. A return question depends on the item and its condition. Agents spend time finding those details before they can decide how the policy applies.

The assistant works inside that preparation step. It retrieves approved guidance, collects permitted case information and drafts a response for review. The support agent remains responsible for the reply and any action needing authority, including a refund, cancellation or exception to standard policy.

Policy questions, order facts and judgement calls

The review groups enquiries by the work required to resolve them. Some need an approved explanation, some require live order data and others need a decision from operations or a supervisor. Existing cases identify recurring ambiguity and the points at which agents receive inconsistent information.

Knowledge material has an owner, revision context and intended audience. Internal notes are separated from information suitable for a customer reply. Conflicting policies are resolved before use. Evaluation cases include ordinary questions, missing order information, ambiguous requests and complaints, so the assistant is checked against the queue agents actually handle.

Retrieval does not authorize an order change

Policy retrieval returns relevant passages with source references. Order access uses a limited integration that supplies the fields needed for the task. The application verifies identity and permissions before returning customer information. The model cannot decide that a convincing message entitles its sender to another person's order.

Generating a reply is separate from cancelling an order, changing an address or issuing a refund. Those actions pass through the application's permissions and approval rules. Their proposed and completed states are recorded. A draft can explain the next step without silently carrying out the action it describes.

The source sits beside the sentence

The case view shows the customer's question, a concise summary, relevant order facts and a suggested reply. Sources are available beside the draft so the agent can inspect an important policy detail without reopening a separate knowledge search. Missing or conflicting information appears as an unresolved item.

The agent accepts, edits or rejects the draft and chooses the next action. Corrections distinguish factual changes from wording preferences. Escalation carries the original question, verified facts, steps already attempted and reason for transfer. The receiving team starts with usable context rather than a long conversation it must reconstruct.

An estimate stays an estimate

A carrier estimate does not become a guaranteed delivery date in the reply. A returns policy does not authorize an exceptional refund. When an answer depends on unavailable information or additional authority, the case follows a defined verification or escalation route.

The workspace distinguishes supported facts from questions still awaiting a decision. Required approvals appear as workflow steps, not a caution buried in generated text. A sensitive or disputed case remains available to the appropriate person, with the assistant helping prepare its context rather than presenting a confident but unsupported resolution.

Customer text cannot change the rules

Messages and attachments may contain instructions addressed to the assistant, including requests to ignore policy or reveal unrelated records. These inputs are treated as case content. Tool permissions and action approvals are enforced by the application, independently of any instructions found in a message or retrieved document.

Data handling covers model requests, logs, review samples and retention as well as the support record. Unneeded sensitive details are excluded. If the model provider or order integration is unavailable, agents can continue in the underlying support system. The case retains a clear status and does not disappear because draft generation fails.

A limited group of questions and agents

The initial release prepares drafts for a defined set of recurring questions. Review checks factual support, relevance, tone, escalation and unauthorized commitments. Difficult cases are included from the start, such as contradictory order status or a request that resembles a routine question but requires supervisory approval.

A small support group uses the workflow and records errors and review effort. Coverage expands after the team understands the corrections and failure patterns. Any later use of direct customer replies receives its own approval and checks for the specific question types involved. Draft assistance and automatic sending remain separate operating decisions.

A policy change has downstream work

Support leaders own policy and acceptable response criteria. Knowledge owners maintain source material. Engineering owns retrieval, integrations and access controls. A recurring error is assigned to the responsible part of that chain, whether it needs a source correction, a better retrieval rule or a change to the interface.

New return rules, delivery arrangements and escalation responsibilities update the affected knowledge and evaluation cases. Model or retrieval changes run against those cases before release. Periodic review includes cases agents did not flag, because a fluent draft can contain a subtle omission that survives an otherwise quick check.

Correction work counts as work

Review separates accepted drafts, factual corrections, substantial rewrites and rejected suggestions. Preparation time is considered alongside the effort required to inspect and repair the response. The assistant is useful only when the combined task becomes easier for the person responsible for the answer.

The team also examines repeat contact, unresolved cases and commitments that create later support work. Escalation quality is checked at the receiving queue: was the right team chosen, and did it receive the facts needed to proceed? Those observations guide changes to coverage, knowledge and approval steps.

The choices behind the solution

How the solution is evaluated

These measures define the evaluation criteria for the workflow, its controls and the quality of completed tasks.