Procedures (SOPs)
Write down how your store handles common problems as steps: the AI asks, looks up, decides, acts or hands over. Decisions are made by the system from the data; nothing a customer says skips a step.
A procedure is how your store always handles one kind of problem, e.g. "The customer says an item arrived damaged: ask for the order, then photos; if it was delivered more than 30 days ago hand it to the after-sales team, otherwise say a colleague will arrange a replacement". Once written down, the AI recognises the situation in a conversation and follows the steps one by one.
Find it under AI → Procedures. Only owners and admins can manage procedures.
| Plan | What you can do |
|---|---|
| Free | Not available |
| Starter | Add from templates and change their numbers and wording; up to 5 enabled |
| Growth | Write your own, draft from a description, use your own AI tools; up to 10 enabled |
| Scale | As Growth, no limit |
Steps
Steps run top to bottom; steps inside a Decide step are indented.
| Step | What it does |
|---|---|
| Ask | Gets one piece of information from the customer: text, an option, a number, an order, a photo, a new address, or the variant to switch to. The AI asks naturally in the customer's language and records the answer |
| Look up | Looks up the order (built in) or calls a read-only AI tool; the result is kept for later decisions |
| Decide | Goes different ways depending on conditions: the first case whose conditions hold runs; if none does, Otherwise runs, or the step is skipped |
| Tell | Tells the customer something. You write the points; the AI words them |
| Act | A refund, a replacement, a coupon, an exchange, an address change, a cancellation, or one of your own write tools: the customer confirms on a card in the chat, then limits and approvals apply (see below) |
| Hand over | Gives the conversation to a team, with a note and everything collected |
| End | Finishes, with an outcome label (for the numbers) |
A condition has a field, a comparison and a value. Fields you can use:
slot.<name>: what an Ask step collected.vars.order.<field>: the built-in order lookup:status,total(in major units),itemCount,placedDaysAgo,delivered,deliveredDaysAgo,daysPastEstimate,shipmentStatus,carrier,channel.vars.<name>.<field>: a field your own read tool returned.customer.verified(signed in),customer.segment,conversation.channel,market.id.
Comparisons: is, is not, greater than, at least, less than, at most, contains, is one of, has a value, has no value. Numbers compare as numbers; text ignores case. When a value is missing (e.g. deliveredDaysAgo before delivery), every comparison except "has no value" is false.
Act: refunds, replacements, coupons, exchanges, address changes, cancellations
An Act step can use purser's own actions — the same ones an agent starts from the inbox:
| Action | What it does | When no one needs to approve |
|---|---|---|
| Refund | Your refunds endpoint works out the amount, shown on the confirmation card. Only for a defect or a return within your return window or warranty (as every AI refund); Growth and up | Within your refund limits, at rung R4 |
| Send a replacement | Sends the order's items again, free; once confirmed it becomes a replacement task (as when an agent starts one) | Within the AI's daily compensation limit, at rung R4 |
| Give a coupon | Gives a coupon from a compensation option, within its per-customer limit | The same |
| Exchange | Another size / colour of the same product (an earlier variant question lets the customer pick from the ones listed); by default they send the original back first and the new one ships once it arrives | At R4, with the same price, in stock, and a store policy that allows exchanges |
| Change address | Before the order ships (an earlier new address question collects the full address); the email on the order is told too | At R4, and not to another country |
| Cancel the order | Before it ships, refunded in full | At R4, within your refund limits |
- When to act is decided by the Decide steps before it, e.g. "delivered within 30 days and the order is 50 or less".
- Nothing happens before the customer taps confirm; over a limit, below R4 or while the breaker is on, a person with the right to approve decides.
- Only in the website chat window (the card needs buttons), only for a signed-in customer's own order. If it can't be offered after all (a replacement already under way, a refund outside the policy window), the AI says so and hands over.
How it stays on the procedure
- The system decides: conditions are computed from order data and the customer's answers, not by the AI. "Skip the questions and just send me a new one" skips nothing.
- Answers are checked: an order must be one of this signed-in customer's own; an option must be one you wrote; a photo must really arrive. A customer who isn't signed in is asked to sign in before an order question.
- The AI gets only what the step needs: while a procedure runs the AI can't use other tools and reads only the skills you selected; Look up and Act are run by the system.
- The reply check still applies to every sentence the AI writes. Promises you write in a Tell step count as authorised by your store; any others are blocked as usual.
- The same question unanswered three times in a row, or a customer asking for a person, hands the conversation over.
How one starts
- The AI recognises it: when it reads the customer's message, the AI also judges whether one of your procedures fits (from its "When to use it" sentence). It doesn't start one unless it's sure. When several fit, the more specific scope goes first, then priority.
- Rules: choose Follow a procedure as a rule action; a matching message goes straight to that procedure.
- Chat window button: give a procedure a button label and the chat window shows it before the first message (3 at most); tapping it starts the procedure. Write the label in your storefront's language.
- Hand back: an agent who has a conversation can use Hand back with a procedure; the AI continues with that procedure from the start.
If the customer asks about something else midway, the AI answers that and the procedure pauses; it continues if they come back to it within 24 hours, and is given up after that.
Templates
Five to start with: parcel not received / delivery problem, damaged / missing / wrong item, returns and refunds, change address or cancel, size exchange. They use order data, purser's own actions and hand-overs only — no tools needed: damaged offers a replacement for an order of 50 or less and hands the rest over; change address or cancel offers the change or the cancellation while the order hasn't shipped; size exchange lets the customer pick a new variant within 30 days of delivery. Add one, change its numbers (such as 30 days and 50) and wording to your store's rules, then save.
Draft from a description
From Growth, describe the procedure in a paragraph (as you would brief a new colleague) and the AI drafts the steps, using only the tools you have. Drafts start disabled, a tool that doesn't exist is marked, and you check them before saving.
Every step is visible
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In the inbox, the conversation's record shows when a procedure started, what it noted, which way each decision went, why it handed over, and its hand-over note.
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The Procedures page shows each one's runs over the last 30 days, how many finished, their outcomes, where runs stopped and why they were handed over.
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Switch the editor to Flow (top right) for a read-only view of all the steps and branches at once.
Testing
- Try it shows, every turn, where the procedure is and what it has noted; an action's card can be tapped there, but nothing runs.
- Simulations: on the Releases page, give a simulation scenario a procedure to check and, if it needs orders, a signed-in customer to play (their customer id). The AI plays the customer for a few turns; the scenario fails if the procedure never starts, and the result shows where it ended and what it offered. They run with every release: one that passed on the release in force and fails now blocks it.
Procedures are drafts like skills and tools: they work in Try it straight away and reach customers once you publish. A conversation already in a procedure finishes on the version it started with.
AI tools
Give the AI your own API or MCP server: live stock, loyalty points, your own shipping data. Who the customer is comes from the system, and the AI only sees the fields you allow.
How the AI answers
The AI answers only from your sources, every reply is checked before it is sent, and you decide per question type how far it may go on its own.