Run customer support with a bot that asks before refunding
ChatPRD's support Bot works the Intercom and email queues every hour. In the week before the write-up, several customers asked where they could leave a review.
Explain it simply
A small software company handed its customer support inbox to an AI assistant. Every hour it reads new questions and answers the ones its rulebook covers. When a customer wants money back, it asks the founder first, and she approves with one tap.
What was done
Claire Vo moved her company's support agent, Holly Helpdesk, from OpenClaw to Grok Bot.
Every hour it sweeps Intercom and the support inbox and works each ticket from the team's support playbook.
It can ask for a refund but can't issue one. Each request reaches Claire as an approval card that opens a single Stripe action.
Once a week it reviews the last seven days of tickets and proposes additions to the playbook and public docs. It also answers questions in the community Slack.
How it went
Claire reports that in the past week, several customers asked where they could leave a review for the support they got, which had never happened before.
- No resolution-rate or ticket-volume numbers were published.
- Refund authority stays with a human by design.
- At the time, Grok Bots couldn't join group chats.
Prompt
You are Holly, the support teammate for [product].
Every hour from [6am] to [9pm], sweep [Intercom] and [support inbox].
Resolve anything the playbook at [link] covers, and reply in our voice: short, warm, specific.
You may request refunds but never issue them. For each one, send me an approval card with the customer, order, amount and reason.
Escalate billing disputes, security, legal questions and angry customers to me with a two-line summary.
Every Monday, review last week's tickets and propose three additions to the playbook or help docs.Setup notes
- Create one Bot named after the job and connect your helpdesk, Gmail and Stripe.
- Add an hourly routine for your support hours.
- Keep refunds behind approval cards; don't set 'Always allow' for anything involving money.
- Run it in draft-only mode for a week and compare its replies with yours.
Business fit
Who this helps, and how:
- StartupsSaaS and digital-product teams get first-line support covered without a support hire.
- Solo foundersRun it as your only support teammate and approve refunds from your phone.
- Shopify & ecommerceStores can copy the refund-approval pattern; Gorgias is the more native choice for order actions.
Related
Similar tools
Other tools for this job, and how they differ. Chosen by our editors, never paid for.
- Gorgias
An ecommerce helpdesk, strongest on Shopify: its AI Agent answers from your order data, billed per resolved conversation.
See it in use: Automate order-status and return tickets on a Shopify store
- Hermes Agent
Self-hosted and open source; it drafts replies for a person to send rather than answering customers itself.
See it in use: Draft support replies inside your helpdesk with a self-hosted agent
- OpenClaw
This support agent ran on it before the move to Grok Bot; it's self-hosted, so setup, upkeep and security are yours.
Evidence grade B means: The person who did the work describes the setup and results in detail. How we grade. Spotted a mistake? Suggest a correction.