Prevent / Care
Returns and refunds, judge-gated end-to-end
The return is handled start to finish in one conversation — and the refund is confirmed only after independent judges verify it against your policy.
What it does
Returns are the highest-volume service flow in commerce and the one customers remember: dig out an order number, fill in a form, then wait in the dark until "where is my refund" becomes a second ticket. The agent executes the whole flow — return, refund, or exchange — directly against the commerce APIs. It matches the customer to the order without asking for an order number, checks eligibility against the actual returns policy, and only renders the refund confirmation after pre-send evaluation passes, with a supervision badge stating the decision was verified against your refund policy. From there it keeps the customer updated as the return progresses, so the follow-up ticket never happens.
How it works
- 1Trigger. the customer asks to return, exchange, or get a refund in chat or in-app, or a return event arrives from the commerce platform mid-flow.
- 2Decision. the agent matches identity from the account and conversation context — no order-number hunt — then checks the return window, item rules, and refund eligibility against the policy and the order history.
- 3Action. the refund confirmation dialog renders only after the pre-send evaluation passes. Under the default stand-in policy, three independent judges verify the decision and refunds under £50 auto-approve; anything above the threshold, or anything ambiguous, goes to a human for one-click approval.
- 4Follow-through. as the return progresses — label issued, package received, refund settled — the agent proactively tells the customer at each step, so the status question never gets typed. Every action and every judge verdict writes back as an audit trail, and unresolved cases escalate with the full transcript.
Configuration
How the agent is wired for this use case.
- CRM / order history · match the customer to the order from account and conversation context, no order-number hunt
- Commerce platform / OMS returns API · check the return window and item rules, issue the return label, execute the return or exchange
- Payment provider · execute the refund to the original payment method on file
- Messaging channel · render the verified refund confirmation and push proactive status updates at each step
- Ticketing system · write the audit trail and open escalations
What you need
The inputs this use case runs on. Your channels stay yours; the agent supplies the judgment.
Signals
return/refund/exchange intent in conversation, commerce return events (label created, return received, refund issued)
Data
order history for identity matching, the returns and refund policy expressed as checkable rules, payment method on file
Guardrails
pre-send judge evaluation on every refund confirmation; a value threshold above which a human approves; the written policy as the single source of truth, never the model's judgment alone; full audit trail of what each judge verified
Metrics it moves
- time-to-resolutiondown: a return executed in one conversation instead of a form, a queue, and days of silence
- contact-ratedown: proactive status updates prevent the "where is my refund" repeat contact
- csatup: no order-number hunt on the way in, no waiting in the dark on the way out
Related use cases
See it on your own customer journey
Bring one drop-off, one churn cliff, or one silent segment. We will show you what a proactive agent with memory and judgment does with it.
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