Convert
Stock-out save with alternatives
When the shelf is empty, don't show a dead end — offer the next-best thing while the intent is still warm.
What it does
Your customer found exactly what they wanted, and it's out of stock. The page offers nothing but a grey button, so they leave — usually straight to a competitor, often for good. The agent watches the inventory feed, and the moment a stock-out collides with live customer intent it steps in: concrete in-stock alternatives, or a one-tap restock alert for customers who'd rather wait. A dead end becomes a sale, or at worst a captured lead.
How it works
- 1Trigger. the inventory feed flags a stock-out on an item a customer is viewing right now, has in their basket, or has already ordered.
- 2Decision. the agent weighs what the customer is actually trying to buy, pulls genuinely substitutable in-stock items from the catalog (same function, comparable price), and applies substitution rules. The judge gates the intervention before it appears.
- 3Action. a page-aware prompt in chat or in-app offers the alternatives side by side, with the restock alert as the fallback. For an item in an already-placed order, the agent reaches out by email or push with the same choice before the customer discovers the problem.
- 4Follow-through. if the customer opts to wait, they're handed to the back-in-stock flow. If the item restocks before an outreach goes out, the stale message is cancelled. Outcomes are written back and every saved order is attributed.
Configuration
How the agent is wired for this use case.
stock_out event from the inventory feed on an item a customer is viewing now, holds in a basket, or has already ordered.- Inventory system / OMS · detect the stock-out and watch for the item restocking
- Product catalog · pull genuinely substitutable in-stock items (same function, comparable price) under substitution rules
- Chat widget · surface a page-aware side-by-side prompt with alternatives, or the restock-alert fallback, in chat or in-app
- Messaging channel · for an item in an already-placed order, reach out by email or push with the same choice
- Back-in-stock flow · hand off customers who opt to wait
What you need
The inputs this use case runs on. Your channels stay yours; the agent supplies the judgment.
Signals
stock_out events from the inventory feed, live page context, order events for items affected after purchase
Data
product catalog with substitution attributes (category, fit, price band), customer browse and order history, consent state
Guardrails
substitution policy (never silently swap regulated, allergen-sensitive, or prescription-adjacent items), judge gating on every proactive prompt, frequency caps
Metrics it moves
- conversion-rateup: a purchase-blocking dead end is replaced with a concrete in-stock choice at the moment of intent.
- recovered-revenueup: orders that would have walked to a competitor are saved or deferred into a captured restock lead.
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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