An AI customer service agent for a retailer
Customers waited 20 minutes on hold to ask where their order was. A read-only AI agent now resolves 70% of common questions in seconds, with no person involved.
Of common questions resolved with no person involved
To an answer, instead of 20 minutes on hold
- Client
- A retailer
- Users
- Customers contacting support about orders
- Systems
- Shipping, billing, inventory, and marketing
- Role
- End-to-end integration
- Service
- Custom AI Agent Development
Biruni Applied AI connected an AI customer service agent to a retailer’s shipping, billing, and inventory systems so it could resolve order issues without a person stepping in. The engagement covered the integration end to end.
How it was connected (the bridge)
The agent was treated like a new employee and the company’s databases like locked cabinets. It got a key to the drawers it needed and nothing else.
The Secure Key: A middleware layer, a “digital bridge,” let the agent ask the warehouse system “Where is this package?” or the billing system “Has this been refunded?” through approved, logged requests.
The Safety Lock: Access was read-only and limited to what the task required. The agent could look up status updates. It could not see a customer’s full card number or change the price of an item.
How it worked in production
When a customer wrote “My order hasn’t arrived yet,” the agent, in about five seconds:
Looked up the order in the shipping system.
Saw the delay was caused by weather.
Pulled an approved discount code from the marketing system and offered it with an apology.
The result
Efficiency: The agent resolved 70% of common questions without a person stepping in.
Speed: Customers got answers within seconds instead of waiting 20 minutes on hold.
Cost: Because staff only handled the difficult cases, the company saved millions in support costs in the first year.
- —Give the agent the narrowest access that does the job. Read-only by default.
- —Put a logged layer between the agent and your systems, so every request can be audited.
- —Send the hard cases to people, and measure the share the agent resolves on its own.
Client name and identifying details are withheld to protect confidentiality. Outcomes are as measured.