How to Set Up an AI Phone Agent to Answer Your Store's Calls 24/7

Connect Shopify and your helpdesk, decide your hours and what the agent may resolve, give it your policies, test it in the simulator, then go live. Loop Voice's inbound agent answers on the first ring, handles order status, returns, shipping and where-is-my-order questions, and hands anything else to your team with the conversation attached (Loop Voice, 2026).

Start with the calls your team already answers from store information. An order-status caller needs shipping and delivery details; someone requesting a return needs the current policy and the next action. Loop Voice can look up delivery information without putting the customer on hold and start a configured return workflow when the request fits your policy (Loop Voice, 2026).

For a return, it means following the configured process rather than leaving the caller with a vague promise that someone will email later.

Keep refund disputes, damaged or unsafe products and exceptions to policy with a person. Anyone who asks for a person should also reach your team. Set these as escalation rules before making the agent available to customers, and choose who receives each kind of handoff.

A caller describing a damaged product may need more than the ordinary returns instructions. Your team can assess the situation and decide what remedy is appropriate. Give the agent a clear way to recognize those requests, acknowledge the concern and transfer the conversation instead of repeatedly offering the standard policy.

Decide what happens when the receiving team is offline. Make the next action clear to the caller, including who will follow up and what information the team will have. Review your own staffing and response commitments before writing that part of the instructions.

Loop Voice works with Shopify, Gorgias, Zendesk, Front and ShipStation; the outcome and next action sync back to Shopify, Klaviyo and your helpdesk (Loop Voice, 2026). Connect the store and the helpdesk your support team actually uses, then check that the relevant order and delivery details are available during a test conversation.

Agree where the team will review a transferred call. The person picking it up should see the conversation and the next action rather than needing to piece together separate messages. Check that a routine support outcome also lands where your team expects to find it.

Use a familiar order to test the connection. Compare what the agent says with the shipping details your team can see, and verify the resulting support record. Resolve missing context before expanding the agent's responsibilities.

Coverage can be scheduled by day, time and queue, or run around the clock (Loop Voice, 2026). Choose whether the agent handles after-hours calls, selected queues or routine calls throughout the day. Match that choice to the phone coverage you have now and the support work you want your team to retain.

Create a short scope for every queue. List the questions the agent can answer, the workflows it can start and the situations it must transfer. Give special attention to a caller who changes from an ordinary shipping question to a dispute or asks for a person midway through the conversation.

Review the handoff path with the receiving team. They should know why a call arrived and which actions have already happened. Test the schedule at the boundaries of your staffed hours so callers get the coverage you intended.

Add current returns, shipping, warranty and FAQ information. Loop Voice's knowledge base syncs your website weekly and learns from Shopify data and documents you add (Loop Voice product data, 2026). Make sure the documents agree with the policies shoppers can read on the site.

A return policy needs enough detail to guide a real request: which products qualify, how the window is determined and what the customer does next. Shipping information should distinguish an estimate from a confirmed tracking update. Warranty information should explain the route to support without promising an outcome your team has not approved.

Assign someone to keep those materials current. When the store changes a policy or delivery expectation, review the agent's instructions and test the affected conversation again. Conflicting documents are especially troublesome when a caller quotes a different version from an old page.

Test any agent in the call simulator before it talks to customers (Loop Voice, 2026). Run an order-status call, a return outside the policy window, a caller who asks for a person and an upset caller. Check the answer and the next action in each case.

For the order-status call, verify that the agent uses the available shipping details accurately. For the out-of-window return, check that it follows your escalation decision instead of approving an exception. For the person request, confirm that the caller reaches the intended team with the conversation attached.

Have someone from support listen to the tests. They will notice missing policy details and awkward handoffs that a store owner may overlook. Update the instructions, then repeat the affected scenario before going live.

Inbound Agents and Support Tickets shipped in July 2026 (Loop Voice changelog, 2026). Once your tests pass, make the agent available for the coverage you selected and review the resulting calls with your support team. Focus on handoff reasons, unanswered questions and policy gaps.

Calls can be recorded and summarized with transcripts, with recordings retained for 7 days (Loop Voice product data, 2026). Review recordings while they are available and use the summaries to identify questions that need better instructions. Keep a record of the policy changes you make so the team can explain why the next review looks different.

Since October 2026, the agent reviews its own calls and sends weekly suggestions you can accept or decline (Loop Voice product data, 2026). Check each suggestion against your actual policy and support priorities before accepting it.

Compare support with your phone coverage before the agent went live. Review the share of calls resolved without a handoff, reasons for transfers, repeat callers, time to answer and customer satisfaction. Keep the meaning of a resolved call consistent across the comparison.

A caller who phones again about the same issue may reveal a missing next action even if the earlier call sounded complete. Read those conversations together. Similarly, a transfer can be the right outcome when the caller needs a policy exception, so separate appropriate escalations from avoidable ones.

Ask the team whether transferred conversations contain the context they need. Combine that feedback with shopper satisfaction rather than judging support only by fewer handoffs. Your goal is a useful answer or a useful route to the right person.

Loop Voice's inbound support agents keep routine phone support available after hours or around the clock, with exceptions transferred to your team. The same platform runs outbound abandoned-checkout recovery calls; review Loop Voice pricing when choosing your plan.