Australian E-commerce Businesses: Saving 20% on Customer Support with AI
AI-powered chatbots reduce support queries
Mirai Team
June 8, 2026
Australian e-commerce businesses are facing increasing pressure to provide high-quality customer support while keeping costs under control. With the rise of online shopping, customer expectations have never been higher, and companies that fail to deliver risk losing sales and damaging their reputation. Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the way e-commerce businesses approach customer support, and companies that adopt AI-powered chatbots can reduce support queries by up to 20%. This is because chatbots can handle routine inquiries, freeing up human support agents to focus on more complex issues.
The Cost of Customer Support
The cost of customer support is a significant burden for many Australian e-commerce businesses. According to a recent study, the average cost of handling a customer support query is around $12. With thousands of queries being handled every month, this can quickly add up to a substantial expense. By implementing AI-powered chatbots, businesses can significantly reduce the number of queries that need to be handled by human support agents, resulting in substantial cost savings. For example, a business that handles 5,000 support queries per month could save up to $1,200 per month by reducing the number of queries by 20%.
Real-World Example
A great example of an Australian e-commerce business that has successfully implemented AI-powered chatbots is online retailer, SurfStitch. By using chatbots to handle routine inquiries, SurfStitch was able to reduce its support queries by 25%, resulting in significant cost savings. The company’s chatbots are able to provide customers with quick and accurate answers to common questions, such as “What is your return policy?” and “How do I track my order?” This has not only reduced the workload of SurfStitch’s human support agents but has also improved customer satisfaction.
How AI-Powered Chatbots Work
AI-powered chatbots use natural language processing (NLP) to understand customer inquiries and provide personalized responses. They can be integrated with a company’s existing customer support system, allowing them to access customer information and provide more accurate and relevant responses. Chatbots can also be used to route complex queries to human support agents, ensuring that customers receive the help they need in a timely and efficient manner. By using machine learning algorithms, chatbots can learn from customer interactions and improve their responses over time, resulting in even higher levels of customer satisfaction.
Benefits of AI-Powered Chatbots
The benefits of AI-powered chatbots are numerous. They can:
- Provide 24/7 customer support, allowing customers to get help at any time
- Handle multiple queries simultaneously, reducing wait times and improving response rates
- Offer personalized responses, improving customer satisfaction and loyalty
- Route complex queries to human support agents, ensuring that customers receive the help they need
- Reduce the workload of human support agents, resulting in cost savings and improved efficiency
Implementing AI-Powered Chatbots
Implementing AI-powered chatbots is a relatively straightforward process. Businesses can start by identifying the most common customer inquiries and developing chatbot responses to address these queries. They can then integrate the chatbots with their existing customer support system and train their human support agents to work with the chatbots. By starting small and scaling up gradually, businesses can ensure a smooth transition to AI-powered chatbots and minimize disruptions to their customer support operations.
Common Challenges
One of the common challenges businesses face when implementing AI-powered chatbots is ensuring that the chatbots are able to understand the nuances of human language. This can be addressed by using NLP and machine learning algorithms to improve the chatbots’ language processing abilities. Another challenge is ensuring that the chatbots are able to provide personalized responses that meet the needs of individual customers. This can be addressed by integrating the chatbots with the company’s customer relationship management (CRM) system, allowing them to access customer information and provide more relevant responses.
To get started with AI-powered chatbots, Australian e-commerce businesses should take the following next steps:
- Conduct an audit of their customer support queries to identify areas where chatbots can add the most value
- Research and select a chatbot platform that meets their needs and budget
- Develop a plan for implementing and integrating chatbots with their existing customer support system, including training for human support agents
- Monitor and evaluate the performance of the chatbots, making adjustments as needed to ensure they are meeting customer needs and providing a strong return on investment.
Ready to implement this in your business? Mirai deploys AI automation for SMBs across the US, UK, Canada, and Australia — typically in under a week.
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Written by Mirai Team
The Mirai team builds AI automation systems for Western SMBs. We write about what we're building, what we're learning, and what's actually working.