In under five months, Jo Mercer’s customer care team went from a paused chatbot project to a live AI-powered messaging experience and a branded Help Center, deflecting around 30% of tickets while keeping the brand’s voice intact.
Client snapshot- Customer
- Jo Mercer, Australian women’s footwear and accessories retailer
- Team
- A lean customer care team led by the Customer Experience Manager
- Platform
- Zendesk Suite Professional with Copilot
- Delivered
- Messaging and AI Agent, branded Help Center, structured ticket forms, smart triage
- Live
- May 2025
- Result
- Around 30% of tickets deflected by AI
Jo Mercer has used Zendesk for six years. As online orders grew, the team wanted customers to get fast answers in chat without losing the polished, personal service the brand is known for in its stores.
About Jo Mercer
Jo Mercer is an Australian women’s footwear and accessories brand, headquartered in South Yarra, Melbourne. It sells its collections through stores across Australia and online, and is known for stylish design and the polished, personal service its store teams deliver.
The challenge
Jo Mercer’s General Manager of Retail had already started building a chatbot in Zendesk. Linking every answer to the right article by hand turned it into a bigger job than the team had time for, so the project was paused.
Meanwhile, most enquiries landed in one email queue. Delivery questions, refunds and exchanges, and faulty items all arrived unstructured, with no consistent way to capture order numbers or reasons for a return. Store-related tickets were hard to separate and report on.
The team wanted three things:
- Customers answered instantly in chat for the simple questions.
- Agents receiving cleaner, pre-qualified enquiries for the rest.
- A digital experience that sounds like Jo Mercer, not a generic bot.
What we built together
Gravity CX worked side by side with Jo Mercer’s Customer Experience Manager and eCommerce Specialist. Every design decision was shaped by the team, and their input made the result sharper.
- Smarter triage. New views automatically route refund, exchange and delivery enquiries, so the right work reaches the right person first.
- Structured ticket forms, co-designed with the team. Jo Mercer’s CX Manager defined the categories her customers actually use: Online Order, Returns Policy and Portal, Product Query, Store Query, Promotions and General Enquiry.
- Store-level visibility. Every store was set up in Zendesk with its own profile, giving the team dedicated store views and clearer reporting.
- A branded Help Center. The Help Center moved to Jo Mercer’s own domain, support.jomercer.com.au, with forms customers can use instead of email.
- Messaging with an AI Agent. A new messaging widget went live on the website, with an AI Agent that answers from Help Center content and collects customer details before handing over to a person.
Built in Jo Mercer’s voice
The standout part of the project was how closely the team guarded its brand. Jo Mercer trains in-store staff to avoid generic greetings, and they held the AI to the same standard. Within a day of launch, the AI’s greeting, tone and wording were tuned to match: a formal, polite persona, “thank you” rather than “thanks”, no casual slang, and a team avatar using the Jo Mercer logo. The result is a chat experience that feels like an extension of the boutique, not a bolt-on.
The results
The messaging experience and Help Center went live in May 2025, and the AI Agent now deflects around 30% of tickets.
- Around 30% of tickets resolved without an agent, freeing the care team for the conversations that need a human touch, like product issues.
- Cleaner enquiries: forms capture the right details up front, so agents spend less time chasing order numbers.
- One branded front door: customers find answers, chat or submit a request on Jo Mercer’s own domain.
- A foundation that scales: Jo Mercer is now bringing its sister brands into the same Zendesk setup and exploring order tracking and product recommendations through AI.
We train our store teams never to sound generic, and we wanted our chat to meet the same standard. Gravity CX helped us build a messaging experience that genuinely sounds like Jo Mercer. It now handles around 30% of our enquiries, so our team can spend their time on the customers who need us most.
Jane BassettCustomer Experience Manager · Jo MercerWant results like Jo Mercer’s? Book a consultation with Gravity CX.
