AI chatbot

AI Chatbot for Returns and Refund Questions

Answer the policy questions automatically, and keep the refund decision with a person

Returns generate the same handful of questions every day: how long do I have, who pays the postage, where is my refund, can I exchange instead. Vatdi answers those from your published policy and can look up the live status of an order once the customer proves it is theirs. It does not issue refunds or cancel orders — money decisions stay with your team, with the conversation handed over in full.

Last updated September 15, 2026

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Free plan, no credit card
95+ languages
Human handover included

Vatdi Assistant

The gap without an assistant

Return inquiries flood support channels
Customers frustrated by slow refund timelines
Agents spend too much time on repetitive RMA tasks
Return policy confusion leads to chargebacks

How Vatdi closes it

What the assistant does for you

Automated RMA initiation
Refund status self-service
Return eligibility checking
Exchange and resolution alternatives

The questions that repeat, and what answers them

Customer asks	Answered from	Needs a person?
How long do I have to return this?	Your returns policy page	No
Who pays return postage?	Your returns policy page	No
Has my order shipped yet?	Live order lookup on your store	No
Where is my refund?	Order status, then your stated refund timeline	Only if it is overdue
Can I exchange for a different size?	Policy plus live stock on the alternative	Usually not
This arrived damaged, I want money back	Handed to your team with the transcript	Yes

Roughly the top half of that table is why a returns chatbot is worth setting up at all: the questions are repetitive, the answers are already written, and the customer wants them at 11pm.

Order lookup, with a check that it is really their order

Anyone can guess an order number, so a lookup that accepts one alone is a data leak. Vatdi asks for the order number plus the email or phone on that order, matches the email exactly or the last eight digits of the phone, and rate-limits attempts. Only then does it return status, items and tracking, live from your store.

This works on WooCommerce, OpenCart 3 and 4, PrestaShop, Magento, Shopware, Joomla (VirtueMart and HikaShop) and Drupal Commerce. On Shopify the widget answers from your published content rather than a live order lookup.

Where the handover happens

A refund is a decision, not a lookup, so the product is deliberately built to stop before it. When the customer asks for money back, disputes a policy, or the AI simply cannot answer from your content, the conversation moves to your team: they get an email and a sound alert, the full transcript, and a reply box in the same widget the customer is looking at. Agent hours mean the widget only offers a person when someone is actually working, and requests nobody answered show up in a Missed queue rather than disappearing.

What it will not do

It does not issue refunds, cancel orders or edit orders in your store admin.
It does not generate return labels or book couriers.
It does not email or text the customer after they leave the chat.

Anything that moves money or changes an order stays in your store admin, with a person deciding.

Setting it up properly in an afternoon

Sync the store, so products, categories and policy pages are in the knowledge base.
Upload the returns policy separately if it is a PDF or lives off-site, and add the exact refund timeline you honour.
Turn on order status lookup and test it against a real order from a QA account.
Set agent hours and the handover message, so out-of-hours customers get an honest answer instead of silence.
Check the insights report after a week: the unanswered questions are usually one missing policy paragraph.

Returns copy the AI can actually use

Most returns pages are written for a lawyer rather than for a customer at 10pm, and a retrieval-based AI inherits that vagueness. Three edits usually double how many questions it can close on its own.

Give every rule a number. "Returns accepted within a reasonable period" cannot be answered; "30 days from delivery" can. The same goes for refund timing: say "5 to 7 working days after we receive the item", not "promptly".

Say who pays, per case. Separate faulty, wrong item, and changed-mind returns, and state the postage rule for each. That single table removes the most common escalation.

Write the exceptions down. Sale items, personalised goods, hygiene products, opened software. If the exception only lives in a support agent's head, every one of those questions becomes a handover.

None of that is chatbot work — it is copy work that also improves the page for customers reading it directly, and for search engines summarising it.

How to tell whether it is working

The number that matters is how many returns conversations end without a person. Vatdi grades every conversation from 0 to 10 with plain advice, and the reports cover conversations, ratings, missed handoffs and, on the Grow plan, AI resolution rate and the questions that went unanswered.

Read the unanswered list weekly for the first month. In a returns context it is almost always the same shape: a policy edge case nobody wrote down. Add the paragraph, and that question stops reaching your inbox permanently. Stores that do this consistently end up with a returns page that answers the customer directly, which is the real win — the chat is only how you found the gap.

Where it runs

Native plugin on your platform, widget on everything else

Install on your store in one click, or paste the one-line widget on any other site.

WordPress

OpenCart

Shopify

PrestaShop

Magento

Shopware

Joomla

Drupal

Frequently Asked Questions

Can the chatbot process a refund automatically?

How does it stop someone looking up another customer's order?

The customer must supply the order number and the email or phone recorded on that order. The email must match exactly, the phone by its last eight digits, and repeated attempts are rate-limited.

Which stores support live order lookup?

WooCommerce, OpenCart 3 and 4, PrestaShop, Magento, Shopware, Joomla with VirtueMart or HikaShop, and Drupal Commerce.

What happens outside business hours?

The AI keeps answering policy and order questions. For anything needing a person it says honestly that nobody is available and captures the request, which lands in the Missed queue for your team.

Is returns handling on the free plan?

Yes. Every feature is on every plan, including order lookup and human handover. The free plan caps you at 15 conversations a month; paid plans raise the cap and let you remove the Vatdi badge.

Try it on your own store

The free plan holds 15 conversations a month with every feature switched on. No card, no trial clock.

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