Understanding Customer Agent Skills

You will learn

What Customer Agent skills are, which skills are available, and how to manage them. Skills are pre-built AI capabilities that let Customer Agent handle specific types of customer questions — from order tracking to returns to product recommendations — without human intervention. Enabling the right skills for your business reduces support volume, improves resolution rates, and gives customers faster answers across webchat, SMS, and email.

Before you begin

You need the following to use Customer Agent skills:

• Customer Agent enabled on your account.
• At least one active channel (webchat, SMS, or email) configured for Customer Agent.
• Admin or Owner role to manage integrations and prerequisites that activate skills. All roles can view skill settings.

Individual skills have additional requirements depending on the data they access. See Skill requirements below for a complete breakdown.

What are Customer Agent skills?

Skills are pre-built AI capabilities that each specialize in a specific type of customer question. When a customer reaches out, Customer Agent automatically identifies what they need and activates the right skill to handle it. You do not need to set up routing rules or keyword triggers — the agent's built-in router classifies intent and selects the best skill for each conversation.

Each skill is purpose-built for a domain like returns, order tracking, or loyalty programs. Skills pull from your knowledge base content, connected integrations, and customer profile data to provide accurate, brand-specific answers. When a skill cannot fully resolve a request, it performs a soft handoff to a human agent so your team can pick up where the AI left off.

All skills are on by default. A skill becomes active automatically when its prerequisites are met. As you connect more integrations and upload more content, additional skills become available automatically.

Available skills

Customer Agent offers eight skills across two categories out of the box.

Post-purchase skills

These skills require Customer Hub and handle account-specific requests. Customers must sign in before the agent can access their order and account data.

Core skills

These skills handle general inquiries. Some require authentication; others work for any visitor.

How skills work

Every conversation follows the same flow, regardless of which skill handles it.

1. Customer asks a question

A customer sends a message through webchat, text messaging, WhatsApp or email. The message can be anything from "Where's my order?" to "Do you have a loyalty program?"

2. The router classifies intent

Customer Agent's built-in router analyzes the message and determines which skill should handle it. This happens automatically — you do not configure routing rules. If the customer changes topics mid-conversation, the router reclassifies and activates a different skill.

3. The skill activates and gathers information

The selected skill uses tools to retrieve the data it needs. Tools connect to your systems and content, for example:

• Klaviyo - Get profile retrieves the customer's account and order data.
• Klaviyo - Search content searches your uploaded knowledge base for relevant answers.
• Shopify - Order status checks real-time order and fulfillment data.

Each skill uses a specific set of tools. You can see which tools a skill uses on its detail page.

4. The skill responds

The skill generates a response with two components:

• Text response — A conversational answer tailored to the customer's question and your brand's policies.
• UI cards (optional) — Rich visual elements that give customers quick actions. Card types include order cards, coupon cards, product cards, loyalty cards, and subscription cards.

How cards appear depends on the channel:

• Webchat: Rich inline cards with action buttons (e.g., "Start a Return," "Track Order").
• SMS: Deep links to the relevant section of Customer Hub.
• Email: Text-based responses with links.

5. If unresolved, handoff to a human agent

If the skill cannot fully resolve the request, it performs a soft handoff. The customer is informed that a human agent will follow up, and the full conversation context is passed along so your team can continue without asking the customer to repeat themselves.

Manage skills

View your skills

1. Navigate to Customer Agent > Skills.
2. The skills page displays a table with all available skills.

Each row shows:

• Skill name — The name of the skill.
• Status badge — Current state: Live (active and handling conversations), Coming Soon (not yet available), or Unavailable (missing a required integration or setup step).
• Volume — The number of conversations this skill has handled.

View skill performance

1. Click any skill in the table to open its performance page.
2. The performance page includes:
   1. Volume over time
   2. User questions that used the skill

View skill details

1. Click any skill in the table to open its detail page.
2. The detail page includes:
   • Overview — What the skill does and when it activates.
   • When to use — Guidance on which customer scenarios this skill handles.
   • How to respond — How the agent formulates responses for this skill.
   • Tools used — The specific tools this skill calls to gather information.
   • Performance tab — Skill-level metrics and trends.

Skill availability

All skills are on by default. You do not need to manually enable them. A skill's status depends on whether its prerequisites are met:

• Live — The skill is active and handling conversations. All prerequisites are in place.
• Coming Soon — The skill is in development and will become available in a future release.
• Unavailable — A required integration or setup step is missing. The badge includes an explanation of what is needed (e.g., "Requires Customer Hub"). Once you connect the missing prerequisite, the skill becomes active automatically.

Request a new skill

If your customers frequently ask about a topic that no current skill covers, you can submit a request.

1. Navigate to Customer Agent > Skills.
2. Click Request a Skill.
3. Describe the type of customer question you want the agent to handle.

Skill requirements

Each skill has specific prerequisites. Use the table below to determine what you need to enable each skill.

If a required integration or setup step is missing, the skill displays an Unavailable status badge on the Skills page with an explanation of what is needed. Once you connect the missing prerequisite, the skill becomes active automatically. Skills that require Customer Hub cannot activate until Customer Hub is active and the relevant integration is connected.

Best practices

• Upload comprehensive knowledge base content. The agent's quality depends directly on the content you provide. Cover common questions, edge cases, and policy details for every skill domain you enable.
• Connect all relevant integrations to unlock skills. A skill with a missing integration shows Unavailable and falls back to soft handoffs. Connect your returns provider, subscription provider, loyalty provider, and Shopify to activate the corresponding skills automatically.
• Monitor per-skill performance weekly. Check resolution rates and handoff volumes for each skill individually. A drop in one skill's performance often points to a specific content gap or integration issue.
• Review handoff logs to find improvement opportunities. Conversations that result in handoffs reveal what the agent cannot answer today. Use these as a guide for what to add to your knowledge base.
• Keep policies and knowledge base content up to date. When your return window changes, your loyalty program updates, or your cancellation policy shifts, update your knowledge base immediately. The agent cannot answer correctly with outdated content.
• Test with preview before going live. Before enabling a new skill, test it by sending sample questions through webchat or SMS. Verify that the agent responds accurately and presents the correct cards and links.
• Connect integrations incrementally. Start by connecting the integrations for skills that address your highest-volume support topics. Measure impact, refine your knowledge base, then connect additional integrations to unlock more skills.

FAQ

Can I disable a specific skill without turning off Customer Agent? No. All skills are on by default and cannot be individually toggled off. A skill only becomes unavailable if a required prerequisite is missing (e.g., Customer Hub is not active or a required integration is not connected). If you need to prevent a skill from handling conversations, disconnect the relevant integration.

Do skills work on all channels? Core skills (Order Tracking, Coupons & Discounts, General Q&A, Product Recommendations) work on webchat, SMS, and email. Post-purchase skills (Returns & Exchanges, Order Editing, Subscriptions, Loyalty) are available on webchat and SMS. Channel support may expand over time.

What happens if a skill cannot answer the customer's question? The agent performs a soft handoff to a human agent. The customer is informed that a team member will follow up, and the full conversation history is passed to your support team so the customer does not need to repeat their question.

Can I customize how a skill responds? You control the agent's responses by managing the content in your knowledge base. The agent pulls from your uploaded policies, FAQs, and brand content to generate answers. Write your knowledge base content in your brand's voice to shape how the agent communicates.

Do customers need to sign in for all skills? No. General Q&A, Product Recommendations, and Coupons & Discounts work without authentication. Skills that access account-specific data — Order Tracking, Returns & Exchanges, Order Editing, Subscriptions, and Loyalty — require the customer to sign in first.

How do I add a skill that is not available yet? Navigate to Customer Agent > Skills and click Request a Skill to submit your idea. If a skill shows a Coming Soon badge, it is in development and will become available in a future release.