Genuinely didn't think this would work
Genuinely didn't think this would work
I'll be honest, I was sceptical. We sell luxury hampers in the UK — the kind of business where a wrong delivery date in December, a missing ribbon, or a prosecco swap that didn't happen turns into a long emotional customer email at 11pm on a Sunday. I've tried AI support tools before and every one has been a disaster. Robotic replies, generic answers, the sort of thing that makes your customer angrier than if you hadn't responded at all. When I signed up for the Fortuna trial I assumed we'd be back on the old system inside a fortnight.
Two weeks in and I'm writing this review because I'm blown away.
The replies don't read like AI. They pick up on what the customer is actually annoyed about — not just the surface question — and answer in the voice of our business. For Example: I had a lady last week write back saying it was the most helpful support email she'd ever had from us. From us. It wasn't us.
The volume it handles without me touching it is the other thing. Order status, delivery date changes, swaps like "can you change the prosecco for a gin", dietary substitutions, corporate account queries, gift messaging mistakes, chase emails when the courier is running late — it just does it. Refunds come to me for one-click approval, which is exactly how I want it. The rest is off my plate entirely.
Setup took an afternoon. Integrated with Shopify, pulled our policies and previous tickets, and was working the same day.
Now the honest part, because a review that only talks about features isn't the full picture of what a tool like this actually does to a business.
We had a ten-person customer service team. We don't anymore. That was a hard decision and not one I'll pretend sat easily — these were people who worked for us, and I carry the weight of that. But as the person running the business I have to look at what the tool does, what it costs, and what it means for where we're heading. The answer was unambiguous. Fortuna handles the work a team of ten used to, at a fraction of the cost, and the customers cannot tell the difference — in a lot of cases they're telling us the support is better than it's ever been.
I'm not going to pretend I don't feel that. I do. But I also know where the industry is going. Every ecommerce business I know is going to be having this conversation inside the next twelve months, and the ones that move first keep the savings and reinvest them into growth. The ones that wait will do the same thing eighteen months later with less runway. I'd rather be the first in my category than the last.
The savings are undeniable. The money that used to go on a support team now goes into product, stock, marketing — the things that actually grow the business. My customers get faster replies, better answers, and a support experience that genuinely competes with brands ten times our size.
If you run an ecommerce business and your support queue is eating your week — or your payroll — just try it. I wasted time being sceptical. You'll know inside a week whether it's right for you, and if it is, you won't want to go back.