How a UK Homewares Retailer Cut Support Costs by £240K
The Challenge
A mid-sized UK homewares retailer (12 high-street stores + online) had a 14-agent support team handling 9,000 monthly tickets at peak. Response times had stretched to 36 hours, Trustpilot scores were slipping, and hiring more staff was not financially viable given the cost pressures facing UK retail. Outsourcing had been tried and failed — generic chatbots couldn't handle UK Consumer Rights Act scenarios, Section 75 disputes, or Royal Mail / Evri delivery escalations.
The Solution
WayaNerd deployed a UK-trained AI customer support system. After a 4-week discovery + training phase (analysing 18 months of historical tickets, training on the brand voice, returns policy, delivery partner specifics), the AI went live in shadow mode for two weeks before taking real conversations. At 12 months: 78% of inbound conversations resolved without human involvement, first-response time dropped from 36 hours to under 15 seconds, support team restructured to a 5-person specialist unit. Total support costs reduced 70% against the prior year — £240,000 annual savings — while CSAT rose from 3.6 to 4.8 out of 5.
Results
The Numbers Speak
Annual Savings
Support Cost Reduction
Tickets Resolved by AI
to <15s First Response
“We'd tried two off-the-shelf chatbots before WayaNerd. Both failed on UK consumer law — they couldn't handle a Section 75 dispute without escalating. WayaNerd's deployment understood British retail context from day one. CSAT went up while our cost line came down. That's not a trade-off; that's a different operating model.”
Head of Operations
Head of Operations, UK Homewares Retailer (anonymised)