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Online shopping continues to grow at an unprecedented pace, and customer expectations are rising just as fast. Today’s consumers demand fast, personalized, and 24/7 support at every stage of the journey from browsing to post-purchase service.
For many retailers, traditional customer service models can’t keep up with these expectations without increasing costs or compromising service quality. This is where AI-powered virtual agents step in, delivering intelligent, always-on support that improves both customer experience and operational efficiency.
In this blog, we’ll explore how virtual agents are becoming a strategic necessity in e-commerce, the key benefits they offer and the measurable value they deliver and how SESTEK’s Knovvu Virtual Agent, supported by a real success story from Hepsiburada, is helping businesses meet growing customer expectations with confidence.
The Strategic Role of Virtual Agents
The growing adoption of AI-powered virtual agents is driven by three major shifts reshaping e-commerce and retail operations.
Increasing Customer Expectations
Modern shoppers, especially millennials and Gen Z, expect instant answers and seamless experiences across all channels. Traditional call centers and support desks often struggle to meet these expectations consistently. AI-powered virtual agents close this gap by providing automated, context-aware, and timely support across voice, chat, and messaging channels.
AI Innovations Driving Next-Gen CX
Developments in natural language processing (NLP), speech recognition, LLMs, and Agentic AI have significantly expanded what virtual agents can do. Unlike early chatbots, today’s agents can understand intent, take autonomous decisions, and collaborate with both other systems and human agents to provide accurate, end-to-end service.
Operational Challenges Facing Retailers
E-commerce businesses face rising labor costs, complex supply chains, and sharp seasonal demand spikes. AI-powered solutions enable retailers to do more with less by bringing speed, intelligence, and automation to customer care, order management, and merchandising processes.
Together, these factors are accelerating the adoption of AI-driven customer engagement solutions across e-commerce and retail.
What Virtual Agents Deliver for E-Commerce
In e-commerce, virtual agents turn advanced AI capabilities into measurable CX and operational impact, empowering both customers and service teams at scale.
24/7 Availability & Scalability
Virtual agents handle inquiries quickly and consistently at anytime, across chat, voice, and messaging apps without requiring extra staffing. This solves peak-load challenges, holiday surges, and global customer needs. Gartner projects that by 2028, 15% of work will be automated through autonomous agents making routine decisions.
Enhanced Customer Experience & Personalization
Virtual agents assist customers with complex processes such as order tracking, returns, and personalized product recommendations. By using past interactions and preferences, they offer more tailored experiences. McKinsey reports that AI-powered personalization can boost revenues by 10–15% and enhance marketing efficiency.
Cost & Operational Efficiency
Automating repetitive tasks, such as order tracking, FAQs, or return requests, reduces the volume handled by live agents. This leads to lower costs and lets teams focus on high-value interactions. McKinsey notes that AI voice assistants can cut call volumes by 20% and reduce authentication times by up to 60 seconds.
From Chatbots to Agentic E-Commerce
Continuous progress in LLMs and agentic AI has moved virtual agents far beyond earlier generations of chatbots. Modern virtual agents can help customers discover products, compare options, negotiate, complete orders, and take actions on their behalf.
McKinsey describes this shift as “agentic commerce” — where retail experiences move away from browsing and clicking, toward intent-driven interactions powered by intelligent agents.
Early adopters with robust, in-house conversational AI solutions are best positioned to lead this future.
Spotlight: SESTEK’s Knovvu Virtual Agent
SESTEK’s Knovvu Virtual Agent supports every customer touchpoint across voice, chat, and messaging, acting as a ‘super agent’ for modern e-commerce teams.
Built entirely with in-house speech recognition and natural language understanding, it achieves over 97% intent accuracy, enabling automation of routine interactions such as order updates, returns, and FAQs.
Its full-stack structure — including SR, NLU, TTS, an orchestrator, and a design studio — eliminates third-party dependencies and simplifies integration and data control. Companies can create complex customer journeys through a drag-and-drop design environment without coding, speeding up deployment and customization.
With support for 11 languages and pre-built integrations for common e-commerce use cases, Knovvu adapts easily to high-volume periods like Black Friday. Combined with LLM-based reasoning, it delivers context-sensitive responses at scale while maintaining the required security and compliance for customer-facing operations.
Virtual Agent Success Story: Hepsiburada
Hepsiburada, one of Turkiye’s leading e-commerce platforms, partnered with SESTEK to reduce the high volume of order-status, return, and refund inquiries their teams were handling each day.
With the Knovvu-powered Virtual Helpdesk deployed across channels, customers began completing routine tasks independently. As a result, self-service transactions increased by 14%, intent recognition accuracy reached 95%, and support tickets decreased by 10% — improving both operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.
As Hepsiburada’s Quality & Training Manager noted, the goal was to help customers solve problems without waiting, and the virtual agent enabled exactly that, improving both operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.
Looking Ahead: AI Agents as E-commerce Allies
With solutions like SESTEK’s Knovvu Virtual Agent, retailers can automate routine interactions, act on customer intent in real time, and deliver consistent, high-quality experiences; while freeing teams to focus on higher-value work and build stronger, long-term customer relationships.
Ready to Add a Super Agent to Your CX Operations?
The future of commerce is AI- powered. Explore how Knovvu Virtual Agent can transform your e-commerce operations by requesting a demo.
