How to build a Shopify chatbot to verify email or phone before showing order status

If you're running a Shopify store, you know the drill. The "Where is my order?" (WISMO) tickets just keep coming. They’re easily the most common customer question, and they can bury a small support team in no time. Automation seems like the obvious fix, but just having a bot spit out order details in a chat window opens up a whole mess of privacy and security problems.

It's the classic ecommerce tightrope walk: how do you give customers the instant answers they want without accidentally broadcasting their personal information to anyone who asks? Handing out shipping addresses or order details without checking who’s on the other end is a massive risk.

This is where a smarter approach comes in. This guide will walk you through why you need a Shopify chatbot to verify email or phone before showing order status. We'll cover the features you actually need, why the basic tools just don't cut it, and how to pick an AI platform that gives you powerful automation and peace of mind.

What is a Shopify chatbot for secure order status updates?

A Shopify chatbot is basically an AI assistant that lives on your storefront. It’s built to handle customer conversations on its own, helping with everything from answering questions about products to nudging shoppers toward a purchase.

For a lot of store owners, the journey starts with Shopify Inbox, the free chat tool that comes with every Shopify plan. It’s a decent first step, giving you basic live chat and some simple, AI-powered reply suggestions. If you're just starting out, it's better than nothing.

But you'll hit a wall with it pretty quickly as you grow. The limits of these simple chatbots are a hot topic for a reason. As folks on forums like Reddit often point out, there are some real drawbacks:

• They can’t really learn. Tools like Shopify Inbox can't be trained on your past support conversations. You can’t feed them your old support emails or help desk tickets to teach them your brand's voice or how you solve common problems. They don't know your business; they just know generic ecommerce terms.

• They can’t actually do anything. A basic bot can't connect to your store’s backend to look up an order status, see if something’s in stock, or apply a discount. It's less of an assistant and more of an interactive FAQ page.

• They lack security features. This is the big one. They have no built-in way to confirm a user's identity before sharing private information. The bot has no idea if the person asking for order #1234 is the actual customer or just someone who saw the number in a forwarded email.

To build a secure and genuinely helpful Shopify chatbot to verify email or phone before showing order status, you have to look beyond the out-of-the-box options. You need a more capable AI platform designed for the real challenges of running an online store.

Core capabilities of a secure Shopify chatbot

A truly useful Shopify chatbot is so much more than a simple FAQ bot. It should be an assistant that handles support tickets and helps you land more sales. Here's what that looks like.

Provide 24/7 automated support

An advanced chatbot should be your first line of defense, fielding common questions about shipping policies, return processes, and product details at any hour. But the real test is what happens when a bot gets stumped. A basic bot will just throw its virtual hands up and say, "Sorry, I can't help with that," leaving your customer annoyed.

A smarter bot knows when to pass the conversation to a human. This is where a platform like eesel AI makes a huge difference. It pulls knowledge from all your company's documents, not just a handful of FAQs you typed in. It can learn from your old Zendesk tickets, internal guides in Confluence, and product specs in Google Docs. This deep well of context lets it answer questions with impressive accuracy and, just as important, recognize when it's found a real gap in its knowledge and needs to bring in a person.

An infographic showing how a Shopify chatbot to verify email or phone before showing order status can pull information from multiple sources like Zendesk, Confluence, and Google Docs.

Drive sales and increase conversions

Your chatbot shouldn't just be a line item on your expenses; it should be making you money. By acting as a virtual shopping assistant, it can look at a customer's browsing history to offer personalized product recommendations. For instance, if a customer is checking out a pair of jeans, the bot can suggest a shirt that goes perfectly with them.

It's also a great tool for saving abandoned carts. When a shopper has items in their cart but seems to be heading for the exit, the bot can proactively pop up with a helpful question ("Hey, have any questions about checkout?") or even offer a small discount code to convince them to complete the purchase. That's a lost sale turned into a done deal.

Offer a seamless human handoff

Let's be real: the point of AI isn't to get rid of your human support team. It's to free them from answering the same questions over and over so they can tackle the tricky issues that need a human brain. The best chatbots are designed for this kind of team-up.

A smooth handoff is everything. When a customer needs to talk to a person, the bot should pass the agent the entire conversation history. I think we can all agree there's nothing more infuriating than having to explain your problem all over again. Advanced platforms handle this beautifully, while simpler tools often drop the context, creating a clunky experience for both your customer and your agent.

The key feature: Setting up identity verification

Alright, let's get to the main event. Building a chatbot that can securely check a customer's identity before sharing their order status is the secret to automation you can actually trust.

Why you can't skip verification

First, let's talk about the risks of not verifying. If your chatbot only asks for an order number, anyone who has that number could get access to sensitive information. That could be a family member, a coworker who received the package for them, or even a stranger who found a packing slip in the trash. Suddenly, they can see a shipping address, purchase history, and contact details.

This isn't just a "what if" scenario; it's a serious privacy breach waiting to happen. It destroys customer trust and makes your brand look careless. On the flip side, adding a simple verification step shows customers you take their data security seriously. It’s a small thing that builds a lot of confidence.

How verification works: Custom AI actions and API lookups

This kind of secure workflow isn't something you'll find in most off-the-shelf chatbot builders. It needs an AI platform that can perform "custom actions," which is a fancy way of saying it can make a real-time call to your Shopify store's API to cross-reference information.

Here’s a simple look at how that plays out:

1. A customer opens the chat and asks, "Where's my order?"

2. The chatbot replies, "I can help with that! To protect your privacy, could you please enter the email address or phone number you used for the order?"

3. The customer types in their email.

4. The chatbot then triggers an AI Action. It sends the order number and the customer's email over to the Shopify API.

5. The Shopify API checks to see if that email is actually tied to that specific order.

6. If it's a match, the API sends the order status back to the chatbot, which then shows it to the customer.

7. If it doesn't match, the chatbot says, "Hmm, that email doesn't seem to match our records for this order. Want to try another, or should I get a support agent for you?"

This is a perfect example of what eesel AI's AI Agent is designed for. It’s built on a workflow engine that lets you set up Custom AI Actions with just a few clicks. You can create an action to check your Shopify store, confirm the customer's identity, and only share the order status if everything lines up. That level of control and built-in security is something you just won't find in generic chatbots.

A screenshot showing the custom AI actions and workflow screen in eesel AI, relevant for a Shopify chatbot to verify email or phone before showing order status.

How to choose the right AI platform for your Shopify store

Once you realize you need something better than a basic chat widget, the market can feel a bit crowded. Here’s what to look for to find the right AI platform for your store.

Ease of setup and integration

As a store owner, you don't have time for a months-long implementation project. You need something that works out of the box. Look for a platform that is fully self-serve and connects to your existing tools with one-click integrations.

Many AI companies push you into long sales calls and mandatory demos just to try their product. With a platform like eesel AI, you can sign up, connect your help desk and Shopify store, and have a working AI agent up and running in minutes, all by yourself.

Control and customization

Every brand is unique, so a one-size-fits-all chatbot just won't cut it. You need detailed control over the bot's personality, its tone of voice, and exactly which questions it should try to answer.

This is another place where eesel AI really delivers. Its prompt editor and selective automation rules give you total command over the AI's behavior. You can start small by having it automate just one or two simple topics and pass everything else to your team. This is a major step up from rigid, black-box tools that give you little say in how the AI operates.

A screenshot of the customization rules in eesel AI, showing how to control the behavior of a Shopify chatbot to verify email or phone before showing order status.

Confidence in performance

How can you be sure the bot will actually be helpful before you turn it loose on your customers? With most platforms, you pretty much just have to cross your fingers and hope for the best.

The best platforms let you test your setup in a safe environment first. eesel AI is unique because it can run simulations on your past support tickets. It reviews thousands of your old conversations to give you a solid forecast of its resolution rate and how much you could save before it ever interacts with a live customer. This lets you launch with confidence, not just blind hope.

The eesel AI simulation dashboard, a key feature for a Shopify chatbot to verify email or phone before showing order status, predicts performance before launch.

Comparing pricing and plans

The cost of an AI chatbot can be all over the place, so it's good to know what you're paying for.

Shopify Inbox is free with all Shopify plans (Basic at $29/mo, Shopify at $79/mo, Advanced at $299/mo, when billed annually). Just remember, this only gets you the most basic chat features and doesn't include the advanced security or automation we've been talking about.

eesel AI offers straightforward, predictable pricing without the surprise "per-resolution" fees that some competitors use to drive up your bill.

• Team Plan: Starts at $239/month (billed annually) for up to 1,000 AI interactions. This is a great starting point for AI trained on your website and public docs.

• Business Plan: Starts at $639/month (billed annually) for up to 3,000 AI interactions. This plan unlocks the key features for a secure Shopify chatbot, including training on your past tickets and the Custom AI Actions needed for secure order lookups.

Here's a quick comparison:

Feature	Shopify Inbox	eesel AI (Business Plan)
Price	Free with Shopify Plan	Starts at $639/mo
Trains on Past Tickets	No	Yes
Secure Order Lookups	No	Yes, via Custom AI Actions
Simulation Mode	No	Yes
Multi-source Knowledge	No	Yes (Confluence, Google Docs, etc.)
Human Handoff	Basic	Advanced, with full context

Go beyond basic chat with a Shopify chatbot to verify email or phone before showing order status

Basic chatbots are a fine place to start, but they don't have the security or smarts that a modern ecommerce store needs. A Shopify chatbot to verify email or phone before showing order status isn't a luxury anymore; it's a must-have for building customer trust and running an efficient business.

The right AI platform does more than just repeat answers from an FAQ page. It solves real customer problems securely, helps you make more sales, and connects directly to the tools you already rely on.

Ready to build a smarter, more secure chatbot for your Shopify store? Get started with eesel AI in minutes and see how easy it is to automate your support with confidence.