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Working gallery · Smart sales & 24/7 customer service

Smart sales and 24/7 customer service, answering real customers right now

Two UK online shops send live fish across the country. Their customers ask at midnight, at weekends and in many languages. We built and run the AI team that answers them on website chat, voice, the phone, text and WhatsApp. It sells, checks orders, collects the evidence and passes the hard cases to people with everything written down.

Built and run by Hand On Web, Chester. Figures to 25 October 2026, from the live systems.

One AI assistant connected to website chat, voice, phone calls, text messages and WhatsApp, and email and tickets
customer conversations answered
3,273
Aquatropics (1,562) and Tropical Fish Co (1,711), to 25 October 2026
arrived outside office hours
62.5%
Aquatropics, 5 August–25 October 2026
needed no person at all
9 in 10
Aquatropics: more than 9 in 10 conversations
customers waiting in a queue
0
Every customer is answered at once, however many arrive together
The case studies

Two busy shops, one system

Both sell live animals by courier, which makes customer service hard: anxious buyers, urgent problems and questions at all hours. Each has its own assistant, Coral and Aqua, built on the same platform.

Aquatropics: An Online Order Desk That Never Closes
Shop assistant

Aquatropics

AI Shop AssistantOrder LookupsHand-off to the Team

Aquatropics: An Online Order Desk That Never Closes

1,562

customer conversations with Coral, 5 August 2026 to 25 October 2026

  • 62.5% arrived outside Monday–Friday 9am–5pm, and 225 between 10pm and 7am
  • 494 shopping conversations, about 1 in 3, searching 3,000+ live products
  • More than 9 in 10 handled without a person; the rest became one complete ticket
  • Website chat, website voice, a full-page help desk, WhatsApp and the phone
Tropical Fish Co: One Assistant on the Website, WhatsApp and the Phone
WhatsApp, phone & web chat

Tropical Fish Co

WhatsApp AssistantPhone & Text AssistantWebsite Chat

Tropical Fish Co: One Assistant on the Website, WhatsApp and the Phone

2,711

customer messages answered by Aqua in 30 days (26 September to 25 October 2026)

  • 562 conversations: 283 website, 184 WhatsApp, 77 phone calls, 18 text chats
  • 51% outside weekday office hours, 16% between 10pm and 8am
  • 79% needed no ticket; the other 21% became a complete, structured ticket
  • 10 languages used by real customers, 17 supported. Our founder’s own shop

Aquatropics built its name on service: 536 reviews on Trustpilot, rated 4.7 out of 5 (“Excellent”, checked 26 October 2026). Most of those reviews came before Coral. Its job is to keep that standard at 2am and on a Sunday, however many customers write at once. See the reviews

Aquatropics figures: 5 August to 25 October 2026. Tropical Fish Co figures: 26 September to 25 October 2026, real customer channels only, tests excluded. Out of hours means outside Monday–Friday 9am–5pm. Tropical Fish Co is our founder’s own shop.

For local businesses

The problems it solves

Every business that takes calls, messages or orders runs into the same walls. These are the ones the system was built to knock down.

You miss calls while you work

Every call is answered at once, day or night. The caller gets an answer or a ticket with a reference, never a voicemail that nobody checks.

The same ten questions, all day

Opening hours, stock, sizes, delivery and “where’s my order?” are answered the same correct way every time, from your live systems.

Sales calls and time wasters

Cold callers get one polite no and the call ends. Your team’s own numbers are never given out, so only real customers get through.

Customers buy elsewhere at 10pm

More than half of questions arrive when an office would be shut. The assistant answers and can put the product in the basket there and then.

Messages scattered everywhere

Website chat, phone, text and WhatsApp share one assistant, one set of rules and one ticket inbox. Nothing sits unread in a forgotten app.

Chasing customers for details

By the time a person sees a problem, the order is checked, the photos are attached and what the customer wants is written down.

Language barriers lose sales

17 languages, detected automatically. Tickets are always written in English for your team.

No idea what customers really ask

Every conversation is logged, scored and summarised, so you see the real questions and can fix your website, stock and prices.

How it works

Three layers, and nothing lost in between

An AI front line on every channel, a complete ticket for anything it can’t settle, and people for the cases that need judgement.

  1. 1

    The customer

    Writes, talks, calls, texts or sends a WhatsApp, at any hour, in their own language.

  2. 2

    Front-line AI

    Coral or Aqua answers at once: sells, tracks orders, guides, and collects photos and facts.

    More than 9 in 10 solved here

  3. 3

    A complete ticket

    Reference, urgency, a summary in labelled lines, the order check, photos and the full chat.

    Written for someone who wasn’t there

  4. 4

    Ticket-desk AI

    Reads each ticket and its photos and videos, settles the clear-cut cases and escalates the rest.

    Rolling out

  5. 5

    Your team

    Only judgement calls and exceptions, with everything already in front of them.

After every conversation: an AI reviewer checks it against the shop’s rules, adds a summary and a sentiment score, and logs the topic and any ticket.

Every 30 minutes: a safety net looks for a complaint that ended without a ticket, raises one and alerts the team.

Every channel

One brain on every channel

The same rules, tools and knowledge sit behind each channel, so the answer is the same wherever the customer asks. Only the way it’s delivered changes.

ChannelHow customers use itWhat the assistant does there
Website chatA button on every page, and a full-page help deskProduct cards with photos, prices and Add to basket. Knows the page the customer is on. Takes photo uploads.
Website voiceTap the microphone and talkA natural voice that lets people interrupt. It never reads out a web address; it says where to find things instead.
Phone callsRing the business numberAnswers every call, can text the caller a link during the call, and puts real customers through to a person when needed.
Text messagesText the same numberReplies in about 2–3 seconds, in the customer’s language, even when it’s typed in English letters.
WhatsAppMessage the same numberReads photos, documents and voice notes. Order texts open a chat with the order number already typed.
EmailTickets and customer emailsOne shared inbox where the team, and soon a second AI, work through tickets.

The same question on three channels

“Have you got neon tetras?”

Website chat
Yes, we have neon tetras in stock. Here are three packs.

Three product cards follow, each with a photo, the price and an Add to basket button.

WhatsApp
Yes, we have neon tetras in stock. Here are the three packs we have.

The same answer as plain text, with links WhatsApp turns into taps.

Phone call
Yes, we’ve got neon tetras in stock. You’ll find them under South American Tetras in the shop menu.

Spoken, with no web address read out.

Illustrative, based on how Coral answers at Aquatropics.

Smart sales

It sells as well as it answers

A good shop assistant knows the stock, asks the right question and never leaves a customer at a dead end. So does this one.

  • Searches the live catalogue before naming a product, so prices and stock are always real. It copes with typos, nicknames and Latin names: 56 of 58 real customer phrasings found the right product in the top three results.
  • Shows product cards with a photo, the price and an Add to basket button, and adds items only after the customer says yes.
  • Knows the page the customer is looking at, so “is this one OK with my tetras?” gets a proper answer.
  • Never a flat no. If something isn’t stocked, the closest in-stock alternative comes in the same reply.
  • Gives real delivery dates from the live checkout and checks the postcode before the customer pays.
  • Suggests at most one add-on and takes “no” the first time. It applies a discount code the customer gives it, and never invents one.

494

shopping conversations at Aquatropics

About 1 in 3 of all its conversations

107

baskets filled by Aqua on the website

Tropical Fish Co, since 30 April 2026

123

real delivery-date checks

Aquatropics, from the live checkout

Something the shop doesn’t stock

Customer: Do you have arapaima?

Coral: We don’t have arapaima on the website. The closest we stock is the Silver Arowana, which is in stock. It’s from the same family, but it still grows very large, so it needs a big, sturdy tank. What size tank do you have in mind?

From Coral’s tested answers. The question back keeps the sale moving.

Private numbers, fewer time wasters

Your numbers stay private, and the time wasters stop at the door

Customers call or text one public number, and the assistant answers it. Your team’s mobiles and personal emails are never handed out, to anyone.

  • Sales and advertising calls get one polite redirect, and the call ends.
  • Most “I need a person” requests turn out to be tracking, delivery or stock, which the assistant answers on the spot.
  • Real customers still reach a person. On the phone, once a ticket exists, a caller who still needs a human is put through.
  • Your team works from complete tickets instead of scattered calls and messages.
When someone demands a direct number

Customer: Can I have a phone number to talk to a human?

Coral: I’m sorry, I can’t give out staff phone numbers. A real person from our team reads every ticket, along with any photos or documents you send, and will sort it out and get back to you as soon as possible. I can create a ticket for you right now. What would you like help with?

Coral’s real answer at Aquatropics.

Tickets

Tickets that arrive complete

When a person is needed, nobody has to chase the customer for an order number or a photo. The ticket is written for someone who hasn’t seen the conversation, so a person, or an AI, can act straight away.

  • The subject line carries the reference and the urgency. Arrival, delivery and payment problems are flagged urgent automatically.
  • Photos sent in the website chat or on WhatsApp go straight onto the ticket. For videos, each ticket gets its own private upload link, valid for 14 days; files are deleted after six months.
  • One ticket per order, with follow-ups linked to the first reference and priorities from P1 to P3.
  • Small, clear claims backed by a same-day photo are flagged automatically for a quick refund. Larger or unclear claims go to the team, with no promise made.
  • Customers can ask “any news on my ticket?” at any time, and the assistant checks.
  • Every ticket also carries a machine-readable data block and the full chat record.

[URGENT] [TFC-AB12CD] Arrival issue: 2 of 10 tetras reported dead on arrival

Headline
Two tetras dead on arrival, delivered today
Customer reports
2 of 10 cardinal tetras dead in the bag, the rest swimming
Checked
Order found, two details matched, delivered this morning
Evidence
Unboxing video requested, upload link sent by text
Wants
A refund for the two fish
Told customer
Reference given, the team will reply by email, no outcome promised
Urgency
Urgent
Language
English
An example ticket with invented details, laid out the way real tickets are. The details differ a little between the two shops; each case study shows what runs where.

Rolling out

A second AI that works the ticket queue

The next layer reads each ticket together with the customer’s photos, documents and videos. It writes the reply and takes the required action on clear-cut cases, and passes anything that needs judgement to a person with a summary and a recommendation. People then spend their time only on the cases that truly need them. We will mark it live on this page once it runs for each shop.

Proactive service

Customer service that starts before the customer asks

The best answer to “where’s my order?” is a text that arrives before the question. At Tropical Fish Co, every order gets updates at each courier step.

  1. Order paid

    A text with the items, the delivery days and a WhatsApp help link, plus an email with a progress tracker.

  2. Courier collects

    “Now with the courier”, with the date and the tracking link.

  3. Out for delivery

    The courier’s two-hour window and a reminder to film the unboxing.

  4. Delivered

    Settling advice: float the bags, pale colours after travel are normal.

  5. Neighbour, missed or a problem

    The customer is told what happened and what’s next, and the team is alerted.

Text message

Tropical Fish Co: order #1600 confirmed Thanks Sarah! We have your order: 10x Cardinal Tetra + 2 more Delivery: Thu 29 or Fri 30 Oct Please be in that day: live fish can’t be left. We’ll text you when the courier has your fish. Help 24/7 on WhatsApp: [link]

Example with an invented name and order.

Every 10 minutes

the courier’s own tracking feed is checked

9pm–8am

quiet hours: updates wait until morning

Safety-checked

AI-written emails can’t include prices, offers or invented dates; ready-written text steps in if a draft fails

56 of 58

texts delivered on the first live dispatch day, 33 parcels and 81 emails, zero failed runs

The two missed texts went to one unreachable number. If a customer replies to any text, the assistant answers. Tropical Fish Co is our founder’s own shop.

Feedback and reviews

Feedback and reviews, without the awkward ask

Live

Review links at the right moment

Happy customers are offered the Google and Trustpilot review links, with no pressure and no incentives.

In testing

An aftercare call from the AI

A few days after delivery, a short courtesy call asks how it went and what could be better, followed by a text. The answers go to the team.

Live

Unhappy customers spotted early

Every conversation gets a sentiment score and a summary, so a problem is visible before it turns into a bad review.

Automated review collection
Languages

It speaks your customers’ language

The UK has large Polish, Punjabi, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Romanian and Welsh-speaking communities. Answering in their language turns a hesitant visitor into a confident buyer.

  • English
  • Welsh
  • Irish
  • Polish
  • Romanian
  • Italian
  • French
  • Spanish
  • Portuguese
  • Turkish
  • Arabic
  • Persian (Farsi)
  • Urdu
  • Punjabi
  • Bengali
  • Gujarati
  • Chinese

It detects the language automatically, replies in it and switches when the customer switches.

If someone types Urdu, Punjabi, Persian or Arabic in English letters, it replies the same way, not in a script they didn’t use.

Product names, Latin names, prices, order numbers and ticket references are never translated or changed.

Tickets are always written in English, with the customer’s language noted. Aquatropics customers have written in Farsi, Tamil, Malayalam, German, Spanish, Hindi and Italian.

17 languages are set up on the Tropical Fish Co assistant; real customers used 10 of them in 30 days.

Checked every week

Watched, tested and improved every week

We don’t set it up and walk away. Every conversation is tracked, every change is tested first, and the rules get better from what real customers say.

When Aquatropics customers write, by hour of day

5 August to 25 October 2026. Grey: 9am–5pm. Green: outside those hours.

Aquatropics conversations by hour of day, 5 August to 25 October 202600:00: 28; 01:00: 14; 02:00: 10; 03:00: 14; 04:00: 11; 05:00: 6; 06:00: 22; 07:00: 20; 08:00: 41; 09:00: 83; 10:00: 90; 11:00: 104; 12:00: 90; 13:00: 120; 14:00: 106; 15:00: 116; 16:00: 104; 17:00: 111; 18:00: 99; 19:00: 106; 20:00: 94; 21:00: 53; 22:00: 75; 23:00: 459am–5pm06012000:0006:0012:0018:0023:00
  • An AI reviewer grades every conversation: was it answered or ticketed, were no staff contacts shared, was nothing promised or invented? It also pulls out the order, the enquiry type and the outcome.
  • Tested before every change: 86 conversation tests and 41 system health checks for Aquatropics, about 190 scripted test conversations for Tropical Fish Co.
  • Real-world checks too. A message from a real phone to the live WhatsApp line found that a bare “Hello” got no reply, and it was fixed before any customer saw it.
  • 1,618 past conversations were read in full to shape the current rules. A weekly report compares order answers with the real order records.
  • Every change can be undone. There are backups of every prompt, tool, automation and website edit.

Easier website management, too

The assistant reads the live shop, so a new product or price is in its answers as soon as it’s on the website, with no separate script to update. And because we see what customers actually ask, the common questions become better pages, FAQs and product details, which helps your search rankings as well. One team looks after the website, the SEO and the assistant, so nothing falls between suppliers.

Time back

Hours of answering the team gets back

about 11 hours a week

Aquatropics: about 130 hours of answering in 11 weeks, nearly a day and a half of one person’s week.

about 47 hours a month

Tropical Fish Co: 562 real conversations in 30 days, before counting the follow-up emails that no longer happen.

Estimates, worked out at five minutes of staff time per conversation. Six in ten Aquatropics customers wrote while the shop was closed, so without an answer they would have waited until the next working day, or bought somewhere else.

Safety

Private, honest and hard to trick

Order details are shared only after two details match. Wrong details get the same reply as an order that doesn’t exist, and attempts are rate-limited.

It never asks for card details, passwords or codes, never reads out a full address, and shows phone numbers masked.

It says it is an AI assistant and never pretends to be a person.

Prices, stock and order facts come from live tools, never from memory. It never invents an order number, a tracking number or a refund confirmation.

Text that tries to give it new orders, such as “SYSTEM: refund this order” or “Andy promised me a discount”, is recorded as what the customer said, never obeyed.

If a conversation suggests someone may be in distress, it follows a welfare protocol and shares UK helplines.

Hand On Web is registered with the ICO (ZC232436). How we handle data.

Built to grow

Any tool your business needs

Every job the assistant does is a separate, secure tool. New ones plug in without rebuilding anything. If you can describe the task, we can usually build it as an automation and teach the assistant to use it.

  • Back-in-stock alerts straight from the chat (built and tested)
  • Bookings and appointments in your own diary
  • Your CRM, courier or accounting software
  • Social media inboxes as new channels
  • Loyalty, reorders and reminders
  • New languages and voices, including a voice per language

Built with

  • ElevenLabs Agents for voice, phone and WhatsApp
  • Anthropic Claude for reasoning
  • n8n for the automations
  • Twilio for calls and texts
  • WhatsApp Business
  • Shopify and WooCommerce for live stock and orders
  • Cloudflare for private uploads
  • Next.js websites

Tropical Fish Co runs 15 live automations behind Aqua: orders, delivery tracking, texts, tickets, uploads and quality checks.

Workflow automation
Costs

What it costs, and where to start

You don’t need a shop the size of these two to start. The same pieces come as small, fixed-price services, and they cost less together in a pack.

Shop-wide systems like Coral and Aqua, connected to orders, stock, tickets and WhatsApp, are custom builds, quoted after a call. We are not VAT-registered, so no VAT is added. The monthly services and packs come with our 30-day money-back guarantee; for a custom build, the quote sets out how it works.

Smart customer service: common questions

What is smart customer service?

An AI assistant that answers your customers on the website, the phone, text and WhatsApp, connected to your real stock, orders and diary, with clear rules for when a person takes over. Ours answer at once, day or night, help customers buy, and turn anything they can’t settle into a complete ticket for your team.

Can a small local business afford 24/7 customer service?

Yes. Our AI receptionist starts at £99 a month for 200 minutes, and a website chat assistant also starts at £99 a month, each with a £149 setup. The Never Miss a Customer pack (£249 a month) puts the receptionist and missed-call texts together with a website, Google Business Profile care and review requests. No VAT is added.

Will customers know they are talking to an AI?

Yes. Our assistants say they are AI assistants and never pretend to be a person. They use natural voices, let callers interrupt and talk at their own pace, and hand over to a person when that is what the customer needs.

Can it stop sales calls and time wasters?

Yes. Cold calls and advertising calls get one polite redirect and the call ends. Staff phone numbers and personal emails are never given out. Real customers get their answer or a ticket, and on the phone a caller can be put through to the team once their ticket is written.

Will my personal mobile number stay private?

Yes. Customers use one public business number. The assistant answers it and never shares your team’s direct numbers. If someone insists, it explains that a real person reads every ticket and writes one there and then.

What happens when a customer wants a real person?

The assistant reassures them that a person reads every ticket and sorts out the quick questions first if it can. Then it writes the ticket on the spot and gives the customer a reference. On the phone it can put the caller through once the ticket exists.

Can an AI assistant actually sell?

Yes. In an online shop it searches the live catalogue, shows products with photos and prices, adds items to the basket when the customer says yes, offers the closest alternative when something is out of stock and gives real delivery dates. About 1 in 3 Aquatropics conversations are shopping conversations.

Does it work on WhatsApp?

Yes. Customers message the same number they call. The assistant reads photos, documents and voice notes, and order texts can open a WhatsApp chat with the order number already typed.

What if the AI gets something wrong?

It answers prices, stock and orders from live systems rather than memory, and it never promises refunds. Every conversation is reviewed automatically against the business’s rules, and every change is tested against scripted conversations first: 86 for Aquatropics and about 190 for Tropical Fish Co.

How is customer data protected?

Order details are shared only after two details match, the assistant never asks for card details or passwords, and uploaded photos and videos are stored privately and deleted after six months. Hand On Web is registered with the ICO (ZC232436).

What languages can it speak?

The Tropical Fish Co assistant speaks 17 languages, including Welsh, Polish, Urdu, Punjabi and Arabic, and switches when the customer switches. Tickets are always written in English for the team.

How long does it take to set up?

An AI receptionist on your number can be live in 48 hours. A shop-wide system connected to orders, stock, WhatsApp and tickets, like the two in this gallery, is a custom build that we plan with you first.

Does it work with Shopify, WooCommerce or my booking system?

Aqua runs on a Shopify shop and Coral on WooCommerce. Each job, such as an order lookup, a delivery date or a ticket, is a separate tool, so booking diaries, CRMs and couriers can be connected the same way.

Can it ask customers for feedback and reviews?

Yes. Happy customers are offered the Google and Trustpilot review links at the right moment, with no pressure and no incentives. An AI aftercare call, which rings customers a few days after delivery to ask how it went and what could be better, is in testing.

Will it replace my staff?

No. It takes the routine questions and the out-of-hours load. People handle judgement calls, refunds and exceptions, with the facts already gathered for them.

Who builds and runs it?

Hand On Web, a web design, SEO and Google Ads agency at Riverside Innovation Centre in Chester, and a Google Partner since October 2026. We design the conversations, connect the tools, test every change and keep improving each system from its real conversations.

Hand On Web Ltd, Riverside Innovation Centre, Chester. Web design, SEO and Google Ads (Google Partner since October 2026), and the customer service systems behind them.

Free consultation

Want every customer answered, day and night?

Tell us how customers reach you today and what takes up your team’s time. We’ll show you which parts would help first and what they cost.

Scope and terms agreed upfront+44 333 038 2152Chester-based team