Suzie, my personal assistant, doing customer support for me, recently helped me solve a real customer billing mystery — a US$99 charge with no matching invoice. However, let me be clear from the start: Suzie did the research and the drafting, and I made every judgment call. She never moved a cent without my say-so.
This is the whole story, exactly as it happened.
It Started With a Chat
A US-based digital marketing company reached out through Joe, the sales chat on a3rev.com. The message was simple. They had a US$99 charge on their credit card from a3rev Software, and they had no invoice to match it.
Joe tried to help. However, to pull up account details, the customer needed to be logged in — and they couldn’t log in. So Joe did the next best thing and invited them to escalate by email, straight from the chatbox.
That email landed in my Outlook inbox.
I Handed It to My AI Customer Support Assistant
I read the email, understood the situation, and did what I do now almost by reflex. I asked Suzie, my AI customer support assistant, to read the email and search our WooCommerce database to see what she could find.
Within moments, she had something.
Suzie found a subscription. However, here’s where it got interesting — the subscription wasn’t in the name of the person who had contacted us. It belonged to someone else entirely. What did match was the email domain: same company, different person.
So Suzie kept digging. For example, she went to the company’s website and found our contact listed by name on their “About” page. The person who had emailed us was the company’s President.
The Call That Mattered
Suzie laid it all out for me: the subscription details, the domain match, the website research. Clear, organised and actionable.
But here’s the thing — Suzie doesn’t make judgment calls. I do.
I looked at what she’d found and made the decision. This was the company’s owner, and the subscription belonged to their business. As a result, I asked Suzie to draft a reply, including the subscription details and what we’d found.
I read the draft. It was exactly right. I hit Send.
The Mystery Solved Itself
The reply came back quickly, and suddenly everything made sense. The person who had originally created the account had since left the company, and their mailbox was dead.
So when the annual renewal processed and the charge hit the card, nobody received the notification email — it went nowhere. Meanwhile, the $99 appeared on the statement with no paper trail the current team could trace.
They also no longer had the client website where the plugin had been installed. The subscription had no practical use to them, so they asked for a refund and cancellation.
The Second Call That Mattered
Again — Suzie doesn’t move money without my say-so. Ever.
I reviewed the situation and authorised her to help process three things: the refund, the subscription cancellation, and a reply confirming both were done.
Suzie drafted the response. I read it. I hit Send.
Done.
Why My AI Customer Support Assistant Made It Work
This whole situation was resolved cleanly and quickly because of where Suzie works and how she works. My AI customer support assistant operates across just two interfaces on my behalf:
- My Outlook email — she reads incoming emails and writes drafts for me to review and send.
- The WooCommerce module on a3rev.com — she searches the database, pulls subscription and order details, and helps process approved refunds and cancellations.
That’s it. Two interfaces.
Suzie did the searching, the research, the cross-referencing and the drafting. Meanwhile, I directed the work and made the decisions.
If you want the fuller picture of what she does day to day, here’s more on Suzie — Personal Assistant.
The two moments that actually mattered were human moments. First, me deciding the company president was the legitimate account holder. Second, me authorising the refund and cancellation.
Suzie never took a financial action, or any account action, without my explicit approval. That’s not a limitation — that’s the design. Because that’s how trust works.
What an AI Support Assistant Looks Like From the Customer’s Side
From the customer’s perspective, they sent one email and received a clear, informed response that solved their problem — including a refund and a clean account closure.
No hold music. No ticket queue. No back-and-forth asking them to verify things they couldn’t access.
That’s what I want every customer interaction to feel like. And increasingly, my AI customer support assistant is how I deliver it.
Transparent note: Suzie drafted this blog post too — at my direction, based on the actual sequence of events. I reviewed it, made edits, and published it. That’s exactly how we work.
