indu

indu makes skincare for young skin and has a library of plain, carefully written articles designed to help its consumer make informed decisions. The people asking the questions are young, and they are asking about their own bodies, so every answer has to come from indu and has to be right.

• The knowledge base already existed, but people weren’t seeing it. A shopper with a question didn’t know that indu had the answer as it was on a page nobody was visiting.
• An answer going wrong here matters more than in most shops, so nothing could be made up on the spot and always had to use indu’s own words.
• The shop had to stay exactly as it was and keep receiving its Shopify updates, so nothing could be rebuilt that would break the theme. The last thing they wanted was to go custom.
• The team is small. The person who runs the shop did not want to take on yet another system to learn and maintain.

We worked through it with Richard and then with the team, which was the real test. The solution was Richard's own: a library you never have to go into, but one you can access anywhere. The answer comes to the reader, in the place where they already are.

A shopper asks a question on the page they are on and gets the answer from indu's own articles, in indu's voice. It sits inside the shop without changing the shop. The first stage is the question box. A routine builder and stories that open in place follow in the same build.

The team looks after the library, the rules for what may be answered, and an unattributed record of what customers ask, all from inside the store they already sign in to. There is no second login and nobody new to hire.

• A question box inside their shop
• Their pre-existing article library
• Rules for what may be answered
• A record of what people ask

• Their shop, untouched, still receiving its updates.
• Their articles and their voice. Every answer comes from words they wrote.
• Their customers and everything those customers ask.
• Their web address. The reader never leaves it.