The Challenge
With cash-on-delivery making up the majority of orders, the brand faced a persistent RTO problem — a meaningful share of COD orders were either impulsive, mistaken, or fraudulent, and were only caught (if at all) once the shipment had already reached the customer's doorstep and been refused. Manually calling every COD order to verify intent before shipping wasn't feasible with a lean 3-person ops team already managing fulfillment.
The Solution
Voni AI was integrated directly with the brand's Shopify store, triggering an automated COD verification call within minutes of every COD order being placed — confirming the delivery address, order details, and genuine intent to accept and pay. Orders that failed to verify (no answer after retries, or explicit cancellation) were automatically flagged before entering the fulfillment queue. A parallel order-confirmation flow ran for prepaid orders, and a post-delivery feedback call/email closed the loop on every order.
Implementation Timeline
Store integration and call-flow configuration were completed within a week; the verification flow was live and processing real order volume within 10 days of kickoff.
The Results
- Estimated 22% reduction in RTO rate for COD orders, driven by catching non-genuine orders before shipping rather than after a failed delivery.
- Verification completed within minutes of order placement, rather than the previous same-day-or-later manual process.
- Ops team hours previously spent on manual verification calls were reallocated to customer support and fulfillment quality.
- Post-delivery feedback calls surfaced product and delivery issues earlier, feeding directly into the brand's quality process.
In Their Words
"RTO was quietly eating into our margins every month. Automating verification calls right after order placement caught issues before we ever shipped — the savings were visible within the first month." — Jaydeep Zalavadiya (Owner, Oracle Trendz)
Why It Worked
Speed was the critical factor — verifying an order within minutes, before it entered the pick-and-pack queue, meant non-genuine orders were caught early rather than discovered as an expensive failed delivery days later.
