How MR MARVIS scaled customer service with AI while keeping product advice personal

MR MARVIS is known for slow fashion made in Portugal and for its strong service culture. As the brand expanded its product range and entered new markets, the customer service team needed a way to keep response times fast without losing the personal, detailed advice the brand is known for.

With Engaige, MR MARVIS now uses an AI agent that handles routine questions and prepares more complex cases for human agents. This helps the team stay efficient during peak moments and gives customers the product guidance they expect.

We spoke with Vera Zonneveld, Head of Customer Experience, and Coreijn Damen, Automation and Knowledge Specialist, about their experience.

Watch the full interview below:

The growing challenge: More products and therefore more required knowledge, bringing added complexity for agents

MR MARVIS expanded its collection quickly. New fabrics, new fits, new colours and more countries. Online, that creates a different kind of pressure.

“In-store, people feel the fabrics and see the fits,” Vera tells us. “Online, our agents have to explain every small detail. And with such a big collection, that takes a lot of training and time.”

Customer support kept getting the same questions over and over. Every e‑commerce team knows the drill:

• “Where is my order?”
• “How do I return this?”
• “When will my return be processed?”

These repetitive questions weren’t difficult to resolve, but they arrived in high volume and often at the busiest times.

“We saw a lot of routine questions that were very time-consuming,” Coreijn explained. “It took time away from the more complex topics where personal help matters.”

When demand peaked, they coped by bringing in temporary staff. But these agents had to learn the entire catalogue, all policies and every single exception.

For a brand with a large product range, this wasn’t scalable and it didn’t solve the underlying issue.

Why MR MARVIS turned to Engaige

When looking for ways to improve their customer experience, the team was curious about AI, but selective.

They didn’t want an AI system that tried to automate everything. The MR MARVIS team wanted a partner that would help them reduce the heavy steps in the workflow while keeping the personal tone that defines their service.

“We started working with Engaige because the focus was on quality, not quantity,” Vera said. “That mindset matched ours.”

The goal wasn’t to automate everything. It was to remove the friction that slowed support agents down, give customers faster replies and make scaling less stressful.

The 4 biggest wins after bringing AI into the support team

Introducing AI didn’t overhaul the team overnight. Instead, it quietly began to lift pressure behind the scenes. Small changes started adding up, making the team’s workload feel lighter than they’d expected.

1. Repetitive questions handled instantly

Engaige’s AI agent took over routine conversations on chat and email. This took pressure off the support team immediately, resolving over 50% of the conversations it’s involved in and allowing agents to focus on complex or high-touch cases.

From the very first weeks, the AI handled:

• WISMO requests by checking backend data instantly
• Refund and return questions by collecting all relevant information and handing over to human agents 
• Basic product questions

This meant MR MARVIS’ support agents could shift their attention to more complex and customer-oriented questions.

Coreijn noticed the same impact: “The AI solves a lot of those repetitive routine tasks for us.”

Faster responses also supported one of the team’s top priorities:

“Fast response time is really important to us, and Engaige helps with that,” says Vera.

2. Product advice that matches the brand’s tone

Getting an AI agent to provide personal product advice like a human agent was expected to be the hardest use case. But in the end, it became one of the strongest.

“Our collection has grown a lot. It’s hard for human agents to remember every detail,” Coreijn explains. “The AI gives quick, accurate explanations and highlights product differences. We were impressed by how well it performs.”

Customers now receive:

• Clear comparisons between fits (for example, The Originals vs The Piques)
• Fabric explanations in the MR MARVIS tone
• Guidance even outside office hours
• High-quality product recommendations across the whole collection 

“One thing that impresses me every day is the quality of the product recommendations.” – Coreijn Damen, Automation and Knowledge Specialist

3. Every complex case arrives fully prepared

Another big benefit is that the AI gathers context before a human agent steps in, removing the “in-between” steps that used to slow the team down.

Examples of what the AI agent can do include:

• Collecting photos for damaged items
• Checking or correcting order numbers
• Summarising long conversation threads
• Pulling data from backend systems
• Preparing full context for the support agent

This set-up also made onboarding easier, as new agents now step into a conversation that already has all the necessary context.

“Agents don’t need to chase information anymore. The AI gathers everything so they can answer in one go.” – Vera Zonneveld, Head of Customer Experience

4. Better insights into customer friction

Handling questions isn’t the only thing the AI agent does. It also highlights patterns in behaviour, helping the team see where customers keep running into problems.

“Engaige helps us understand where customers struggle,” Vera explained. “We can now see where improvements are needed in the backend to prevent repeat questions.”

For a fast-growing company like MR MARVIS, these insights are especially valuable.

“It helps us make decisions differently,” Vera added.

Better insights + automation behind the scenes = fewer preventable questions.

A partnership built on testing, improving and scaling

Both Vera and Coreijn emphasised how collaborative the process felt.

“We reviewed everything together,” Vera said. “It was test and learn — and it went fast.”

“Start small and expand,” Coreijn added. “You learn, you adjust and the AI becomes more capable every time.”

Engaige’s AI is now a part of MR MARVIS’s daily customer support workflow. Not replacing any support agent, but rather acting as a partner that frees them to deliver the service the brand stands for.

“Within the AI we can see the reasoning, and how it comes to a response. That shows us where information is missing or unclear, and helps us improve our workflow.” –  Coreijn Damen, Automation and Knowledge Specialist

AI works best when it supports agents, not replaces them

Vera and Coreijn’s message to e-commerce leaders starting with AI was clear.

“My advice would be to not aim for fully automated tickets,” Vera said. “The real value lies in reducing steps for agents. That’s where you keep quality high.”

AI takes time to get right. You can’t switch it on and expect it to do everything from day one. It takes time and attention. But when you do that, it becomes a partner that helps you deliver the service your brand stands for.

Ready to give your support team more time for the conversations that matter?

If you also want to reduce repetitive workload, improve product advice, and give your team more time for the conversations that matter, we’d love to show you how Engaige can help.