L’Oréal Cuts Customer Service Time 64% With AI

L’Oréal AI agent advisers

Highlights

L’Oréal’s AI customer service tools cut average case handling time 64% across 25 North American brands, with advisers closing cases in about 2.5 minutes instead of seven.

On the YSL Beauty and Kiehl’s websites, an AI agent now verifies shoppers, pulls live tracking data and resolves order status requests without a human, using only preapproved language.

L’Oréal aims to automate 60% of order status requests, as PYMNTS Intelligence finds shoppers accept AI help but only 24% would let an agent shop and pay for them.

A L’Oréal adviser who needed to issue a customer a discount code once clicked through about 15 screens over 10 minutes. Now the adviser types a prompt, and artificial intelligence generates the code in about 1 minute, Salesforce reported. Across 25 North American brands, that kind of help has cut average case handling time 64%, the case study showed.

    Get the Full Story

    Complete the form to unlock this article and enjoy unlimited free access to all PYMNTS content — no additional logins required.

    Subscribe to our daily newsletter, PYMNTS Today.

    By completing this form, you agree to receive marketing communications from PYMNTS and to the sharing of your information with our sponsor, if applicable, in accordance with our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions.

    The next phase removes the adviser. On the YSL Beauty and Kiehl’s websites, an AI agent now closes order status requests on its own. L’Oréal aims to resolve 60% of those inquiries without a human, Salesforce said. Advisers take the exceptions.

    AI Cut L’Oréal’s Case Time From 7 Minutes to 2.5

    L’Oréal advisers now close a typical case in about 2.5 minutes, down from about seven, Salesforce reported. Agentforce, Salesforce’s AI agent platform, summarizes each conversation as the case arrives and confirms what the consumer wants. It drafts the first reply in the voice of each brand, from Lancôme to CeraVe. Advisers edit the draft and send it. Before a case closes, the AI checks that the logged reason matches the conversation.

    More than 300 advisers use the tool daily, and adoption has reached 100% among eligible staff, L’Oréal told Salesforce. The company piloted it with a single brand in Canada to learn which consumer requests the AI could handle, said Luc Antoine, global director of innovation for consumer experience.

    We’d love to be your preferred source for news.

    Please add us to your preferred sources list so our news, data and interviews show up in your feed. Thanks!

    “We don’t want to replace our reps. We want to augment them,” said Alberto Rodrigues, assistant vice president of consumer care innovation and intelligence for L’Oréal USA.

    YSL Beauty and Kiehl’s Let Software Close Order Requests

    On the YSL Beauty and Kiehl’s websites, the AI agent authenticates shoppers, retrieves live order and tracking data and resolves status requests on its own around the clock, Salesforce said. The U.S. and Canada run separate order management systems. Each request routes to the right system by country and brand.

    L’Oréal limited what the agent can say. Every reply comes from a library of preapproved language, and the model never writes a new sentence, the case study noted. Questions that edge toward medical topics go straight to an adviser.

    When a request falls outside the agent’s scope, it transfers the chat to an adviser with the full history attached. After hours, the shopper gets a case number and a follow-up within one business day, Salesforce wrote. Adding another brand is a configuration change rather than a new build.

    Lancôme web chat and voice are next on L’Oréal’s roadmap, the case study said. Europe is the next region to get the adviser tools, Salesforce added.

    Shoppers draw their line at money. Half of Americans have made a retail purchase with AI’s help, but only 24% would let an agent shop and pay for them, PYMNTS Intelligence found in the “Will the 2026 Shopping Season Go Agentic?” report. Consumers are comfortable handing AI research and far less comfortable handing it payment choices or decisions they can’t reverse.

    For all PYMNTS AI coverage, subscribe to the daily AI Newsletter.