What do B2B customers contact support about?
B2B customers write in about a contract, not a single purchase: orders against a PO, invoices under agreed terms, users on a licensed plan and technical questions tied to their configuration. Agent resolves the requests that have a factual answer in your systems, as long as it checks who is asking and what their account is entitled to. Commercial decisions go to the account team.
| Conversation type | Can Agent resolve it? | Hand off when | Data Agent needs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Order or shipment status by PO number | Yes, for contacts listed on the account | A line is backordered past the promised date, the customer asks to expedite at a cost, or their production line is waiting on it | Order and shipment records keyed by PO, carrier tracking |
| Invoice copy, statement of account, proof of delivery | Yes, sent to the billing contacts on file | The requester is not a billing contact, or the invoice is disputed | Billing or AR system, contact roles from the CRM |
| Payment received? Remittance and payment terms | Yes: what was applied, what is open, the terms in the contract | The account is on credit hold, or the customer asks for longer terms | Open items, payments applied, contract terms |
| Invoice price does not match the contract | Partly: compares invoice lines with contract pricing and opens a dispute | Always, once the mismatch is documented; credits are issued by finance | Contract price list, invoice lines |
| Supplier onboarding: W-9, insurance certificate, supplier portal registration | Partly: sends standard documents from Knowledge | A custom form, a security questionnaire, or anything asking for bank details | Standard document set, portal instructions |
| Tax-exempt status or resale certificate | Collects the certificate and routes it | Always, to the tax or AR team for review | Upload link, account ID |
| Add or remove users, reset admin access | Yes, when the requester is the account admin | The requester is not an admin, or the change would exceed licensed seats | Admin list and seat entitlement |
| "What does our plan include?" Entitlements and support tier | Yes, read from the contract record | The answer depends on contract wording or a custom clause | Plan, tier, SLA, add-ons, contract dates |
| How-to and technical troubleshooting | Yes, from product docs and known issues | It looks like a bug, an outage or data loss, or the account is in a P1 tier | Docs in Knowledge, status page, account configuration |
| Renewal, upgrade, pricing or cancellation | No | Always, to the account manager, with usage and contract dates attached | Contract end date, owner from the CRM |
The column that matters most in B2B is the last one. An answer is only correct if Agent knows which company the contact belongs to, what role they hold there and which contract tier applies.
What does an AI procedure for B2B invoice requests look like?
Invoice and statement requests are a good first procedure: they arrive daily, the answer sits in your billing system, and the risks (sending a document to the wrong person, accepting changed bank details) are easy to write rules for. A finance team could give Agent this procedure.
Example procedure: invoice copies and statement of account
- Match the sender's email to a contact in the CRM and read the account, the contact's role (admin, billing, user) and the account tier. If the email domain matches an account but the contact is unknown, do not create one; reply that a copy will go to the billing contact on file.
- Find the invoice by invoice number or by the customer's PO number. If several invoices match the PO, list them with dates and amounts and ask which one.
- Send invoice PDFs and statements only to contacts with the billing or admin role. Anyone else gets a note that the document went to the billing contact.
- Report status exactly as the AR system shows it: amount, due date, payments applied and open balance. Give the remittance instructions stored in Knowledge, never new ones.
- If an invoice line differs from the contract price, list both figures, open a dispute task for AR through a webhook and post the account name to the finance Slack channel. Do not promise a credit.
- If the message mentions changed bank details, a new remittance address or an urgent payment change, hand off to finance at once and mark it as possible fraud. Never confirm or update banking information.
- For accounts in the enterprise tier, copy the account manager on the handoff and on any dispute.
- Hand off on: legal language (breach, termination, MSA, indemnity), credit hold, collections, a request to change terms, or two negative messages in a row. Spend limit: $0; Agent issues no credits.
Example conversation
Customer (AP clerk at a distributor): Can you resend invoice 40118 and tell me what's still open on PO 7730? Our portal shows a different total.
Agent: I've sent invoice 40118 to you as the billing contact on the account. PO 7730 has two invoices: 40118 for $12,480, paid on September 30, and 40342 for $3,960, due October 24. The difference you're seeing is likely the second invoice; I've attached it as well.
Customer: 40342 has the bracket at $18.20 a unit. Our contract says $16.50.
Agent: You're right that the two figures differ: the invoice shows $18.20 and your price list shows $16.50 for that part. I've opened a dispute with our accounts receivable team and told Priya, your account manager. They will confirm the correction, and the due date on 40342 is on hold for the dispute's review.
Priya and the AR team receive the thread, the two invoices, the contract price Agent read and the dispute task it created. Whether the due date can be paused is a rule finance sets in the procedure, not something Agent decides.
What guardrails does a B2B AI agent need?
Three lines Agent never crosses on a business account: it never changes payment details, never commits the company to commercial terms, and never shares one contact's account data with someone the account has not authorized.
What Agent must never do
- Accept or confirm new bank details. Payment-redirection emails are the classic business email compromise. The FBI's 2025 Internet Crime Report recorded about $3.05 billion in reported BEC losses across 24,768 complaints. Any such request goes to finance for verification by phone on a known number.
- Agree pricing, credits, SLA credits or contract changes. These belong to the account manager or finance.
- Interpret the contract. Agent can read back what the order form says about plan and tier; it does not explain what an indemnity or liability clause means. It gives no legal, tax or financial advice and escalates those questions to people.
- Chase debt or threaten late fees. Statutory interest exists in some markets (in the UK, business-to-business late payment rules allow interest on overdue invoices, and the EU's Late Payment Directive sets a 60-day norm for payment terms between businesses), but whether to invoke it is a relationship decision for finance.
What triggers a handoff
- Customer tier: strategic or enterprise accounts can be routed to a named owner for anything beyond a document or status lookup.
- Keywords such as outage, down, data loss, security incident, breach, terminate, legal, auditor or procurement.
- Negative sentiment from an executive sponsor or a contact the CRM marks as a decision maker.
- Anything about renewal, price changes, credit holds or terms.
Data handling
Business contacts are still people: names, emails and phone numbers are personal data under the EU's data protection rules, and customers' security teams will ask how a support vendor handles them. Aftersales offers a GDPR DPA and hosts data in the US; the Scale plan adds SSO, SAML and SCIM and warehouse sync. Agent acts only through connector permissions you grant and can revoke, so billing access can stay read-only while dispute creation writes a single task. Aftersales does not make you compliant with any customer's security requirements; it gives your security review something concrete to assess.
Which channels matter for B2B customer service?
Email still carries most B2B support, but buyers increasingly want answers without waiting for a person: Gartner reported that 67% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free experience. Put Agent on the channels where that self-service happens.
- Email. Threads arrive with three colleagues in CC and a PDF purchase order attached. Agent reads the attachment's PO number and answers the whole thread.
- In-app and portal chat. Logged-in users are already identified, so Agent can skip verification and read their account directly.
- Slack Connect. Large accounts expect a shared channel. Questions posted there land in the same Inbox queue, and Agent can answer the routine ones.
- Phone. Production-down calls need a person fast. Growth and Scale include warm and cold transfers and recording consent.
- WhatsApp and SMS. Useful for field technicians and distributors in markets where they are the default. Agent replies in 31 languages.
Which B2B systems should the AI agent connect to?
Start with the CRM, because every B2B answer depends on knowing the account and the contact's role. Then add billing and order data, which covers most of the conversation table.
| System | What Agent reads or does | How it connects |
|---|---|---|
| CRM | Account, contacts and their roles, tier, account owner | Salesforce (named integration) or the Aftersales API |
| ERP or order management | Orders by PO, shipments, backorders, contract price lists | Aftersales API or webhooks |
| Billing and accounts receivable | Invoices, statements, open items, payments applied | Stripe (named integration) for subscription billing; others through the Aftersales API or webhooks |
| Contract or entitlement records | Plan, support tier, SLA, licensed seats, renewal date | Aftersales API or webhooks |
| Your product's admin API | User lists, admin roles, seat usage | Aftersales API or webhooks |
| Issue tracker | Bug reports with the account and logs attached | Jira (named integration) |
| Status page or incident tool | Current incidents to mention before troubleshooting | Webhooks |
| Zendesk, Freshdesk or Salesforce Service Cloud | Existing tickets; Agent can run inside them | Named integrations |
ERPs and contract systems vary widely, so confirm specific connectors on a call. Keep remittance instructions, standard supplier documents and product docs in Knowledge so Agent, your team and the help center give the same answer. Workflows can then create a Jira issue or post to Slack when Agent hands off.
What does AI customer service cost for a B2B support team?
A B2B support team of 12 handling 3,000 conversations a month would pay about $2,216 a month at list prices, roughly $0.74 per conversation, on these assumptions:
- 12 support and billing specialists on Growth, billed annually.
- Agent resolves 35% of conversations, well below the 71% median Aftersales customers reach after 90 days, because disputes, renewals, bugs and enterprise escalations go to people.
- Copilot for all 12 specialists; 15 account managers join as Lite seats to read threads, comment and approve.
| Line item | Calculation | Monthly cost |
|---|---|---|
| 12 seats on Growth | 12 × $69 | $828 |
| Agent resolutions | 1,050 × $0.99 | $1,039.50 |
| Copilot for 12 specialists | 12 × $29 | $348 |
| 15 account managers as Lite seats | Included (20 on Growth) | $0 |
| Total per month | $2,215.50 |
Agent is charged once per conversation, however many questions a contact packs into one email, and conversations it can't help with are free. If your enterprise customers require SSO or SCIM, Scale is $109 per seat ($1,308 for 12). Teams that want to keep Zendesk, Freshdesk or Salesforce Service Cloud can run Agent on its own at $0.99 per resolution with a minimum monthly commitment and no seats. See pricing.
How do you roll out a B2B AI agent in 30 days?
Begin with the account lookups that carry no commercial risk, then add the conversation types that need dispute or handoff rules.
- Week 1. Export three months of conversations and tag them by intent. Pick three types, typically invoice copies, order status by PO and how-to questions. Connect the CRM and read-only billing access, and agree the handoff list with finance and the account managers.
- Week 2. Write the procedures or import your macros. Test the contact-role rule against real accounts with many contacts, and replay past threads to check that Agent never sends a document to someone outside the billing role.
- Week 3. Go live on email and in-app chat for self-serve and mid-market accounts first, with enterprise accounts still routed to people. Turn on Monitors for every conversation.
- Week 4. Add invoice disputes, user administration and Slack Connect channels for a few friendly accounts. Report resolution rate and handoff reasons to support, finance and sales leaders, using the definitions in our resolution rate guide.