Route refund requests from Gorgias using Claude Cowork

Prerequisites

Overview

Claude Cowork lets you define a recurring task in plain English and have Claude execute it on a schedule — no script required. You describe the refund detection and routing logic, and Claude uses its built-in tools to call the Gorgias API, read ticket content, determine if it's a refund request, and assign it to the right team. This is the fastest way to get refund routing working with zero code.

Step 1: Find your Gorgias API credentials

In Gorgias, go to Settings → API → REST API and create a new key. You'll need:

• Domain: your-store (from your-store.gorgias.com)
• Email: Your Gorgias account email
• API key: Copy from the REST API settings (shown once)

Step 2: Identify your refund team

Go to Settings → Teams in Gorgias and note the exact name of the team that handles refunds. If you don't have one yet, create a team called Refund Team and add only agents who are authorized to process refunds and issue credits.

Step 3: Create the Cowork task

Open Claude Desktop and go to the Cowork tab. Click + New task.

Title: Route refund requests to the refund team

Description:

You are a support ops assistant. Your job is to identify refund and return requests in Gorgias and route them to the authorized refund team.
 
Steps:
1. Fetch open tickets from the Gorgias API that are NOT already assigned to a team.
   GET https://your-store.gorgias.com/api/tickets?status=open&limit=50
   Auth: HTTP Basic — username: your-email@company.com, password: YOUR_API_KEY
 
2. For each unassigned ticket, read the subject and first message body.
 
3. Determine if the ticket is a refund or return request. Look for:
   - Direct refund language: refund, money back, reimburse, credit back, store credit
   - Return language: return, send back, exchange, swap, replace
   - Order issues implying refund: wrong item, damaged, defective, broken, never arrived
   - Cancellation: cancel order, don't want this, changed my mind
   Use your judgment — "this isn't what I ordered and I want my money" is a refund request even without the word "refund."
 
4. For tickets that ARE refund/return requests:
   a. Add the tag "refund-request" via the Gorgias API:
      PUT https://your-store.gorgias.com/api/tickets/{id}
      Body: {"tags": [EXISTING_TAGS + {"name": "refund-request"}], "assignee_team": {"name": "Refund Team"}}
   b. Do NOT remove any existing tags — merge the new tag with what's already there.
 
5. For tickets that are NOT refund requests, skip them entirely. Do not modify them.
 
6. Print a summary of how many tickets you checked and how many you routed.
 
Important:
- Only process tickets that have no assignee_team set.
- Never remove existing tags — only add.
- If a ticket already has the "refund-request" tag, skip it.

Replace your-store, your-email@company.com, and YOUR_API_KEY with your real values.

Step 4: Set the schedule

Frequency: Every 30 minutes (refund requests are time-sensitive — hourly may be too slow)

Cowork will execute the task on this cadence and show you the output each time.

Step 5: Run manually first

Before trusting the schedule, click Run now in Cowork to test it. Claude will:

1. Call the Gorgias tickets API
2. Filter to unassigned tickets
3. Read each ticket's subject and body
4. Determine if it's a refund/return request
5. Route matching tickets to the refund team with the tag
6. Print a run summary

A successful run looks like:

Fetched 38 open tickets. Found 15 without a team assignment.
 
Checked 15 tickets for refund intent:
 
  #14301 "I'd like a refund please" → REFUND — routed to Refund Team, tagged ✓
  #14305 "Where is my tracking number?" → not a refund — skipped
  #14308 "Item arrived damaged, want my money back" → REFUND — routed to Refund Team, tagged ✓
  #14312 "Can I exchange for a larger size?" → RETURN — routed to Refund Team, tagged ✓
  #14315 "Login not working" → not a refund — skipped
  ... (10 more)
 
Done. Routed 4 of 15 tickets to Refund Team.

Step 6: Refine the task description

After the first few runs, review routed tickets in Gorgias. If classifications are off, add clarifications to the task description:

"Tickets asking about return policies or shipping timelines should NOT be routed — only route tickets where the customer is actively requesting a refund or return. Tickets about warranty claims should be routed as refund requests."

Cowork's task description is your prompt — the more specific you are, the better Claude performs.

When to use this approach

• You want refund routing working today without writing or deploying any code
• Your ticket volume is under 200/day and 30-minute batching is acceptable
• You're testing refund routing logic before committing to Gorgias Rules
• You want AI-quality intent detection without setting up a separate API key

When to switch approaches

• You need routing to run 24/7 reliably → use the Agent Skill with cron or GitHub Actions
• You need instant routing (under 1 minute) → use Gorgias native Rules
• You want to extend the workflow with Slack alerts or spreadsheet logging → use n8n