n8n Workflow: Reply Shopify Support Emails with Gmail, Claude & Slack

Turn Shopify email replies into safe, routed responses—automatically

This n8n workflow monitors your Gmail inbox for Shopify support emails, uses Claude to draft accurate replies from the related Shopify order, and then routes the outcome to Gmail (send or draft) or Slack for team escalation—while ensuring the model never takes actions like refunds or cancellations.

What this workflow does

• Polls Gmail every minute for unread messages in your Inbox.
• Finds the matching Shopify order by normalizing the sender, subject, and message text (quoted replies stripped). It searches for an order reference like #1042, and if none exists it falls back to the sender’s email address.
• Pulls order facts from Shopify by requesting a fresh 24-hour token and making a single GraphQL Admin API call for order status, fulfillment, carrier, tracking, delivery estimate, line items, and the email on the order.
• Drafts a reply with Claude (Anthropic Messages API). Claude generates JSON following a fixed schema: intent, language, confidence, whether a person is needed, a one-line summary, and the reply text.
• Applies your rules in a Code node: the intent must be on your send list, confidence must clear your threshold, and for order questions the email on the order must match the sender. Anything unclear or threaded responses go to a person.
• Routes the outcome:
  • Send: replies in the thread with your disclosure line.
  • Draft: saves a Gmail threaded reply for review.
  • Escalate: posts to Slack with the summary, reason, and thread link.
  • Spam: unclear cases are sent to spam.

Use cases

• Reduce turnaround time for Shopify order updates (tracking, delivery estimates, fulfillment status).
• Automatically draft customer-facing responses in Gmail while keeping review control.
• Escalate ambiguous or high-risk support emails to Slack for human handling.

Technical details

• Gmail (polling unread inbox emails; send or draft in threads)
• Shopify Admin API (GraphQL order status, fulfillment, carrier, tracking, delivery estimate, line items, order email)
• Claude via Anthropic Messages API (structured JSON reply generation)
• Slack (team escalation with reason and thread link)
• n8n nodes: set, code, no op, gmail, slack, switch