How Diggs Cut Return Rate by 79% and Unlocked Deeper Reporting Visibility
Diggs, a premium pet crate and gear brand, faced high return rates, manual reporting, and a clunky exchange process that frustrated customers and drained their CX team. With limited visibility into returns and hours spent pulling reports, they needed a scalable solution without adding headcount.
Route's AI-powered platform transformed Diggs' operations. With AI image verification, personalized variant and product exchanges, and real-time SKU-level reporting, Diggs cut their return rate from 10% to 2.1% in just two months, saving time, improving customer experience, and protecting margin.
About Diggs
Dogs deserve better. So do their humans.
That's what Diggs is all about. They sell premium, safety-first pet products that look as good as they function.
They started with a problem no one was fixing. Back in 2016, when their founder adopted a dog, he bought one of those bulky black wire crates. He was quickly frustrated with the assembly process, the lack of safety, and how ugly it looked in his home.
Traditional wire crates are unsafe for the dog, the pet guardian, and children in the home. So he built something better and designed it with safety in mind for the dog and the human. The initial product, the "Revol" crate (short for "revolutionary"), gained recognition in publications such as Forbes, Apartment Therapy, and Rover.
Today, Diggs sells premium dog gear across the US and has a growing presence in Canada.
They are a team of pet parents and animal lovers who believe that pets and people deserve the very best, not just in quality, but in safety and comfort.
Gabi Pizano, Director of CX, explained that building great products for dogs means solving for two customers—the pup and the person. So every crate, bowl, and gear is thoughtfully designed with both in mind.
As the brand grew, their team needed systems that would scale up with them. Gabi spoke to us about how Diggs' return rate was high, and the exchange experience for customers wasn't smooth enough.
That's when Diggs discovered Route. The AI-driven returns portal helped the team lower their return rate from 10% to 2.1% without needing to grow their lean CX team.
"What makes us stand out is not only the premium and the luxury component, but the safety for the dog and the human. Our brand is focused on making sure that both are taken care of from a visual perspective (aesthetics in the home) and the safety perspective for the dog."
Challenge: Messy Exchange Process and Reporting
"The exchange experience was not there. It wasn't driving any sort of return profit for us. The labels had to be printed; there was no code for them to easily access the labels. So it wasn't a good experience for the business or the customer."
Before moving to Route, Diggs was stuck in a cycle of avoidable returns, poor customer exchanges, and a time-consuming reporting process. Returns were piling up. The team had almost no visibility into what was coming until the product arrived at the warehouse. At the same time, customers were rarely choosing to exchange. Diggs saw that most shoppers take the refund route, even when they may have wanted something else.
Under their previous setup, the team spent too many hours every week pulling raw data from Loop into Google spreadsheets and piecing together reports manually. Instead of using that time to fix problems or spot patterns, they were busy just trying to access the data.
The Diggs team was up against:
- High return rates, with no way to predict what was coming back
- Return labels had to be printed manually
- Reports took hours to compile and offered little clarity
- A poor exchange flow that wasn't bringing customers back
- Return items arrived in bad shape, costing money and space
"The reporting was very manual and consumed a lot of time, like hours every single week. It was really hard to look at numbers and be able to see what the problems were and then drive action on that."
Solution: AI-Powered Returns Portal
"The implementation was honestly a very low-lift effort for me and my team, which was super nice. I was impressed with their support in getting us through implementation. When we've implemented return programs in the past, we've spent a lot of time and energy, and this time (with Route) it was kind of like flipping a light switch."
For Diggs, Route checked boxes that few vendors ever do, delivering a mix of AI-powered intelligence, smart automation, on-time support, and accurate data, all rolled out with minimal disruption.
Beyond onboarding, Gabi said that what stood out was Route's deep partnership mentality. Dedicated contacts, real-time responses, and tools that worked out of the box made the transition feel effortless.
"Every single time I have a small question or issue, they respond right away. I love having Jim in the middle now as our support system. He's super responsive."
Once live, it was the small touches—automated exceptions, intuitive dashboards, and low-friction return flows—that helped the Diggs team scale up easily.
What stood out:
- Fast onboarding with minimal training
- AI photo verification that worked from day one
- Always-on, reliable support services
- Exception workflows that don't break automation
- Real-time dashboard for SKU-level return tracking
"I’d rate Route a 100 out of 10. What you're sold on and what you get are sometimes two very different things. And with Route, I think what we were sold on and what we got was way better, which you don't get to say all the time."
Impact: 79% Decrease in Return Rate
Route's impact was both immediate and measurable. From impressive return rate drops to better reporting and fewer manual processes, Diggs saw value within weeks of going live with Route.
They saw the biggest results from Route's AI photo verification feature. It instantly alerts the team if a product is used or not, with descriptions that are so accurate that they have become Diggs' agents’ first point of reference.
Return rates, once hovering between 8-10%, plummeted to 2.4-2.1% in just two months, outperforming even Route's projections.
"They were promising some pretty big things... and the fact that we've been able to beat that right off the bat—we're just super happy, honestly."
Route's AI-powered image verification, efficient workflows, and ability to personalize exchanges allowed Diggs to avoid unnecessary returns, saving money and protecting refurbished inventory.
Additionally, the leadership team finally had clarity on returns avoided and the real impact of SKU-level behavior, something they had never actually tracked before.
How Route reshaped Diggs' return process:
- Return rate slashed by 79%+
- Reduced poor condition returns by 90%+
- Digestible analytics and more visibility
For a brand like Diggs, every refund avoided is margin protected. With Route's return intelligence now baked into the process, Diggs is projecting over $100,000 in refund savings this year, and this comes without adding any operational overhead.
Tired of post-return surprises and rising refund costs?
Route's fully automated, intelligent returns portal cuts refunds and eliminates unsellable returns. Talk to us today to see how it works.
We had predicted, based on the assumptions from the Route team, that we would eventually be around a 5% return rate because of the AI-driven photo verification feature. But since implementing Route, in these last two months, it's been consistently below 3%."
