Customer Service VA, Fashion Dropshipping Store (German Market, Part Time to Full Time)

I run a fashion dropshipping store selling to customers in Austria. The store is actively growing.

I need one person to own the customer inbox.

This starts at 2 hours a day. It is not designed to stay there. As the store grows, so does the volume, the hours, and the responsibility, and what the role is worth grows with it. The long-term direction is for this person to run customer experience end to end: the inbox, the response playbook, returns and refunds, and eventually training the next hire.

I am hiring for the full-time role. I am hiring for it early, while it is still part-time.

1. ABOUT THE BUSINESS

I sell men's and women's clothing and accessories to customers in Austria. The store runs on Shopify, ships within Austria, and gets its customers through Facebook and Instagram ads.

It is a small operation. I handle the ads, the creative, the product side, and right now, the customer email s. The email s are the part that has to change. My customers are in Central Europe, I am not, and their morning is the middle of my night. That is the gap I am hiring to close.

Volume is currently 5 to 10 customer email s per day. That is light, and I am telling you that up front rather than overselling the role. What matters to me is not how many email s get answered, it is that every single one gets answered the same day, correctly, without me having to check.

One thing to know before you apply: my customers write in German. You do not need to speak German. Every reply you send will come from a library of pre-written, pre-approved German responses that I give you, and I will show you exactly how to use it. You will use a translation tool to read what comes in. What I need from you is the discipline to use the approved wording exactly as written, and the judgment to flag anything that does not fit the library instead of improvising a reply.

If you like to freestyle and figure things out as you go, this is not the right role. If you are precise and you follow a system, it is.

2. WHAT YOU WILL DO
2.1 Primary duties (this is the job)
Work the customer inbox once per day and clear it completely before you log off
Answer product, sizing, shipping, and order questions using the approved German response library and SOPs
Handle return and refund requests end to end: check eligibility, process the refund in Shopify, confirm to the customer
Process order corrections: wrong size, wrong colour, wrong address, cancellations
Escalate anything that does not fit the library, instead of guessing
Own the inbox during your shift. I stay out of it while you are working. Anything I handle outside your shift gets labelled so you can see it is already done. We never reply to the same customer twice.
2.2 Secondary duties
Check tracking daily and email customers about delays before they email me about them
Keep a short daily log of what came in, what you sent, and what you escalated
2.3 Not your job

Ads, creative, product research, or bookkeeping. I handle those.

3. HOW YOU WILL WORK WITH AI

You will use an AI tool (Claude or ChatGPT) as part of your daily process. It is not optional and it is not a shortcut, it is how the job is done. You will be provided with an SOP and you must give it to AI to read it before starting. You also need to read this SOP carefully, analyze, and understand it.

3.1 The daily workflow
Use AI to read and translate the incoming German email , and to summarise what the customer actually wants
Use AI to identify which approved template applies
Where no template fits, use AI to draft a reply in English, which you then send to me for approval
Before any German email goes out, you compare the German text against its English meaning line by line, and confirm they say the same thing. Not similar. The same. If the German says something the English does not, or the English says something the German does not, you stop and escalate.
3.2 Two rules that are absolute

Rule 1. Final German comes from the approved template library, not from AI. AI reads the German email and drafts in English. You verify every fact against Shopify, then send the matching approved German template. If no template fits, you send me the English draft and I approve the German before it goes out. AI never generates German that reaches a customer without passing through me first.

Rule 2. AI never states a fact about an order. Tracking status, refund amounts, delivery dates, stock levels, these come from Shopify, checked by you, typed by you. AI does not know our orders and will confidently invent details if you let it. Every factual claim in an email must be one you personally verified in Shopify.

3.3 Customer privacy

Before pasting any customer email into an AI tool, replace the customer's name, address, and order number with placeholders. Our customers are in the EU and their personal data is legally protected. The AI does not need those details to help you understand the email . This is not negotiable, and it applies every single time.

3.4 Austrian German, not standard German

All final customer email s go out in Austrian German, not standard German. There are real differences in wording and register, and Austrian customers notice immediately when a brand does not sound local. This is exactly why the approved template library exists and why you must not improvise German. The templates are already written in the correct Austrian wording.

3.5 You will not be figuring this out alone

I provide written SOPs and guides covering the email workflow, the response library, returns and refunds, and customer service standards, all written specifically for this store and for fashion dropshipping. I will also be guiding you in your first week. We will work together and my job is to help you so you can eventually be independent. This is extremely important for long-term growth. Your job is to follow the SOPs precisely and tell me when something is not covered, so I can add it.

4. REQUIREMENTS

You must have all of these:

Customer service experience for a dropshipping store. Not general VA work, not call centre work. Specifically a dropshipping ecommerce store where you dealt with supplier delays and long shipping times. Fashion or apparel strongly preferred.

Shopify admin experience. You must be able to find an order, edit it, issue a full or partial refund, and read a fulfillment status without being walked through it.

Excellent written English. You and I communicate only in writing. Your application is the test.

The discipline to follow a script exactly. This role has a rulebook. Deviating from it in German, a language you cannot check, creates legal and trust problems for the business.

Practical experience using AI tools for work. Claude, ChatGPT, or similar, used daily as part of a real job, not just tried once. You must understand that AI output needs to be verified, not trusted. If you think AI is a shortcut that removes the need to check things, this role will go badly.

Reliability at a fixed daily time. Same window, every weekday. If you cannot commit to the same two hours each day, this will not work.

Stable internet and a working computer. No shared or internet café setups.

Willingness to use time tracking software (Hubstaff). This includes periodic screenshots during your working hours. If you are not comfortable with that, do not apply.

5. NICE TO HAVE

Not required. Mention them if you have them:

Experience with returns and refunds under EU or German consumer law
Experience with a helpdesk tool (Gorgias, Zendesk, Freshdesk, Reamaze)
Experience serving European customers, especially German speaking ones
Any German at all, even basic
Experience writing or maintaining a canned response or macro library
Klaviyo, or email marketing tools generally
6. TOOLS YOU WILL USE

Neo (neo.space), our business email platform. This is where all customer email s come in and go out. The approved German response library lives in Neo's Templates, so you select the correct approved reply directly inside the mail client.

Shopify Admin, for orders, refunds, fulfillment.

Google Sheets, for the daily log.

Hubstaff, for time tracking.

Claude or ChatGPT (free plan is fine), for reading incoming German, classifying requests, and drafting English. You use your own free account. Because free AI plans may use what you paste in to improve their systems, stripping customer details before pasting is mandatory, not optional. See the privacy rule above.

A translation tool (DeepL or similar), as a second opinion when checking German against English. Never to write final replies.

I will provide access to everything. No paid tools out of your pocket.

7. SCHEDULE
7.1 Your shift

11:00 AM to 1:00 PM Vienna time, Monday to Friday.

That is currently 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM Manila time. Note that this is written in Vienna time on purpose. The Philippines does not observe daylight saving and Europe does, so the Manila clock shifts by one hour twice a year. The Vienna window stays fixed unless your hours are lengthened in the future.

This timing is deliberate. Most of my customer email s arrive in the Austrian morning. Your shift starts after that wave has landed, so you clear the whole queue in one pass and customers get a same-day reply.

7.2 These hours are not final

They are set around current email volume, and that volume is growing. As it does, the shift may lengthen, move earlier or later, or split into two passes a day to cover both the Austrian morning and late afternoon. Any change is discussed with you in advance and paid accordingly. I am not going to quietly expand your hours without speaking with you first.

More hours is also how this role grows. Increased volume means more work, more responsibility, and more opportunity within the business. If you need a permanently fixed, unchangeable schedule, this is not the right role.

7.3 How we will work together

I am in the US Eastern timezone, which is 12 hours behind you. We will not be online at the same ti