Deputy uses data to take CX to the next level

Deputy, a cloud-based workforce management solution, has helped businesses to connect, communicate, and navigate the transforming world of work since 2008. It simplifies time-consuming tasks such as schedule tracking, wage management, and reporting. Deputy services clients in more than 100 countries from its offices in Sydney, San Francisco, and London.

The solution has been used by over 325,000 workplaces and 1.3 million shift workers, with more than 200 million shifts scheduled every year. “We want to especially help businesses that are starting up to schedule the right people in the right place, know their work hours, and easily export necessary information to a payroll provider,” explains Tim O’Mahony, global customer support director at Deputy. “During the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw how important it was for people to have these solutions in place, which allowed businesses to continue running smoothly. In particular, testing clinics could quickly and easily incorporate new doctors or nurses into their scheduling system for shift work.”

Initially, Deputy relied on multiple applications to manage customer queries and provide support. However, there was no exchange of information between the different tools and Deputy had problems with duplication of data and costs, as well as a lack of customer visibility. “We had no clarity on the actual support load, common issues, repeat contacts, and things like that,” recalls O’Mahony. “Some of our agents managed three applications, running Intercom for chat, Dialpad for phone, and then transcribing things into Zendesk. They were juggling three different screens at once, which was very unproductive.”

Bringing support together

In 2020, Deputy decided to centralize all customer support efforts to improve efficiency and visibility. Zendesk was the obvious choice: not only were the employees already familiar with the solution, but it would also be easy to implement and maintain.

The transition happened gradually—Deputy started by having two teams of agents use the ticketing system in Zendesk to receive and answer queries. Then, the company introduced chat, calls, and Help Center over time, ultimately bringing all of its agents to the Zendesk environment in February 2022. “Moving from one system to another was definitely a challenge,” says O’Mahony. “At some point, we had agents working in two different formats. Together with the Zendesk team, we figured out some of the nuances and experienced a smooth implementation that got things up and running quickly.”

Improved agent and customer experience

Consolidating its support services has encouraged Deputy’s customers to use the Help Center. “Previously, our Help Center was underutilized as it was easier for our users to go through chat. Now that everything is in one place and interlinked, customers find all the necessary information at their fingertips,” says O’Mahony. The number of Help Center views per day has increased from 1,500 to 3,500, which has led to a fall in the weekly number of tickets from 2,500 to 1,500. One-touch tickets—tickets that are solved through only one reply from an agent and that are, therefore, informative in nature and do not require hands-on agent assistance—have also been reduced from 92 to 75 percent.

With customers engaging in more self-service, agents are freed up to handle tickets that require a personal touch. “We’ve now got an all-in-one solution, a single place where we can see what’s actually going on and what our customers need,” says O’Mahony. “We’ve decreased our average full ticket resolution time to under six days and first response time to under three hours. Our customers also don’t have to keep providing context on their issues all over again with each query since we have total visibility of each conversation history. By providing more effective support, we’ve improved our customer satisfaction (CSAT) score by 5%.”

Aiming higher with data

Having a complete picture proved to be priceless not only for the agents but for the company as a whole, empowering the team to make data-driven decisions. “The big win for us was joining all the dots. It’s no longer a black box—we have this wealth of data that tells us what the customer is experiencing, what issues they are struggling with, and who is contacting us the most and why. We can categorize all our tickets and report that information back to the product team,” says O’Mahony. “The only way for us to make the right decisions is if we fully utilize the data. This has helped us scale our business and enrich Deputy to bring customer experience to the next level.”

Moving forward, Deputy will continue working on building long-term efficiency and establishing a true omnichannel presence with Zendesk. A big part of this mission includes rolling out Gather, a forum to bring customers together and empower them to collaborate and exchange insights. Armed with a cohesive solution and rich data, Deputy is on the right track. “There has been a radical shift within the company with regards to how we view support,” O’Mahony concludes. “No software is perfect, and Zendesk enables us to see where we need to improve if we want to offer the best to our customers.”