Vagaro redefines CX excellence and efficiency with Zendesk AI

Vagaro is an appointment scheduling software for businesses in the beauty, wellness, and fitness industries. Shabib Sheikh, Vagaro’s Vice President of Customer Support and Success, and his team have always prided themselves on delivering great customer service. Their clients tend to be solopreneurs who don’t have a lot of technical expertise, so it’s Sheikh’s team’s job to act as consultants for their business. But with over 30,000 client interactions per month, and a team of 80 support agents, Vagaro needed a solution that would automate part of the customer experience and empower their customers to self-service.

Streamlining service with Zendesk AI

Vagaro’s clients sometimes had similar questions about some of the most common issues, like adding a new employee to their account, resolving billing questions, and where to find key reports & documents. But Sheikh knew the best use of his talented team’s time was addressing major or complex problems, while allowing AI to take care of the FAQs. To address this, Vagaro introduced Zendesk AI.

Although new to Zendesk, Sheikh quickly realized its potential. With features like intelligent triage, macro suggestions, and sentiment analysis, Zendesk AI, powered by Amazon Bedrock, enabled the team to handle queries more efficiently. Agents found the AI’s generative capabilities and summarization features particularly helpful. This not only improved their workflow but also significantly reduced case resolution times — from 3 hours to just 23 minutes, an 87 percent decrease in resolution time.

What’s more, Vagaro previously had a 4 percent resolution rate using a simple chatbot solution, so they were aiming for 8 to 10 percent resolution rate with Zendesk. In just three months, their AI agent is able to resolve a whopping 44 percent of inquiries — and they’ve just started adding workflows.

Setting a new CX standard

The impact of Zendesk AI on Vagaro’s customer service was profound. Not only did the integration lead to a massive decrease in resolution time and an increase in agent productivity, it has also led to a higher customer satisfaction score. From an already outstanding 87 percent, their CSAT has risen 5 percentage points to 92 percent following the implementation of an AI agent.

Customers are happy they can get rapid answers to their questions, agents are freed up to work on more complex issues, and Vagaro’s operational efficiency has skyrocketed. “It allows us to do more with less,” says Sheikh, “Imagine being available to your customer in any language, at any time, at any day, for any questions that you can capture.”

The AI-driven insights have also helped Vagaro to continuously refine their support strategy. By monitoring ticket taxonomy and customer feedback, the team can proactively address recurring issues, enhancing the overall customer experience. This data-driven approach has completely revolutionized the way Vagaro provides customer service.

Looking ahead, Vagaro plans to deepen its integration of Zendesk AI. Future enhancements include linking Zendesk AI to their product so the AI agent has context about who is asking a question, how long they’ve been a customer, and more. This will result in customers receiving even more personalized and efficient support. Sheikh envisions a future where AI handles even the most granular queries, such as specific billing questions, to further improve customer satisfaction.