Zipcar drives 95% CSAT with Zendesk messaging

Founded in 2000, Zipcar is the world’s leading car-sharing network. It serves a million members and operates a fleet of thousands of vehicles that are conveniently located and ready to reserve by the hour or day through its mobile app. Driven by a mission to enable simple and responsible urban living, Zipcar alleviates the costs and hassles of personal car ownership for urbanites, universities and businesses while also making a social and environmental impact.

Making seconds count

Zipcar members count on help the second they need support. The company provides 24/7/365 assistance for all members and those who are actively driving a Zipcar, known internally as the ‘in-trip experience.’ Figuring out how to optimize staff to meet its members’ unpredictable contact patterns is a constant balancing act. Too many agents means resources are wasted, while too few may lead to delays for members.

Danny Koss, Senior Manager of Member Services who works within Zipcar’s product and user experience department, elaborates, “If an issue arises with a vehicle or with a reservation, members expect to chat with us and address the issue within seconds, if not less, and we aim to deliver the best member experience possible.”

One unique challenge Zipcar handles is ‘complexity compliance.’ If a member has a problem with a vehicle, like low tire pressure, the agent must not only help that member but also take follow-up actions to ensure that the vehicle is ready to drive for the next member.

Multitasking with messaging

Zipcar’s hundreds of CX agents handle thousands of tickets each month via web forms, email, and messaging through the Zendesk platform. Direct messages that come in through Facebook, X, and Instagram roll into the messaging channel. In 2022, Zipcar added the messaging channel to its mobile app.

According to Koss, the advantage of messaging is that agents can handle multiple messages simultaneously, a clear benefit for a company that handles more than a million contacts each year. It’s also a lower-pressure channel. “Agents can take a moment and refer to knowledge-based resources while chatting with members,” he says. “That’s much harder to do when dealing with live calls.”

Messaging is one of Zipcar’s highest-performing channels and a preferred channel for agents. The average first-response time is between 30 and 40 seconds, well under the 60-second target and on par with the voice channel. Equally important is that Zipcar members love it: since day one, the company has delivered an impressive 95 percent CSAT score for the channel and a more than 30 percent survey response rate from members willing to share their feedback.

“Zipcar’s member satisfaction scores are amazing compared with industry standards,” Koss adds. In the future, Zipcar plans to expand its messaging support to cover “off-trip” experiences, such as signing up for Zipcar and updating membership plans.

Integrating Zendesk across the business

Zipcar turned to Zendesk in 2016. Prior to that, the company was managing support interactions using a fully bespoke, proprietary ticketing tool. While the system had its benefits, any changes required getting help from developers.

So for Koss, one of the biggest advantages of Zendesk is that the support team can set up new workflows, manage omni-channel routing, and more, all on its own. Plus, features like triggers, automations, and business rules allow Zipcar to be flexible and adapt quickly to evolving business and operational needs.

“Ever since we onboarded Zendesk and integrated it with our systems, we’ve streamlined operations,” reports Koss. “Our support team can handle most things independently without needing resources from other departments, giving us more control and the business more flexibility. That gives us more time to focus on the most critical aspect of our support operations: delivering high quality and complete care.”

Today, Zendesk is deeply integrated across Zipcar’s operations. In addition to supporting the member services team, the platform is also used by several other teams, including:

– Recovery and Roadside Assistance
– Internal Support
– Community Management
– Risk and Fraud Operations
– Security

The entire Zipcar organization also has light agent, or read-only access, to Zendesk, enabling employees to view tickets or interactions when necessary.

Looking ahead: improving service and QA with AI

As a membership-based service, Zipcar is deeply committed to investing in its CX operations to meet the high expectations of its members. So moving forward, the company is exploring ways to use Zendesk AI to enhance service, such as enabling self-service options, empowering agents with copilot tools, and enhancing its quality assurance operations.

Koss is interested in adopting AI to automatically analyze, aggregate, and surface insights buried in millions of tickets.

“We actively listen to Zipcar members’ feedback and to help inform where to invest in our support experience,” concludes Koss. “Feeding those insights back into our operations, being able to translate them into a new member experience to drive performance is a strategic focus.”