Deputy builds an AI-first support experience with Zendesk

Deputy is the global people platform built specifically for shift work. Despite its AI-first culture, the company was struggling with fragmented customer support. Multiple systems—including Intercom and five additional tools—made it difficult to measure performance, track support activity, or improve operations.

“Before Zendesk, I couldn’t tell you with confidence the number of tickets we were receiving,” says Tim O’Mahoney, Senior Director, Global Customer Support at Deputy. “I couldn’t tell you the response times. I couldn’t tell you what was valuable. And I couldn’t tell you basic support metrics.”

In 2022, Deputy consolidated its support operations onto Zendesk, creating a single source of truth.

“Zendesk transformed our support operation,” Mahoney says. “We cut tickets from a high of 14,000 per month to just 2,300—our lowest ever. Today, AI agents deflect nearly 60 percent of inquiries before they ever reach an agent.”

Now, Zendesk AI agents resolve more than 65 percent of customer conversations across messaging, giving customers immediate answers while allowing support specialists to focus on more complex work.

Building the foundation before AI agents

Deputy didn’t rush into automation. Instead, the company spent months strengthening its Help Center and investing in customer education to improve the knowledge AI would ultimately rely on.

“You can throw an AI agent at pretty much anything, but you’ll only get responses that are as good as what you put in,” O’Mahoney says. “We spent time making sure the organization understood the value of our Help Center and customer education before we automated anything.”

That groundwork paid off, and Deputy’s culture of experimentation made the rollout possible. Once the company rolled out Zendesk AI agents—first in messaging and later email—the team took an iterative approach to deployment.

“We knew we’d see issues at the beginning,” O’Mahoney says. “For the first few weeks, we reviewed every single conversation, identified what needed to change, and made adjustments quickly. It’s a bit like teaching someone to ride a bike—you let go a little, make adjustments, then let go again.”

As AI took on common customer questions, ticket volumes steadily declined while customers received quicker resolutions around the clock. Instead of replacing agents, AI eliminated repetitive work. But that doesn’t mean that deploying AI is an instant fix.

“The biggest thing is having a curious mindset,” O’Mahoney says. “Walk, crawl, run. Don’t expect AI to be amazing on day one. Listen to your agents. Find the tickets they wish would disappear every day—and start there.”

Delivering faster support without losing the human touch

For a company serving hospitality, retail, healthcare, and other businesses with frontline workforces, speed matters.

“Customers are running a business,” O’Mahoney says. “They don’t have time to sit and wait for every back-and-forth interaction.”

Today, AI agents serve as the first point of contact across every digital support channel, but customers always have a path to a human when needed. Routine questions are resolved quickly, while more complex issues move seamlessly to a specialist.

“There are no easy tickets anymore,” O’Mahoney says. “We’re not wasting time with simple queries that anyone can answer.”

Smarter support from the first interaction

Deputy now uses Zendesk AI to personalize support before a human agent ever joins the conversation.

For payroll questions, AI identifies a customer’s region, product configuration, and integrations before guiding them down the appropriate support path.

“A human agent would have to look up all of that information before they could even start helping,” O’Mahoney says. “Now, the AI does that cognitive work upfront and gets customers to the right answer much faster.”

As AI has matured, so have customer expectations. What began as simple chatbot interactions has evolved into detailed conversations about managing their workforce.

“We now get paragraphs of questions,” O’Mahoney says. “Our customers are asking complex questions and the AI is formulating answers that would normally take months to train an agent to provide.”

Some customers have become so comfortable with the experience that they even thank the AI after receiving help.

“It still surprises me,” O’Mahoney says. “The number of customers who thank the AI agent and have that kind of relationship with it is still fun.”

Creating better experiences for customers and agents

Deputy’s agent CSAT remains above 86 percent. And with Zendesk AI taking care of many repetitive tasks, Deputy’s human agents have found unexpected benefits.

“Our agents are being exposed to more technical issues, so their ability to expand their knowledge has increased,” O’Mahoney says. “That also creates more opportunities for career growth.”

For Deputy, AI isn’t replacing people—it’s helping them do their best work. By handling routine tasks, AI delivers quick answers while freeing specialists to focus on the complex issues where human expertise matters most.

“That approach has paid off,” O’Mahoney says. “It’s helped us improve the customer experience while allowing our people to focus on the work that really matters.”