Higher Logic elevates CX with Zendesk analytics and QA tools

Founded in 2007, Higher Logic is an industry-leading, human-focused engagement platform. The company has a deep history of innovating and delivering community, marketing, and other software solutions for associations, non-profits, B2C, and B2B businesses.

Today, Higher Logic’s integrated solutions empower more than 3,000 organizations across the globe, generating over 7 billion interactions annually.

Leveling up to top-tier CX

With a diverse and growing customer base, Higher Logic’s customer support organization plays a pivotal role in ensuring success across a wide range of technical environments and use cases. Supporting a product ecosystem that spans multiple platforms and integrations, the CX team is challenged with operating efficiently and delivering quality customer experiences.

But in 2019, the team determined that it needed a new CX platform to meet its high standards. “Desk.com was largely underperforming,” says Rick Black, Director of Customer Support at Higher Logic. “We saw it as an opportunity to upgrade to a top tier platform like Zendesk and level up our support game during the migration.”

Overall, the team was excited about moving to Zendesk, confident that the new CX solution could scale to meet the needs of their growing business, provide better metrics and reporting, and help them innovate with new features going forward.

A fresh start on a robust resolution platform

Today, there are around 50 Zendesk power users at Higher Logic providing customer support globally. A team of two employees comprise a separate documentation team that manages ongoing support and upkeep of the company’s external Zendesk help center.

The primary role of the CX agents is to offer post-sale and post-implementation support, as well as delivering ongoing consultative guidance for customers. More than 95 percent of customers contact CX through either email or web forms. Additional channels include Zendesk Voice and messaging.

The Higher Logic CX team offers a two-tiered support model that is directly customer facing–along with a third tier of technical support that sits within engineering and is not customer facing.

The Zendesk solution at Higher Logic includes critical integrations with Jira and Salesforce. Jira tickets are created directly from Zendesk and copy over ticket fields based on macros the team created. The team uses a Salesforce plugin to display relevant Salesforce data and synchronize customer contact information into Zendesk.

Moving the needle with better data

A key goal of Higher Logic’s switch to Zendesk was gaining a better way to measure and analyze core support metrics to inform strategic decisions and ensure a strong return on investment (ROI) for new support initiatives.

With Zendesk analytics, Higher Logic began tracking a variety of team KPIs—particularly median time to resolution, a metric the team sought to improve as part of a broader operational optimization strategy.

“We can now easily monitor our median resolution time,” shares Black. “As we tried various process changes and introduced new tools, Zendesk reporting and dashboards helped us see what actually moved the needle.”

Zendesk analytics has also enabled Higher Logic to make data-driven investment decisions. “It’s allowed us to accelerate efforts that were working and reassess those that weren’t,” says Black. “That kind of visibility has helped us improve faster.”

The results speak for themselves. In the past year, Higher Logic team has seen its median full resolve time drop by 39 percent, while the average media first reply time has decreased by 25 percent.

Focusing on CX improvements through QA

As Higher Logic focused on enhancing its overall customer service delivery, the team honed in on improving its quality assurance (QA) processes. QA tools help CX management better evaluate customer interactions, identify areas for improvement, and provide effective agent coaching to enhance the overall customer experience.

“At the time, we weren’t doing any formal QA unless an issue escalated through an upset customer,” offers Black. “Our QA process was ad hoc and reactive—it only happened when there were problems.”

The absence of a QA framework made it difficult to assess performance trends, train new hires effectively, and reinforce consistent customer service practices. Prior to Zendesk, feedback to agents was sporadic and often focused only on negative interactions.

With Zendesk QA now fully integrated into their workflow, Higher Logic’s support leaders can conduct regular and balanced reviews of customer interactions, giving agents meaningful feedback on both strong and weak performances.

“We’re now catching people doing things ‘right,’ which feels good and helps reinforce best practices,” says Black.

Rising quality and compliance scores

“Zendesk QA has also helped us identify and promote best practices across our entire team,” shares Black. “Now, when we see tickets that are especially well handled, we work with those individuals to help develop training materials and potentially lead sessions for the entire team.”

Additionally, the AI-powered AutoQA and Spotlights features have significantly improved review efficiency. These features save time for managers by helping them spend less time scoring, and more time discussing feedback with team members.

As a result, Higher Logic’s overall quality and compliance scores have improved and agents have a better sense of what their managers are looking for in terms of customer service behaviors that lead to good customer interactions.

Strategic CX raises the quality bar

By implementing the Zendesk platform, Higher Logic has elevated its customer support from more of a reactive support model to a strategic, insights-driven function. The team is now empowered with tools that help them make smarter decisions, coach with purpose, and continuously raise the bar on service quality.

“With Zendesk, we’ve gained clarity, speed, and control,” concludes Black. “We’re not just solving tickets—we’re building a better customer experience.”