Based in Durham, North Carolina, American Support serves the cable industry with billing services, tech support and customer service call center operations and management.

The company has nearly 250 employees and full-time contractors serving 400 cable franchises in 29 states. Since American Support’s business is based on providing superior support services, the company’s ability to respond quickly to support requests is critical.

Looking for a straightforward solution

At the end of 2008, American Support was using two different solutions for customer support— an in-house application and a CRM platform. Neither offered the functionality they really desired.

“We wanted a straight-forward help desk that had core ticketing functionality; one that was user friendly for our clients, said Matt Zemon, American Support’s president. “It was important that our clients could create support requests through email as well as easily view all of them.”

Keeping it simple and fast

“None of our other options were as powerful as Zendesk,” Zemon said. “The simplicity of the solution meant a small learning curve for both employees and clients. Zendesk is fast and easy and that’s what we love about it.”

The company setup its Zendesk and applied a custom design to it within minutes, along with a 30-minute introduction for employees.

Zemon remembers, “Setup was incredibly painless. We have employees across the US in small offices. Using a hosted help desk solution like Zendesk makes sense for us because anyone can work on it from anywhere.”

As for the company’s interaction with the Zendesk support team? Zemon admits, “Haven’t really needed to contact them. Everything works as it’s supposed to when it’s supposed to. Zendesk is extremely user friendly and easy to use.”

Providing visibility into all client requests

By using Zendesk, American Support was able to shift client email requests into their help desk. “Because our support is handled through our Zendesk ticketing system, we have eliminated requests that get lost in someone’s email inbox,” Zemon explained.

“The transparency that Zendesk affords is fantastic,” he added. “A lot of our clients have distributed leadership structures across the country. Zendesk is great for them because their leadership teams have access to all open tickets at any point in time. As president, I also have greater visibility into all of our client requests as opposed to just hearing about issues during meetings or escalations.”