Telecom Pioneer Dials Up Support Agent Productivity With Zendesk Customer Support Software

Cubic Telecom seeks to simplify global mobile communications by providing a smart, flexible platform built on an innovative borderless network. The company is the creator of MAXROAM, a comprehensive global mobile communications service that lets travelers use mobile phones and the internet without running up exorbitant mobile bills. Customers use the Cubic Telecom platform to develop new business applications that increase customer acquisition, reduce turnover rates and optimize revenue.

Innovative telecom provider outgrows email-based support process

When Pat Phelan launched Cubic Telecom in 2007, he didn’t just hope to stay in business—he wanted to change the way people communicate. The company’s MAXROAM service was designed to create the first truly global telephone network. The new technology made an instant splash: Cubic Telecom won an inaugural TechCrunch Award as one of the world’s 40 most promising startups in 2007.

Since then, Cubic Telecom has formed partnerships with companies in the travel, technology, hospitality, transportation and nonprofit industries—and shows no sign of slowing down. But with the excitement of growth has come the difficult task of handling an increased volume of customer support requests.

“Managing customer support through one email account can work for a startup,” explains Pat Phelan, co-founder and director of products & innovation, Cubic Telecom. “But when our case load reached 150 to 200 emails per day, we knew we had to find a real trouble ticket system.”

Easy-to-use online support solution helps company prepare for sustained growth

Shortly after beginning its vendor research, Cubic Telecom discovered Zendesk. Within the first three weeks of its free 30-day trial with Zendesk, the company was convinced.

“Considering our current business and our future plans for growth, Zendesk fit our needs exactly,” recalls Chris Kennedy, Platform Manager, Cubic Telecom. “One of the first things our employees noticed is that there’s no learning curve because the solution is so intuitive.”

By signing on with Zendesk in September 2007, Cubic Telecom became one of Zendesk’s first customers.

“Zendesk and Cubic Telecom were founded around the same time,” Kennedy says. “We figured that made us a good match. We looked forward to learning from each other as our companies grew, and that has certainly been the case.”

Elegant ticket management and community forums slash hours from daily customer support workload

Even as Cubic Telecom’s customer base continues to grow, Zendesk is helping the company streamline its support ticket workload. Using Zendesk’s macros enable the support team to create and apply automated responses to commonly asked customer support questions.

“I was spending 10 hours per day answering support emails, doing lots of copying and pasting to provide the same answers again and again,” Kennedy recalls. “Thanks to these macros, that time immediately dropped to four hours per day. I can reply to commonly received questions with one click.”

Another way to save time managing tickets is with automated notifications using Zendesk’s triggers. When a Cubic Telecom customer emails a support request, he or she immediately receives a notification that the issue is being assigned to an agent. The agent will then escalate the issue to an engineer and provide a status update to the customer. This entire process happens through Zendesk, typically within 24 hours.

As agents work on cases, they use Zendesk to look back over customers’ previous support requests for background information that will help them solve cases more quickly. In addition, customers can do their own research by searching for troubleshooting tips in Zendesk’s community forums.

“The Zendesk forums are a huge help because they allow many customers to find their own resolutions,” says Kennedy. “We keep those forums updated, both to save time for our agents and increase satisfaction among our customers.”

Asked to single out the biggest benefits of using Zendesk, Kennedy lists two: ease of use and reliability.

“Cubic Telecom has grown its business by 20 to 50 percent per year for the past 3 years,” says Phelan. “Zendesk allows us to keep support costs down, measure and maximize effectiveness, and manage our customer relationships. If we didn’t have Zendesk, we’d be overwhelmed by emails and unable to keep up and focus on new growth.”