Connecting People & Organizations

Based in San Francisco, CA, Scribd is the largest social publishing and reading site in the world. The company makes it easy for anyone to share and discover informative, entertaining, and original written content on the web and mobile devices. Scribd’s vision is to liberate the written word, and to connect people and organizations with the information and ideas that matter most to them.

Growing Too Fast for Email-Based Support

From teachers and students to aspiring authors and major publishing companies, everyone seems to be using Scribd. As a result, Scribd’s community support department has its hands full.

“At first, we used Gmail filters and canned responses to streamline our work,” recalls Jason Bentley, director of community support, Scribd. “But threads started getting lost, and we had no way to track tickets or associate them with each other. Our support department was going to fall apart if we didn’t put a trouble ticket system in place.”

As Scribd began its search for a support solution, Bentley had clear requirements. At his previous company, they used a traditional on-premise application for support.

“Every change to the application required three database administrators and a conference call to India,” explains Bentley. “I made it very clear that this time, I want to go with a lightweight, web-based customer service software.”

Ensuring a Seamless User Experience

Bentley began asking peers for recommendations on cloud-based support solutions. Across the board, they told him to check out Zendesk.

“My friend at Twitter told me, ‘We just rolled out Zendesk and it’s rocking our world,’” says Bentley. “Twitter’s support manager gave me a full tour of their solution, and explained exactly how Zendesk could relieve our pain points. I was incredibly impressed with Zendesk’s intuitive API and overall ease of use.”

Scribd implemented Zendesk within a day and a half and gave the system the same look and feel as the Scribd website. Today, Scribd handles up to 600 support tickets per day—on everything from lost passwords to copyright notices—through their Zendesk.

Logging in From Anywhere

Thanks to Zendesk’s automations, Scribd’s incoming tickets are automatically reviewed by keyword and routed to the appropriate support technician for immediate attention. This efficiency enables Scribd to resolve about 95% of its support tickets within one day. The company also uses more than 100 Zendesk macros to cover all basic form responses, and to add tags that classify tickets.

“Zendesk’s automatic routing is a lifesaver that’s eliminating countless hours of work,” says Bentley. “It ensures that each ticket will be handled by the most qualified technician, which means we can deliver better, faster service.”

Because Zendesk is an easily accessible hosted solution, Scribd’s support staff can access tickets from anywhere. This convenience helps them deliver timely, attentive service—one of the company’s hallmarks.

“Our technicians have all used Zendesk at home, remotely, or even on an iPad, and it looks and performs great,” says Bentley. “If a publisher calls us, upset that their copyrighted book somehow appeared on Scribd, I can immediately log onto Zendesk from anywhere and process a removal request—and just like that, it’s done.”

Creating a Culture of Professionalism

“Zendesk’s staff is fantastic and incredibly professional,” Bentley concludes. “They understand that our success is their success. From day one, I’ve known they were 100 percent committed to our happiness and satisfaction.”