Startup mattilda scales with Zendesk to support 2X annual growth

The mission of edtech startup mattilda is to provide a boost to schools through technological and financial tools so administrators can focus on what is truly important: educating students.

mattilda has transformed the way schools manage their billing, offering a safe, efficient system for parents and students. But the hybrid edtech-fintech startup is also making inroads into educational loans and offering capital expenditure funding for improvement of educational facilities.

Supporting educators through fintech innovation

When mattilda launched operations in 2022, it faced the dual challenges of rapid growth and a diverse customer base that includes school owners, administrators, and parents.

“We’re working to modernize a traditionally under-digitized industry,” says Ileana Gómez, Chief Operations Officer at mattilda. “And that includes building a customer support system that’s as agile and efficient as our product.”

From the start, the mattilda team knew it needed a long-term CX partner that would grow and innovate with them. After evaluating multiple vendors, Zendesk was selected for its flexibility, startup-friendly pricing, and robust technology integrations.

Maintaining low fixed costs

Mattilda began its CX journey with the Zendesk for Startups program. Maintaining low fixed costs has been essential to Mattilda’s value equation and subsequent success.

“The Zendesk Startups program was one of the most valuable incentives offered to us in the company’s early stages,” says Amilcar González, Head of Contact Center Operations for mattilda. Initially, the team started with just five Zendesk licenses.

“The discounts and early-stage support helped us get off the ground,” explains Gómez. “Now with 54 licenses, we’re using Zendesk not just for external service, but also for internal workflows.”

Starting with zero infrastructure

“When we began, we had zero infrastructure,” recalls González. “We had no historic data, no dashboards. Our agents had to juggle seven screens just to handle one ticket. Zendesk changed all that.”

Today, Mattilda supports over 230,000 students—up from just 185 at launch—while maintaining a support team of only 25 agents in three countries.

Thanks to Zendesk’s automation, integrations, and centralized console, the team now handles more than 40,000 interactions per month across WhatsApp, voice, and email, with a 6-minute SLA and 96 percent first-contact resolution rate.

Zendesk’s console has been customized for mattilda’s advisors with the help of trusted Zendesk partner Centribal.

More than 85 percent of mattilda’s CX needs have been met using Centribal-built solutions, from collections workflows to localization for English-speaking families using Zendesk’s auto-translation through Google.

Seamless integrations are a game changer

WhatsApp has become mattilda’s primary support channel, driven by its user base of parents and administrators. Inbound messages flow through a Zendesk integration with an intelligent conversations platform, while outbound collections calls are handled via a phone integration.

Other tools like Slack, Typeform, and even other Zendesk instances both internally and with external business partners are also seamlessly integrated.

“Zendesk lets us work smarter,” offers Sergio Hernández, Back Office Manager at mattilda. “We’ve built an ecosystem where internal teams—from Finance to IT—can escalate, solve, and monitor tickets without silos. Our advisors have everything they need in one screen.”

Localized support with global standards

In under three years, mattilda expanded from Mexico into Colombia and Ecuador. Zendesk played a pivotal role in helping them maintain consistent service across countries.

“Having one unified system helped us replicate success,” says González. “It took about a year to reach parity, but now we run identical operations in all three countries.”

Zendesk’s multi-skill routing is already in place, and as mattilda continues to expand, they plan to leverage this feature more strategically to share capacity across geographies and seasons.

“Zendesk has been essential to our journey,” emphasizes González. “We’re building something big—something that matters—and Zendesk gives us the tools and confidence to do it right.”

A future powered by AI

Looking ahead, mattilda is exploring Zendesk’s AI and Copilot features. “We’re close to maxing out agent productivity,” notes González. “AI is the next leap—helping us reduce inbound volume, automate collections, and give our team more time for complex issues.”

The company’s roadmap includes omnichannel capabilities, enhanced automation, and eventually AI agents to handle self-service scenarios—particularly for collections, where the company sees the greatest impact opportunity.

“Zendesk has never been just a vendor,” concludes Gómez. “They push us to improve, to innovate, to scale smarter. That kind of partnership is rare—and exactly what we need to keep growing.”