Saving time and bolstering support efficiency: PayShepherd's journey with Intercom

The growth dilemma

PayShepherd, a contractor management platform specializing in the heavy industry sector, found it challenging to manage its fast-growing customer base. With a recent influx of $7M in new funding and big plans to scale the business, the team realized that their existing customer service platform, Jira Service Management, wasn’t going to be able to meet their evolving needs.

"With our expansion, we faced significant challenges in managing customer interactions and support efficiently,” says Steve Tondé, Support Desk Manager at PayShepherd. "Our existing system was overwhelmed, leading to delayed responses and decreased customer satisfaction." 

This resulted in the team being faced with a number of challenges, such as:

• Lack of reporting and visibility: Jira lacked robust reporting capabilities, making it difficult to track key support metrics such as agent productivity and customer satisfaction (CSAT), as well as identify trends in the types of queries customers had. This hindered the team’s ability to optimize their support operations.

• Manual support processes: Many of PayShepherd’s support workflows were manual, which dramatically slowed response times and left less time for customer assistance.

• Difficult tracking complex tickets: 70% of PayShepherd's tickets were complex, often taking weeks or months to resolve. Without clear tracking, these tickets often duplicated effort across agents, causing frustration for customers – and more work for the team.

Determined to find a solution that would automate their customer communications in a way that was cost-effective and wouldn’t compromise the customer experience, the team began their search for a new customer service platform.

A step towards transformation

Recognizing the need for a flexible and organized solution, PayShepherd turned to Intercom to power its customer service. The team needed a tool that offered omnichannel communication, customization for their business needs, and a top-notch user experience. 

Some of the factors that drew the PayShepherd team to Intercom were: 

• A help center and chatbot that would offer a significant enhancement to the customer experience. 

• The platform’s ability to seamlessly integrate with their existing systems.

• The overall ease of implementation of Intercom, which would enable them to avoid causing disruption to customers during the transition.

"Intercom provided us with tools that not only supported our growth but also enhanced our customer engagement significantly,” says Steve. “Its automation and real-time features meant we could interact with customers more effectively." 

Intercom's integration into PayShepherd’s product was seamless, allowing them to upgrade their live chat and ticketing offering, and effectively replace Jira.

Seamless integration

PayShepherd implemented the Intercom platform over a 30-day period with the help of an Intercom onboarding specialist. During this time, the team successfully prepared for the rollout of the new support system to their customer base. 

Key steps in their rollout plan included:

• Installing Intercom and tailoring the workspace and bot setup to fit PayShepherd’s unique needs.

• Developing and optimizing support content for the help center.

• Building workflows to route conversations, trigger events, and automate processes.

• Setting up reporting dashboards and custom reports to track essential metrics.

• Training the Support team to ensure all agents were proficient in using Intercom.

• Planning the rollout strategy to ensure a smooth transition for customers.

Outstanding outcomes

After a successful implementation, PayShepherd saw remarkable improvements across their support metrics, such as:

• 40% reduction in response times

• 20% increase in help center engagement

• 100% CSAT achieved in March 2024

• 15% improvement in operational efficiency

• 30% decrease in duplicate tickets

• 30% of routine support tasks handled by workflow automations

"Intercom gives us the tools to deliver personalized, scalable support to our rapidly growing customer base," says Steve. "With their help desk, knowledge base, and proactive messaging, we can streamline support and continue raising the bar for service in our industry."

Looking ahead

PayShepherd's successful integration of Intercom has empowered the team to uplevel its customer service across the board, from streamlining and improving visibility into operations to elevating the customer experience. With big plans for the future, the team is excited to expand their use of the platform and leverage powerful features like Fin AI Agent and advanced reporting, to guide both product and business decisions.

"Already, Intercom has transformed support operations at our company," says Steve. "As we scale, I'm confident Intercom will help us achieve our goal of delivering award-winning support in our industry."