Contentful delivers self-service boost and career advancements for agents with Zendesk
Content management platform Contentful offers year-round global support for its users but previously relied solely on email to handle all customer queries. With Zendesk, the company now runs a flourishing Help Centre that delivers faster resolutions, sustains exceptional satisfaction levels, and unlocks new opportunities for its service agents.
“There was this decompression moment. Suddenly we weren’t firefighting every day. We could focus on training, on improving, on growing. We stopped throwing headcount at the problem and started investing in people.”
John Harte
Senior Director of Global Technical Support and Technical Account Management at Contentful
“Zendesk continues to evolve with us. It’s a partner that scales with our ambitions.”
John Harte
Senior Director of Global Technical Support and Technical Account Management at Contentful
Founded
2013
Headquarters
Berlin, Germany
Supported websites
38,000
Apps and integrations
100+
93%+
CSAT score
11%
Ticket volume reduction
57%
First response time reduction
Meeting customer needs with 24/7 support and rapid response tools
For global brands managing marketing campaigns in many different regions, it can be difficult to coordinate content for the various channels in each market. That’s why companies such as BMW, KFC, Taco Bell, FIFA, and DAZN use Contentful to handle that process.
Contentful is a cloud-based SaaS platform that enables companies to manage, structure, and deliver digital content across multiple endpoints. The platform supports both developers and marketers with everything from code-level configuration to creative content workflows.
“We’re a proven, API-driven content management system powering billions of content interactions—from Black Friday campaigns to FIFA’s digital experiences,” says John Harte, Senior Director of Global Technical Support and Technical Account Management at Contentful.
Contentful’s customers need a reactive product, and they also need a responsive support team to ensure they can always stay on top of any technical issues that might arise. With a support team that operates 24/7, handling 4,000 tickets a quarter, the company knows it needs a robust service partner platform that can help respond to service tickets quickly.
Navigating email overload and efficiency bottlenecks
“When I first arrived at the company, it was just email,” says Harte of the customer service setup prior to making improvements. “I thought, how are we not allowing self-service? We were growing, but our approach wasn’t scalable.”
Indeed, the previous iteration of Contentful’s customer service relied on email-based support. This meant service agents spent too much time answering simple questions repetitively. Spending the majority of the team’s time on repetitive questions left little room to focus on the complex cases that needed their expertise most. There were also limited opportunities for training and career development because they were tied up with needless drudgery.
Something had to give. Contentful needed a way to deflect simpler tickets to improve efficiency and scalability without increasing headcount.
As a former employee of one of Zendesk’s competitors, Harte admits he wasn’t a natural advocate for Zendesk as a customer service solution. Initially sceptical, Harte soon embraced Zendesk’s flexibility and autonomy. His goal was to use it to address the needs of the business to become more efficient and responsive—particularly for the complex queries that didn’t always get the attention they deserved.
Building a knowledge-led support model
Working with Zendesk, Contentful completely shifted the approach of its customer service. Moving from solely providing reactive support, Contentful embraced a knowledge-led model that empowers both customers and agents.
The company deployed Zendesk Enterprise Suite, which includes Zendesk Help Centre—the knowledge base platform that enables self-service support. It helped Contentful to build a bank of answers to questions commonly asked by its customers, which frees up agents to better respond to complex questions that can’t be readily addressed through online articles.
Keen to empower customers quickly, Contentful launched its Help Centre with a starting knowledge base of 1,300 articles. While the team knew there were gaps to fill, they used real customer search data to guide what content to create next.
“We just decided to turn it on and learn as we go,” says Harte. “That was one of the best decisions we made. We could see in real time what customers needed. By launching early, customers taught us what to prioritize. It was no longer about guessing what they needed—they showed us.”
Deflecting tickets, elevating people
“For us, Zendesk isn’t just a support tool,” says Harte. “It’s a platform for employee growth and customer empowerment.” The results have been clear for Contentful on both fronts. In the first eight weeks of the Help Centre’s operation, the company had nearly 2,000 article views. More than half of searches (55%) returned results by week eight, compared with under 10% in week one—showing the usefulness of the service, and the team’s determination to grow the knowledge bank.
With more customers finding answers independently, Contentful achieved an 11% reduction in ticket volume within the first quarter. Additionally, there was a 57% improvement in first response time compared with the previous year. This is because the team was better equipped to deal with queries that still needed a human response thanks to ticket deflections.
“There was this decompression moment,” says Harte. “Suddenly we weren’t firefighting every day. We could focus on training, on improving, on growing. We stopped throwing headcount at the problem and started investing in people.”
Contentful champions personal development and invests in helping staff grow their careers. With less time demand from repetitive queries, the company has been able to support agents through training budgets and learning opportunities such as attending conferences.
Overall, Zendesk has boosted Contentful’s customer service offering through faster resolutions and higher quality support interactions. Contentful has sustained a high CSAT score of over 93%, while improving employee satisfaction due to reduced workload and more personal development time.
Continuing the journey with Zendesk AI
Contentful is exploring Zendesk AI and messaging bots to complement existing workflows. For Harte, the most important issue is timing. “We didn’t want to jump on the AI bandwagon,” he says. But as the technology matures and he sees the direct use cases where it would be beneficial for his business, the time has come to begin experimenting.
After attending a Zendesk event, Harte was inspired to pilot AI Agents and personalised automation for selected users, with the aim of expanding these tools across more workflows in the near future.
“The time’s right for us to embrace AI—not to change how we support customers, but to enhance it,” says Harte. “Zendesk continues to evolve with us. It’s a partner that scales with our ambitions.”
