Liberty Tax scales seasonal support with Zendesk AI agents

For Liberty Tax, the busiest time of the year means supporting franchisees, employees, and tax filers through long days, high volumes—and plenty of last-minute questions.

Liberty Tax helps clients file their taxes in person or remote and provides year-round support for tax preparation, bookkeeping, payroll, and tax planning. Behind the scenes, its technology support team expands from approximately 15 full-time technology support staff to nearly 165 during tax season to meet increased demand.

With Zendesk as its support foundation, Liberty Tax has increased tech support satisfaction from 44 to 97 percent over a five year period.

Replacing a patchwork of systems

Liberty Tax’s support operation serves two primary groups: franchisees and their employees—who rely on the company’s proprietary tax-preparation software—and tax filers seeking tax services.

When something goes wrong, franchisees need answers fast—especially when they’re helping a tax filer in person.

“We had a fragmented technology setup,” says Gerald Crawford, AVP of Support Services at Liberty Tax. “Our phone system wasn’t integrated with our outdated ticketing system, and we managed our knowledge base separately.”

Before Zendesk, the team had to navigate multiple tools to find information, manage tickets, and help franchisees.

“It wasn’t efficient,” Crawford says. “When we moved to Zendesk, everything changed. It brings our knowledge base, ticketing system, and phone system together—and gives us inbound phone support for the first time.”

The unified setup gives franchisees one place to find information, create tickets, or call an agent. It also helps Crawford’s team provision new users and onboard seasonal employees.

“I hire about 100 seasonal agents every year,” Crawford says. “I don’t need anything cumbersome getting in the way because we already have a lot to accomplish.”

Making every interaction more useful

Liberty Tax uses Zendesk Support, Knowledge, Talk and Zendesk AI to bring more context into its support operation and make it easier for customers to get help.

Knowledge articles help franchise employees understand the tax-preparation software, while AI-powered summaries help human support agents quickly review conversations and tickets. These summaries may also be used by leadership to evaluate quality.

“We take a lot of calls,” Crawford says. “During tax season, we might have up to 400 new tickets a day. If I’m trying to quality-check things, it’s helpful to be able to have that quick summary.”

Human support agents also use Tone Shift to adjust the tone of their responses. These tools help agents work more efficiently while preserving the human connection franchisees need when they’re trying to solve a problem in front of an end user.

“The tax preparer may not want to look like they’re grasping for straws and trying to find answers on the computer,” Crawford says. “They really want to service the customer. They don’t have time to necessarily mess around with a system.”

With Zendesk, tax preparers can call the support team, find an answer in the knowledge base, or create a ticket without jumping between disconnected tools.

Giving customers a faster path to the right answer

Liberty Tax is also using Zendesk AI agents on its public websites. The AI agents help prospective and returning tax filers learn about products, find offices, and schedule appointments. AI agents also directly support tax filers by scheduling appointments with local tax professionals.

This gives tax filers a convenient way to get started on tax preparation and schedule in-person or remote appointments with local tax offices.

“During our annual user testing, we found that customers preferred communicating over chat,” says Sam Brogan, Program Manager at Liberty Tax. “That’s when we decided that we needed a higher-quality AI agent that really works out of the box and is easily configurable.”

Liberty Tax creates separate AI agents for its U.S. and Canadian businesses to reflect differences in branding, language, and tax information. In the U.S., Torchie—a mascot based on the Statue of Liberty’s torch—supports English and Spanish. In Canada, Leafy—a mascot based on the maple leaf, a national symbol of Canada—supports English and French. Both AI agents follow the policies and guardrails established for their respective regions.

That regional approach helps Liberty Tax prepare for dramatic shifts in demand throughout the year. During the 2026 busy season, monthly ticket volume averaged 19,014—up from 17,317 in 2025 and 289 percent higher than the 2026 May-to-August average of 4,886. Even during the off-season, monthly volume increased from 4,244 tickets in 2025 to 4,886 in 2026.

Building AI agents with the right guardrails

Because Liberty Tax offers tax preparation and other sensitive financial products, it takes a deliberately controlled approach to AI. Its AI agents are currently limited to structured use cases such as sharing product information, helping users find an office, and scheduling appointments. When someone is frustrated or needs help outside the AI agent’s scope, the conversation can be escalated to a human.

“Being in the financial services industry, we need to make sure we’re not giving the wrong information,” Brogan says. “We’re dealing with taxes, too. If the AI agent starts to give bad advice—we’ve got some issues.”

The team is now exploring a hybrid approach that combines structured use cases with more flexible AI procedures.

“We’re excited about the procedural side because it can automate more of the customer experience without making every interaction feel robotic,” Brogan says. “We want to give the AI agents some personality while still keeping the right controls in place.”

Scaling with confidence

Zendesk gives Liberty Tax a clearer view of seasonal demand. Crawford compares current volumes with the same period in previous years, using that data to set hiring expectations, plan for peak weeks, and adjust staffing as the season progresses.

“If I have more experienced agents returning for the season, then I won’t need as many,” he says. “With higher-quality agents, I don’t need a higher quantity.”

Crawford says the team has been able to operate with fewer agents in part because Zendesk and its AI capabilities help the team engage with franchisees more quickly and close issues faster.

As Liberty Tax continues expanding Zendesk across the organization, it is building a support operation that can absorb the rush of tax season while giving franchisees and customers a simpler path to help.

“The biggest thing is understanding what’s available and what can create value for your employees and customers,” Crawford says. “It’s essential to stay in touch with what’s going on.”