ShearComfort finds AI to be a perfect fit for exceptional CX

Vancouver-based ShearComfort opened its doors in 1983 as a modest brick-and-mortar shop selling sheepskin products. Driven by extraordinary growth, the company transitioned to a fully digital operation by 2019. Today, ShearComfort stands as a leading online retailer of custom automotive accessories that include seat covers, floor mats, car covers, and more.

Custom products, complex queries

ShearComfort’s products are made-to-order, which means many customer inquiries are unique. Some customers buy the wrong seat cover or the product doesn’t fit. Others encounter difficulties during installation. The service team works to troubleshoot and resolve the issues without resorting to product returns.

Operations Manager and Zendesk Administrator Madison McLellan knows first-hand: “Every situation is a little different. And because our products are custom-made, we have to work within the rules of our return policy to help our customers.”

In the past, McLellan routed and assigned tickets manually. It was a time-consuming task that affected response times, especially on Mondays when the volume was highest. Support was also hampered by a lack of visibility resulting from the company’s siloed tech stack, which included Microsoft Outlook, Slack, a standalone chat solution, and order management systems.

An integrated AI-powered platform

In 2020, ShearComfort started rolling off its disparate tech stack and transitioning its sales and customer service operations to Zendesk Suite with AI. Today, all of its customer support channels, including email, chat, phone, a Web form, and messaging from social media, are integrated into a single platform.

“We transitioned slowly, but it was easy,” says McLellan. “Now we’re 100 percent on Zendesk, fully trained, and really succeeding with it.”

With Zendesk Copilot, ShearComfort gained tools that streamline and facilitate ticket workflows and operations. For instance, the intelligent triage feature automatically detects the intent and sentiment of tickets, eliminating the need to manually sort hundreds of tickets. And intent triggers systematically assign tickets to a specific agent or team based on the customer’s issue, like an ill-fitting seat cover.

“If an intent comes up two or three times, I create a trigger for it so in the future it’s automatically routed. Then, I don’t have to review those again,” adds McLellan.

Generative AI tools for agents

ShearComfort’s agents also use a host of other AI tools that help them work faster and more efficiently.

The most popular is call summaries, which automatically transcribes and summarizes Zendesk Voice calls using Generative AI. Now, reviewing customer calls is easier and agents don’t have to take notes. Instead, they can focus on the customer.

“I love the call summaries with the bullet points,” says McLellan. “Now a 15-minute call doesn’t take me 15 minutes to review.”

With tone shift, agents can adjust their replies to sound more friendly or formal without laboring over grammar and language. They can also quickly respond to FAQs and support requests using prepared responses from a library of macros, which McLellan created using ShearComfort’s email templates.

More time for high-priority tasks

Today, 80 percent of tickets are automatically assigned using intelligent triage.The time needed to triage tickets is down 84 percent; what used to take up to 10 hours a week is now done in less than two hours, thanks to automation.

The new efficiencies reduced first-reply times by 32 percent, from an average of 11.4 hours to just 7.8 hours—3.6 hours faster than before.

“AI has really helped us be more efficient,” says McLellan. “It reduces our daily workloads so we can focus on higher-priority tasks and respond to customers more quickly.”

Up next: more automations and AI agents

ShearComfort’s AI roadmap includes implementing omnichannel routing, an AI-powered tool that helps balance workloads by automatically directing new and open tickets from email, calls, and messaging to agents based on their availability and capacity.

The company also wants to build out its resource center in Zendesk and integrate AI agents to handle common customer queries. This will allow agents to focus more on post-purchase inquiries which tend to be more complicated.

“With AI becoming a staple across industries, customers expect responses that are not only fast, but also accurate and tailored to the specific question,” explains McLellan. “That means building out thoughtful workflows and taking it one step at a time. If you’re using AI, you need to do it right.”