Tembici sees 30% cost savings with Zendesk WFM

Brazilian bike-sharing company Tembici invites everyone to rediscover their cities from a new perspective. The São Paulo based team is creating solutions to inspire a global mobility revolution – one person at a time.

Like many of its riders, Tembici has come a long way since it launched in 2012. The startup is now Latin America’s leading micro mobility tech company, with a presence in 16 states, across 4 countries, powering more than 5 million trips per month.

The company recently transformed its customer support operations by switching from manual cumbersome processes to adopting a streamlined workforce management solution powered by Zendesk. The Zendesk WFM solution offers full integration with Zendesk Support, capturing all activity for granular ticket-level measurement and data-driven strategy. Premier Enterprise also provides dedicated support and guidance to ensure the team is fully utilizing the tool.

Previously, Tembici’s customer service team used spreadsheets and another workforce management platform not integrated with Zendesk. They needed a more intuitive and integrated system to help save time and provide better tracking and reporting for a team of remote agents.

“When I arrived in Tembici, we needed to enhance expense management. Therefore, action plans were necessary to improve our effectiveness, and part of the change came with these numbers so we could make quick decisions,” says Gabriel Garcia, Latam Customer Care and Innovation at Tembici.

Time and cost savings in customer service

After rolling out Zendesk Workforce Management for scheduling, forecasting, and real-time insights into agent activities, the team realized the value of having a platform that enables quick and effective decision-making.

In the first 90 days, the Tembici team already resolved more tickets, in less time and with higher quality rates compared to previous months.

“We put Zendesk WFM in place to reduce operational costs, so we could maximize efficiency and improve our experience,” Garcia explains. “Once we started measuring, we were able to reduce operational costs, operating more efficiently with resources and a team better aligned with the company’s needs. With integrated WFM we could get a detailed history of everything that happened minute by minute per agent.” He estimates that the company saw a 30 percent reduction in customer service costs during the last calendar year.

Quicker service, better experiences

Tembici’s changes in staffing were accompanied by an improvement in the efficiency of each agent by 75%, resulting in faster customer service and a better experience.

“Over the past year, we significantly reduced our resolution time,” reports Garcia. After making an 80 percent improvement in average resolution time, the customer service team is already working to reduce the average even further.

“Since introducing Zendesk WFM, I have had the opportunity to engage with other companies. They asked Tembici how we had achieved such significant performance improvements, as we went from handling 25 performances per person to now handling 44 performances per person.”

Garcia attributes the improvement to using the right tools and having a clear, data-driven strategy. He understands that as operations scale, it becomes easier for leadership to lose track of attendance and performance without a workforce management tool.

Efficient scheduling and forecasting

With Zendesk WFM, Tembici has enhanced tracking of remote agent productivity and improved forecasting across groups and channels. The solution provided them a quicker and easier way to identify optimal time slots for internal work assignments, ensure schedule adherence, and maximize agent capacity.

“Before Zendesk WFM, we were planning manually. The process was prone to uncertainties, and we had to repeat it and make adjustments as needed,” says Garcia. “It was a significant U-turn for us to be able to show the numbers to the operations team. We saved hours with the type of planning we can do now.”

Since deploying Zendesk WFM, scheduling and forecasting is no longer a team function or someone’s entire role, it’s just a simple daily task.

“In traditional structures, there is a planning manager who oversees two or three planning analysts and others control desks. With Zendesk WFM, I can have a data analyst on my team handle planning as part of their monthly workflow,” Garcia adds. “If there’s a problem, the operation supervisor can quickly identify what went wrong. I don’t have to search for that information.”

A cultural shift in agent accountability

Utilizing Zendesk WFM to make informed decisions has empowered Tembici leaders and enhanced agent accountability, ultimately sparking a cultural shift towards data-driven management.

“With Zendesk WFM, you can have an open conversation with your team and emphasize that everyone is the protagonist of their careers and responsible for everything they do during the workday,” says Garcia. He also discusses different ticketing scenarios with the team, such as an agent receiving a ticket, taking it, and then returning it to the queue because it’s perceived as difficult. At Tembici, that’s known as skip rate.

“When you build a 360-degree view with productivity data from Zendesk WFM, including skip rates, you can accurately assess how well that person is performing.” For Garcia, it’s about using these data points to understand team dynamics and individual performance.

“One of the main gains for us, in addition to operational efficiency, was the way we were able to provide real-time data on individual and group performance. This led to a significant cultural shift in decision-making,” he says.

Clear data drives adherence and recognition

Tembici employees at all levels now have greater analytical insights into their individual or team results, and Zendesk WFM gives them a way to demonstrate their work and progress.

For example, staff adherence rates improved once the team grasped the importance of: pause time, feedback time, and meeting time. Today, analysts perform at an average of 92 percent adherence to planning.

“Before using Zendesk WFM, we didn’t have a platform to measure idle time,” notes Garcia. “There was an initial phase of cultural adjustment as people learned how to set the correct statuses and handle conversions effectively. Now, we can compare timelines with data to track our progress. The team observes this normalization curve and learns to adapt.”

The company uses Zendesk WFM to identify top performers for fair advancement, which is fostering improved relations between leadership and teams. “We believe this improves the approach to recognizing achievements. When we analyze individual results and feedback from our customers, insights become clearer because everyone understands the data that is available”, says Garcia.