Case Study: Timely
How Timely Cut Ticket Volume by 30% and Doubled Team Satisfaction
- Location: Dunedin, New Zealand
- Industry: SaaS / Booking & Payments
- Employees: 180
- Type: B2B
Key stats and metrics to highlight
Introduction
As a booking and payments platform used by over 27,000 hair and beauty businesses, Timely has to respond quickly when something goes wrong.
But their original support model couldn’t scale with demand—agents were burnt out, queues were long, and reporting lacked structure.
With SuccessCX’s help, Timely overhauled its Zendesk setup.
The result: fewer tickets, faster responses, higher customer satisfaction—and a support team that scored a perfect 100 for work-life balance.
Client Background
Timely helps salons and wellness professionals focus on clients instead of admin. But as the business grew, its support operation became unsustainable.
The team was juggling calls, emails, and voicemails with little structure. “You can’t deliver exceptional service if your team is burnt out or disengaged,” said Lisa Kerr.
To move from reactive to scalable, Timely partnered with SuccessCX to rebuild its Zendesk environment around automation, triage, and self-service.
From Phone-Heavy to Self-Service First
Timely’s early model relied heavily on 1:1 phone support. It worked well when the team was small but led to burnout as the business grew. SuccessCX helped shift the load by building a smarter support experience around Zendesk’s self-service and automation features.
A redesigned Help Center and AI-powered chatbot now handle many questions before a ticket is even created. Messaging replaced most phone queries, and agents now manage multiple conversations at once. The result: 50% fewer phone calls and 30% fewer tickets overall.
Smarter Routing, Better Workflows
SuccessCX helped Timely move from a single, reactive queue to structured triage by category, risk level, and channel. Agents were matched to tickets based on their skills, allowing them to work faster and stay in flow. Internally, an updated knowledge base sped up onboarding and improved consistency.
SLAs set clear expectations for resolution times, and new dashboards made performance visible at every level of the organisation. “Zendesk’s prioritisation capabilities have been really powerful,” said Kerr. “The platform now enables things we simply couldn’t do before.”
Results That Impact Both Sides
CSAT scores rose after launchand continue to climb. Customers now get faster, more consistent help—while the support team gets breathing room. With fewer daily tickets, everyone can focus on doing their best work.
“Our staff scored 100 for work-life balance in the culture survey,” said Kerr. “They’re also scoring higher than the company average for tools and processes. That’s a direct result of the changes we made with Zendesk.”
Building for Long-Term Scale
With the basics handled, Timely is looking ahead. AI, workforce planning, and Help Center expansion are on the roadmap. A tighter feedback loop between support and product is also helping the company ship better features.
“Support is no longer just reactive—it’s a strategic part of how we improve the product,” said SuccessCX CEO Paul Bichsel. “That feedback loop is now a real competitive advantage.”
Want to scale support without scaling burnout?
SuccessCX helps high-growth teams build Zendesk environments that actually work—for both customers and agents.