Sprout Solutions: the voice of the customer as the guiding star

Sprout Solutions is the largest homegrown B2B SaaS company in the Philippines and the most trusted end-to-end provider of human resources (HR) and business solutions. Sprout helps businesses in the Philippines to grow through its ecosystem of HR, business, and artificial intelligence (AI)-powered solutions that prepare organizations for the future of work. Its HR and payroll cloud-based solutions automate and simplify manual and complex HR processes, reducing the administrative burden for over 1,000 corporate clients and 180,000 active users.

In search of a holistic solution

The company experienced rapid growth right from the start, kicking off a constant search for a better customer experience solution. “Initially, our customer support served our clients via email,” recalls Bernice Locsin, assistant vice president of customer success at Sprout Solutions. “When we grew to around 50 customers, it became impossible to track everything. We did not have a clear picture of common trends like frequently-asked questions and peak periods, making it hard to make informed decisions.”

In its quest for greater visibility, Sprout took a closer look at the market. “Initially, we tried out another third-party solution, but the reporting had to be done manually, so we started looking for a more streamlined solution,” explains Locsin. “Zendesk immediately stood out with a very good online presence. It also offered many critical functionalities that were important to us, including tagging, analytics, and a knowledge base.”

Making sense of customer inquiries

In 2016, Sprout deployed Zendesk Chat and Support while building a team of customer service agents. To make it easy for agents to fulfill service level agreements (SLAs)—i.e. respond within specific time periods—Sprout created a knowledge base for agents and started triaging inquiries. “We began sorting tickets by severity and customer tier, automatically triggering notifications to agents for the most time-sensitive cases,” shares Locsin. “This allowed us to optimize our processes and respond faster.”

With a 360-degree view of the customer experience, Sprout started to analyze common trends and solve issues proactively. “Firstly, we started tracking peak seasons and allocating resources more optimally,” notes Locsin. “We were also able to better understand how the customer service workflow should be divided among agents. By digging into analytics, we were able to pinpoint common questions. We launched meetings and webinars for our clients to discuss new features. Most importantly, we created a knowledge base of over 700 articles based on FAQs as seen in tickets, attracting around 40,000 visitors who could find answers to their questions themselves.”

Getting to know each customer

Sprout also gained a more granular view of each client. “By integrating Planhat, a customer success platform, with Zendesk, we were able to measure customer engagement levels for each client,” clarifies Locsin. “If, for example, a client submits a lot of inquiries, this gives us a clue that they may need more training.”

This increased visibility has helped transform the user experience for Sprout’s clients. “We began relaying common issues to the product team so that they could improve user experience on our platform,” notes Locsin. “We were also able to integrate Zendesk with JIRA, a product for tracking issues and features, and our agents could easily pass tickets along to developers. The entire support team could then follow the progress and stay informed on the status of features and bugs.”

Supporting explosive growth

Locsin believes that Zendesk has played a key role in customer retention by improving visibility and efficiency in customer service. This has empowered the company to skyrocket its growth. Since 2020, Sprout has increased its customer base by a factor of 20, from 50 to 1,000 clients. With a holistic customer service platform, Sprout also gained the ability to fully resolve its tickets in 46 hours on average, beating the industry benchmark of 110 hours. As for the time it takes for a first reply, the company now boasts an average of 1.5 hours, far exceeding the industry benchmark of 24.

“Everything is more organized, and customers find it easy to follow up on their tickets with a ticket number,” adds Locsin. “They are very happy about our speed. We have maintained a 99-percent customer satisfaction score (CSAT), surpassing the 83-percent industry benchmark. Our net promoter score (NPS) is also very high, and we have very good client retention rates.”

As Sprout continues to scale, the company commits to lending a listening ear to its customers. “Moving forward, we want to fully explore the power of analytics and discover new metrics and insights,” concludes Locsin. “Zendesk gives us all the puzzle pieces. It’s just a matter of fitting them together.”