Case Study: Bolt becomes data-driven and cuts support volume by 70% with Zendesk

Fast-growing Bolt goes from data blind to data driven with Zendesk

Bolt, founded in 2013 by Markus Villig as a mobile app to make urban transportation easier, has grown into a global ride‑hailing company operating in 30+ countries and serving 25 million customers. Rapid expansion exposed a data‑blind customer support operation—30 agents using Intercom with no centralization, reporting, or documented knowledge—which caused backlogs, unpredictable staffing needs, and an urgent need to deflect contacts to self‑help and understand ticket trends.

Bolt chose Zendesk (Support, Guide, Talk, Chat), rapidly implementing groups, triggers, automations and a help center while onboarding hundreds of agents. The change made support data‑driven: tickets per ride fell 70% from 2017–2019 while the business grew 10x, average first response time dropped 75% in 2018, over 50% of inquiries are now deflected, and the team scaled to ~500 agents across 18 countries—enabling feedback loops, product improvements, and plans for custom automations and AI.

Bolt

Toby Humphrey

Product Manager for Customer Support