Case Study: Spartan Race dramatically cuts response times and boosts customer satisfaction with Zendesk Support

Spartan Race dramatically cut their response times with Zendesk Support

Spartan Race began as a single event in Vermont and has grown into a global lifestyle brand with races in 30+ countries, its own gym, TV specials and retail operations. Rapid expansion pushed customer inquiries from a few hundred emails a year to roughly 230,000 tickets in 2016, and the company outgrew a basic shared‑inbox ticketing system that lacked reporting, scalability and global workflow controls.

Spartan Race implemented Zendesk Support, Chat and Guide, plus a Shopify integration to centralize ecommerce data, set SLAs and automate alerts. The result: faster response times (social media replies dropped from a four‑hour target to about 20 minutes), email volume stabilized as chat handled simpler inquiries, a 93% overall customer satisfaction rating, 97% CSAT for live chat, a 27% lift in retail sales via chat, and a 15% efficiency gain from the Shopify integration.

Spartan Race

Aja Varney

Director of Customer Service