Case Study: State of Tennessee achieves 35% phone CSAT improvement with Zendesk omnichannel solution

State of Tennessee + Zendesk Seamless citizen support

The Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development, a large state agency serving 6.6 million residents and overseeing a $171 million budget, faced a sudden, sharp drop in customer satisfaction that threatened constituent service and legislative scrutiny. The team needed real-time visibility across channels to diagnose the problem quickly and modernize service delivery for thousands of weekly contacts.

By adopting Zendesk’s omnichannel stack (Support, Guide, Chat, Talk) the department quickly identified a buried “claim status” button and restored it within 30 minutes, then expanded phone coverage and integrated channels. The changes drove a 35% improvement in phone CSAT (from 62.4% to 84.2%), cut new-employee onboarding from six months to six weeks, enabled ticket deflection, and saved roughly $250,000 a year in maintenance—delivering faster, more efficient service and actionable real-time analytics.

State of Tennessee

Dustin Swayne

Deputy Commissioner, Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development