Case Study: Upwork achieves 90% self-service adoption and 50% productivity gains with Zendesk

Upwork scales global support with robust APIs and self-service

Upwork, the world’s largest online marketplace for freelancers, needed a unified, scalable support model to serve clients and a distributed support staff working from home across multiple countries. Facing high chat volume and the need to reduce ticket load and escalations, Upwork prioritized an integrated omnichannel system and greater self‑service so agents could access complete customer histories in one place and resolve issues faster.

Upwork implemented Zendesk Support, Guide, and Chat (with inContact for phone), centralizing tickets, using data to tailor channel access, promoting help‑center self‑service, and assigning agents to focused channels. The changes produced a 90% self‑service adoption rate, a 20% improvement in chat SLA adherence, a 50% increase in agent productivity, better first‑touch resolution, and fewer escalations—backed by close ongoing collaboration with Zendesk.

Upwork

Joe Wang

Director of Customer Experiences