STATION F taps Zendesk for CX and internal efficiencies

STATION F is the world’s largest start-up campus. The 12-acre campus in Paris, France, supports over 1,000 startups a year, who take part in 30 different support programs. The startup community already boasts a number of success stories, including Hugging Face, Alan, Yuka, Neoplants, and many others.

Featuring resources both on-campus and online – including a huge investor community, more than 210 perks and offers, and 600+ events annually – STATION F offers everything entrepreneurs need to launch and develop their companies.

A CX boost for startups

STATION F has a clear purpose: to offer entrepreneurs the best experience possible. This focus on customer experience (CX) has been fundamental to the organization’s success. Along the journey, Zendesk has played a key role as a strategic and technology partner.

For instance, STATION F participated in the Zendesk for Startups program, which provides unlimited access to all Zendesk products at no cost for six months. Startup companies are also given the opportunities to build connections in the Zendesk startup community, and learn best CX practices from Zendesk experts.

Today, STATION F ensures that its entrepreneurs are aware of the Zendesk Startups program and facilitate access so startups can easily get a CX program up and running in no time.

Centralize to optimize

When Sofia Ramos took on the role of Customer Success Coordinator at STATION F nearly two years ago, one of her first goals was to simplify how her team managed entrepreneurs’ requests. By that time, the company was still using Zendesk, but had also added multiple email accounts, leading to inefficiencies.

“I had to respond through Zendesk and three additional Gmail accounts. It was not sustainable, so I decided to centralize all the information in Zendesk,” explains Ramos. “Now I know that when I arrive at the office, everything will be in one place.”

STATION F uses two main channels for CX: email and an API connected to its intranet. Entrepreneurs can create tickets directly from STATION F’s internal platform, choosing categories that correspond to views in Zendesk. This ensures that requests reach the right person from the start, avoiding unnecessary steps and speeding up responses.

“When people send a request, it now reaches the right person, which allows us to optimize,” shares Ramos. “And we’ve implemented macros to respond to frequently asked questions. This has allowed us to answer emails in just 30 seconds.”

The benefits of the Zendesk centralization are evident. STATION F has reduced its response time by one hour and has increased its CSAT score from 82% last year to 85% this year.

Zendesk assists with internal collaboration

For STATION F, Zendesk not only optimizes the experience for residents on the startup campus, but is also being used as an internal collaboration tool across the business. Currently, several teams at STATION F have adopted Zendesk’s AI-powered employee service solution to increase internal efficiencies.

Teams that handle building maintenance, IT, and entrepreneurship program requests are finding that Zendesk helps them streamline operations and boost employee productivity.

“Zendesk is easy to use and has resources for any team to learn and leverage its potential. When you have multiple teams working toward the same goal, Zendesk is the bridge that connects them,” says Ramos.

Big plans for AI ahead

STATION F plans to integrate Zendesk AI into customer service by 2025, so that conversational virtual agents can quickly resolve issues reported by residents. This will not only optimize CX processes, but also free up time for the team to focus on more complex and valuable interactions.

“Ideally, AI agents will help us minimize these tickets by resolving them before we even see them,” says Ramos. “We’re optimistic that virtual agents can efficiently handle the workload.”

But Ramos is just getting started. She plans to onboard the entire Station F team to Zendesk so they can also take advantage of the additional efficiencies delivered by AI.