Washington State DES sees Zendesk as a game changer

One team, One DES

DES is an enterprise-level agency in the State of Washington, managing 200 statewide contracts with more than 1,750 vendors. State agencies purchase $2.1 billion in goods and services annually from these contracts.

The department serves government agencies, public entities like cities and counties, tribal governments, and residents with centralized business services. The agency is also responsible for much of Washington State’s leasing and real estate and the custodial services, building, and ground maintenance for the state Capitol Campus.

The first DES division to use Zendesk was the ETS IT department, which covers everything from application support to technical support and infrastructure. The IT team uses Zendesk to report on monthly activities like the number of employees onboarded and offboarded, mobile devices deployed, and tickets solved.

DES uses Zendesk to serve the state’s learning management system and online recruiting. The support team at ETS receives tickets for a wide range of issues, including helping external clients with customized applications. For internal clients, support tickets include trouble with computers not working, expired passwords, and other technical problems.

Evolving customer support at DES

The support team at DES was using a shared support platform that was not robust enough for such a large and diverse agency—they only had an on-premise phone system supported by WaTech, another state agency, to receive support inquiries.

“That platform was problematic because we had no records, which means we did not have good data to inform decisions,” explains Erica Freymond, IT Support Manager for DES.

Frustrated with being unable to track support inquiries, the DES team overhauled its support solution. DES initially deployed Zendesk in early 2018.

In 2022, DES upgraded to Zendesk Enterprise. In addition to receiving additional support from the Zendesk team, the newly-renamed DES Support Center has access to the full suite of Zendesk products.

“Zendesk is so user-friendly,” Freymond offers. The support was easy to figure out, and setting up the ticket structure and forms was straight-forward and simple, helping us maximize our team’s workflows and increase efficiency.”

A unified experience

The DES Support Center has a unified experience for its employees and clients. And phone calls to the Support Center are now actionable due to using Zendesk Talk.

“Zendesk Talk became very valuable to us. Now we can see how many calls we’re getting—and how many are dropped or missed,” Freymond said.

DES recently implemented an after-hours process using Zendesk Talk, replacing a separate on-call phone.

“We bought a second talk line, and now we have an IVR tree set up so clients can click ‘one’ for network operations and ‘two’ for after-hours,” says Freymond. “Now, the team doesn’t have to redirect phone calls to the other team—and customers can directly call the right number for their needs.”

Self-help CX

DES’s top priority is to empower customers to find solutions to problems or questions easily. “We’re really about helping the customer find their answers,” said Freymond.

If Freymond and her team notice they are getting duplicate questions and tickets about a situation, they immediately publish a help article.

The help center allows people to get their questions answered quickly, 24/7—without ever having to wait on hold to speak with an age​​nt.

“Customers value the transparency,” notes Lesa Terry, Systems Administrator for DES. “They can log in, manage their tickets, and see the status on their tickets.”

Better reporting

Since implementing Zendesk, DES has created customized dashboards where the support team can quickly get data and generate reports. And the executive team is pleased with the new information. The data and reports help the division share information with the agency’s executive leadership.

Improved agent experience

With Zendesk’s implementation, agents can better track their work and be accountable for help tickets.

“I’ll say from an agent experience—it’s been amazing,” Freymond says. “Just being able to track our work, be accountable for tickets, and know what you need to work on—seeing that kind of data is really helpful in gaining visibility into your workday.”

“We’ve implemented Zendesk with DevOps,” adds Kyle DeLeon, Systems Administrator at DES. “That allows us to create work items, track every detail on a ticket, and report it out.”

Zendesk also saves the team time, allowing them to be more productive.

What’s next

Other divisions in DES are ready to make the switch.

“Originally, we implemented Zendesk for an IT ticketing system,” Freymond explains. “And because using customer service software gives us a unified experience, along with improved visibility and insight—other divisions plan to start using Zendesk by the end of next year.”

Chief Information Officer Shalini Joshi reflects on the Zendesk implementation. “We were seeking a customer service software solution in which everyone at DES—not just agents—could go to the platform and find answers.”