Canadian fintech leader Borrowell successfully implemented Tidio’s AI-powered chatbot with seamless Zendesk integration, achieving an 83% resolution rate while serving over 3 million members.
At a Glance: Borrowell
Borrowell is a Canadian fintech company founded in 2014 in Toronto. It was the first in Canada to offer free credit scores (via Equifax) and now serves around 4 million members. The company provides credit monitoring, AI-powered financial coaching, and credit-building tools like Credit Builder and Rent Advantage.
Borrowell also runs a marketplace recommending products from 75+ financial partners, and in 2021 it acquired Refresh Financial to expand its offerings.
- Company Size: 100+ employees
- Industry: Fintech (Credit Monitoring & Financial Services)
- Country of Operation: Canada
- Support Volume: +11,000 tickets monthly, 9 customer support agents
- Member Base: ~4 million users
- Website: www.borrowell.com
The Challenge: Managing High Support Volumes with Limited Resources
As Borrowell continued to grow, their customer support team faced significant challenges with +11,000 monthly support tickets handled by just 9 customer service representatives:
- Volume Spikes: Peak periods saw volumes reach over 12,000 tickets monthly
- Resource Constraints: Small team size created pressure during busy periods
- Scaling Needs: Anticipating continued business growth requiring support scalability
- Efficiency Goals: Wanting to keep the team lean and agile
Stephen Nadeau, Senior Manager of Member Experience, explained their situation:
As our business continues to scale, we’re anticipating an increase in ticket volume. With our current team size, it would be challenging to manage that growth efficiently. Implementing a chatbot helps us stay lean and agile, while still being able to scale our operations and maintain a high level of service.
The Solution: Tidio’s Lyro AI Implementation
Borrowell wanted to utilize the power of AI to answer questions. They tested Tidio during a trial and were impressed with both the platform and Tidio’s support team.
Key requirements included:
- AI-powered question answering capabilities
- Seamless Zendesk integration with their existing help center and ticketing system
- Scalable solution to handle volume fluctuations
- Quality customer support during implementation
After evaluation, Borrowell selected Tidio’s Lyro AI Agent, which integrated with their Zendesk system to handle customer interactions while allowing agents to focus more on complex cases.
Implementation Timeline
Trial Phase (November – December 2024)
- Started with 10% traffic exposure
- Scaled to 50% exposure mid-trial
- Completed trial at 100% exposure
- Tested ticket creation and Zendesk integration
Production Launch (March 2025)
- Full implementation with a dedicated Customer Success Manager
- Team training on platform management
- Ongoing optimization and knowledge base updates
The Results: Proven Performance Metrics
After implementing Lyro AI, Borrowell achieved measurable improvements:
Key Performance Indicators
- 83% Resolution Rate
- 87% Answer Rate
- 6.5% Engagement Rate of help center visitors interacting with the chatbot
Operational Benefits
- Seamless Zendesk Integration: Conversations that couldn’t be resolved by AI automatically created tickets in Zendesk with full chat transcripts
- 24/7 Availability: Members could get instant responses at any time
- Agent Focus: Human agents freed to handle complex inquiries requiring personal attention
- Cost Savings: Reduction in simple ticket volumes, cutting support costs while maintaining fast, high-quality responses
The tool has been great! We’ve seen strong performance in answer and resolution rates. What’s even more exciting is knowing there’s still room to improve, and we’re eager to keep optimizing to deliver the highest level of support to our members.
Technical Integration
Zendesk Workflow
When Lyro couldn’t resolve an inquiry, the system seamlessly transitioned users to create support tickets in Zendesk, complete with:
- Full conversation transcript included in ticket
- Member contact information collection
- Automatic routing to appropriate support queues
- Maintained existing support team workflows
Knowledge Management
- Help Center Integration: Lyro trained on Borrowell’s existing Zendesk help center articles
- Continuous Updates: Easy refresh of knowledge base when help center content changes
- Manual Training: Ability to add specific Q&As for unanswered questions
Ongoing Optimization
Throughout the implementation, Borrowell worked with Tidio’s customer success team to:
- Monitor unanswered questions and add appropriate responses
- Update knowledge sources when help center articles changed
- Optimize chat flows for better user experience
- French language support for Quebec market expansion
- Track performance metrics through comprehensive analytics dashboard
The team noted that consistent attention to unanswered questions and knowledge base updates was key to improving performance over time.
Future Expansion Plans
Based on their success, Borrowell is exploring:
- Live agent integration for complex cases requiring human intervention
- Logged-in user experience with personalized responses and further automations using API calls
- Additional product integration beyond current help center implementation
By implementing Tidio’s Lyro AI with seamless Zendesk integration, Borrowell successfully addressed their scaling challenges while maintaining quality customer support. The 83% resolution rate demonstrates the effectiveness of AI-powered customer service in the competitive fintech industry.
Ready to achieve an 83% resolution rate and scale your customer support like Borrowell? Discover how Tidio’s Lyro AI can transform your customer service operations while integrating seamlessly with your existing Zendesk system.
