How CircleCI Improved Response Times by 28% with AI-Powered Developer Support

Kapa.ai has been revolutionary for our support team. The 28% faster response times increase the value of our support packages. It means we're able to help more of our customers quickly, allowing them to get developers back to building — fast." - Kami Olszewski, Director of Customer Engineering at CircleCI

The Situation: Scaling Support for a Growing Developer Base

CircleCI, a leader in continuous integration and delivery, is committed to providing an exceptional developer experience. As their user base grew, they sought innovative ways to enhance support. Their goal is to empower developers with faster, more accurate answers while enabling their team to focus on complex, high-value interactions.

The Solution: AI-Powered Support Across Multiple Channels

To address CircleCI's support challenges, Kapa.ai was implemented with two key components: a rich knowledge base and strategic deployment across multiple channels.

Knowledge Sources: Seeding The System With Up-To-Date Knowledge

CircleCI understood that the effectiveness of an AI support system depends on the quality and breadth of its knowledge. To ensure Kapa.ai could provide accurate and helpful responses, they gave it access to an extensive array of CircleCI resources:

• Comprehensive documentation and technical guides

• Detailed API references

• YouTube tutorials and video guides

• Community forum posts and discussions

• Internal support knowledge base

• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

• Release notes and product updates

This diverse set of sources allows Kapa.ai to understand and respond to a wide range of developer queries, from basic how-to questions to complex troubleshooting scenarios.

Deployments: Available To Both End-Users and Employees

CircleCI recognized that to truly enhance developer support, Kapa.ai needed to be accessible wherever developers might need assistance. This led to a multi-faceted deployment strategy:

A. End-user facing deployments:

a) Documentation site:

Integrating Kapa.ai directly into the documentation allows developers to get immediate clarification on technical details without leaving the page.

b) In-app support:

By embedding Kapa.ai within the CircleCI application, users can get instant help while actively working on their projects, reducing workflow disruptions.

c) Support site:

Placing Kapa.ai on the dedicated Zendesk support site ensures that users seeking help can quickly find answers before needing to submit a ticket.

d) Community forum:

Integrating Kapa.ai into the community forum means it can assist with common questions, freeing up community members and CircleCI staff to focus on more complex discussions.

B. Internal support enhancement:

a) Zendesk integration for support agents:

By integrating Kapa.ai with Zendesk, support agents can lean on AI-assisted responses, speeding up their work and ensuring consistency in answers.

The Results: Improved Efficiency and User Satisfaction

The implementation of Kapa.ai has yielded significant improvements across multiple facets of CircleCI's support ecosystem, demonstrating tangible benefits for both end-users and the support team:

————

KEY RESULTS

28% faster response times

for CircleCI support agents

2,000+ monthly questions answered

by Kapa.ai, equivalent to 500 support hours saved

10% increase in language coverage

with questions answered in non-English languages

Increased agent satisfaction

Kapa.ai acting as a "buddy system" for support team

————

CircleCI discovered an additional advantage of implementing Kapa.ai in their product interface. Kami Olszewski, Director of Customer Engineering at CircleCI, noted:

"I am so happy we have it in the product now! Customers can get faster answers and get back to building fast and without context-switching. We can encourage customers to use the UI more often because we can post news about product updates and features where they can see them."

The partnership between CircleCI and Kapa.ai has significantly improved developer support efficiency and customer satisfaction. By leveraging AI to augment human support, CircleCI has been able to scale its support capabilities without compromising on quality, while also driving product adoption and user engagement.

————

Example of Non-English (Japanese) Question