Company: Zywave, Milwaukee, WI
Company Description: Zywave leads the insurance tech industry, fueling business growth for our partners with the most expansive portfolio of cloud-based sales management, client delivery, content and analytics solutions. By offering an all-on-one platform full of robust data and the most comprehensive content library available, we empower our partners to make smarter business decisions.
Nomination Category: Customer Service & Call Center Awards Achievement Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Customer Service Transformation Award
 Nomination Title: Zywave's Cinderella story of transformation into award winning department
- Which will you submit for your nomination in this category, a video of up to five (5) minutes, explaining the nominated achievement since July 1, 2022, OR written answers to the questions? (Choose one):
Written answers to the questions
- If you are submitting a video of up to five (5) minutes in length, provide the URL of the video here, OR attach it to your entry via the "Add Attachments, Videos, or Links to This Entry" link above, through which you may also upload a copy of your video. If you are submitting written answers to the questions for this category, provide them in the spaces below.
written answers are provided below
- Briefly describe the nominated organization: its history and past performance (up to 200 words):
Total 186 words used.
Zywave leads the insurtech industry, fueling business growth for its partners with cloud-based sales management, client delivery, content and analytics solutions. Zywave’s all-in-one platform provides customizable, user-friendly options that enable insurance professionals to build a unique solution to fit their specific growth goals—their own Modern RevOps Machine. More than 15,000 carriers, agencies and brokerages worldwide—including all of the top 100 U.S. insurance brokerages—use Zywave solutions to enhance client services, achieve business growth and promote greater health, wellness, risk management and safety.
Zywave Support has transitioned from the central Milwaukee location with 28 support reps into global support operations with over 70 people in various locations including the Philippines, Boston, Dallas, and other remote locations by embracing change management over the last 2 years. Zywave Support has moved from being a cost center to a revenue center and from providing reactive to proactive support. Support is now a destination career path for both internal and external candidates.
Zywave has been awarded 6 Stevie Awards in the last 2 years as part of their focus on customer support with a focus on people, process and technology.
- Outline the nominated achievement since July 1 2022 that you wish to bring to the judges' attention (up to 250 words):
Total 250 words used.
Zywave’s support transformation stands out for turning a traditional cost center into a strategic value creator. In an industry where call centers often hover around average manager NPS scores below 30, we soared from 53 in 2022 to 90 in 2024. Our “closed loop” mindset—reviewing ~300 negative surveys yearly—boosted CSAT to 93% overall (94%+ in some areas) and cut Learning Management System cases by 36%. Meanwhile, proactive communication and technology helped slash chat abandonment from 30% to under 4% and phone abandonment from 30% to under 7%, outperforming many industry peers. Average phone wait times dropped from seven minutes to under two, well below typical benchmarks.
On the innovation front, we assess 100% of interactions with Conversational Intelligence (vs. ~5% with typical surveys), using AI to proactively detect sentiment and prevent escalations. Less than 0.4% of our cases now escalate, compared to the industry norm of 1–2%. Macros and quick texts in Salesforce save 90,000 minutes annually, allowing agents to focus on complex issues. We also shrank our backlog by 60%, from over 3,000 to under 1,200.
An AI/NLP engine proactively detects sentiment, keeping escalations under 0.4% and enabling the team to action 1,762 potential escalations and 3,388 urgent-sentiment cases.
In-app messaging via AppCue reached 1,283,377 unique users for 22 outage notifications in 2024 alone, diverting spikes in support volume, while 99,526 users engaged with new-feature education.
By blending strategic leadership, a culture of promotion, continuous process optimization, we transformed.
- Explain why the achievement you have highlighted is unique or significant. If possible compare the achievement to the performance of other players in your industry and/or to the organization's past performance (up to 250 words):
Total 217 words used.
Zywave’s support transformation stands out for turning a traditional cost center into a strategic value creator. In an industry where call centers often hover around average manager NPS scores below 30, we soared from 53 in 2022 to 90 in 2024. Our “closed loop” mindset—reviewing ~300 negative surveys yearly—boosted CSAT to 93% overall (94%+ in some areas) and cut Learning Management System cases by 36%. Meanwhile, proactive communication and technology helped slash chat abandonment from 30% to under 4% and phone abandonment from 30% to under 7%, outperforming many industry peers. Average phone wait times dropped from seven minutes to under two, well below typical benchmarks.
On the innovation front, we assess 100% of interactions with Conversational Intelligence (vs. ~5% with typical surveys), using AI to proactively detect sentiment and prevent escalations. Less than 0.4% of our cases now escalate, compared to the industry norm of 1–2%. Macros and quick texts in Salesforce save 90,000 minutes annually, allowing agents to focus on complex issues. We also shrank our backlog by 60%, from over 3,000 to under 1,200.
These achievements demonstrate not just record performance for Zywave but also a new benchmark for the sector: a support organization that drives revenue, retention, and collaboration through empowered leadership, cutting-edge technology, and an unwavering customer-first culture.
- Reference any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):
Total 249 words used.
Supporting materials have been attached to this submission to validate our claims.
Improved Same Day Resolution KPIs from 47% of cases resolved to 60% - showing 28% improvement to the baseline. Reference - see row 7
Improved Abandoned calls from 30% + range to 7 % range in the second half of the year. Reference - see row 6
YTD CSAT average score is 93% with higher scores achieved with improved phone abandonments in the 2nd half of 2024. Reference - see row 3
Improvements in our digital support metrics for our support.zywave.com support site stats - reference
Support site traffic increase claim with 14% increase for active users, 26% new users increase and 67% increase in engaged sessions showing our investments in self service results resulting in customers solving their own issues - reference
Zywave has worked with Spiky.AI to leverage the gold mine of data.
Other worthy materials include:
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Customer Surveys & Testimonials: Links below provide evidence of CSAT scores and customer feedback, showcasing the dedication we have to our support experience and the impact that our relationship management service has on our customers’ satisfaction. In addition, we’ll sometimes receive personalized messages from customers like the attached commending our staff’s excellence.
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