How Sardine replaced Zendesk in 5 Days and supercharged support

Challenges

With too many tools and not enough visibility, Sardine needed a better way to support B2B and B2C customers‍

Sardine is an AI risk platform that helps merchants and financial services businesses prevent fraud, automate compliance, and unify data across their risk teams. As the company scaled, their team faced the challenge of supporting two very different audiences: high-touch enterprise B2B accounts and a fast-moving base of consumer clients. Sardine was using Zendesk to manage tickets, Slack to talk to B2B customers, and other tools like Zapier to fill in the gaps.

As Sardine rapidly expanded to serve major enterprises, support operations needed to scale accordingly. The team was managing increasing volumes across multiple channels, and they recognized the opportunity to create a more unified and efficient system that could grow with the business.

"We chose Pylon to modernize our customer support infrastructure to better serve the needs of enterprise customers like FIS, GoDaddy, and Coinbase, who needed a more white-glove experience with tighter SLA windows and personalized, expert guidance. Pylon's platform enabled us to unify our operations and leverage AI capabilities at scale."
_{‍Duke Puniani, Head of Post-Sales at Sardine}

Solutions

After migrating from Zendesk in just 5 days, Sardine had one multi-functional tool with Pylon

Sardine turned to Pylon to centralize their support across B2B and B2C and build a more scalable post-sales experience. The team migrated 120,000 archived and active tickets, 50+ custom workflows, and 135 teammates off Zendesk in 5 days — with zero downtime.

“We didn’t just need a better help desk. We needed a system that could handle enterprise customers and high-volume support without missing anything.”
_{‍Julie Hendricks, B2C Customer Success Manager & Teresa Foye, Team Leads B2B Account Management}

Pylon worked side by side with Sardine’s engineering and support teams to rebuild every critical workflow, like moving 20+ Zapier automations into simpler, native Pylon workflows. As they migrated, the teams also streamlined complex processes and improved how internal teams worked together.

Today, Sardine uses Pylon as its core platform for post-sales operations. Everyone from account managers and fraud analysts to integration teams and compliance specialists works in the same place. Internal conversations stay linked to customer issues, and the right people can jump in without being tagged or looped in over email.

“No migration is perfect. But the way Pylon’s team listened, partnered with us, and moved fast gave me real confidence. They cared about what mattered to our business.”
_{‍Duke Puniani, Head of Post-Sales}

With Pylon, Sardine now:

• Centralizes conversations across Slack and Teams, spanning more than 400 customer channels
• Supports both B2B and B2C workflows in one place, including 24/7 global support
• Manages everything from onboarding and integration to fraud response and account strategy in a single shared workspace
• Surfaces insights and answers with AI tools like Ask AI and AI-drafted replies
• Eliminates manual tracking, context switching, and back-and-forth between disconnected and antiquated systems

“We’re still the same size team, but we’re supporting 6x the business volume. That kind of scale just isn’t possible without an AI and collaboration first system like Pylon.”
_{Duke Puniani, Head of Post-Sales}

Results

Enterprise-ready support, scaled without headcount or compromises

• Full Zendesk migration in 5 days, including 120,000 tickets, 50+ workflows, and 20+ external automations
• First response time decreased 90%, from 35 minutes to under 3.5 minutes, while maintaining 24/7 coverage across time zones
• 6x company growth supported by the same support team size, showing Pylon's ability to accelerate post sales and support processes with previously unimaginable efficiency
• ~35% reduction in manual support hours, despite a 25% increase in ticket volume
• 7 cross-functional teams unified in Pylon, reducing silos and improving collaboration across B2B and B2C operations
• Power their journey towards best-in-class service and customer retention, as attested by G2, awarding them a grid leader

“Pylon isn’t just a tool. It’s a partner and a copilot. It keeps our teams connected, our customers supported, and our business moving.”
_{Duke Puniani, Head of Post-Sales}