ABBYY builds Document AI and Process AI solutions for enterprises automating document-heavy workflows. Its support operation spans three teams and several customer types, each with its own service expectations, business hours, and regional needs. At that scale, exactly when an SLA timer starts, pauses, and stops makes a real difference.
What happens after the first reply
Zendesk's native SLA tools measure First Response. That's a sensible starting point, but it says nothing about what happens once the first reply has gone out, and for ABBYY that gap was an operational risk.
A single First Response timer applied the same way to every ticket couldn't show whether agents were keeping customers updated along the way. There was no way to track intermediary updates, no way to set business hours by customer type or location, and no detail beyond whether the first response landed in time. For a team that holds itself to high standards across the whole customer journey, measuring only the first reply wasn't enough.
Timers for the whole life of a ticket
ABBYY deployed Performset to build SLAs that match how its support operation actually works, including intermediary update timers modeled on Interim Progress.
First response and intermediary update timers are set to the minute. Business hours and regional calendars are mapped to specific customer types, so an enterprise customer in one region runs on a different clock from another segment in another time zone. Agents see live timers directly in Zendesk, and the ticket timeline shows where each ticket stands against its SLA at any moment. A Chrome extension adds another layer of prioritization, flagging tickets that need attention before their timers breach.
Accountability at every stage
The intermediary timers changed how the team works. SLA compliance is no longer a single moment at the start of a ticket; agents keep track of their obligations all the way to resolution, and that ongoing accountability speeds up action at every stage, not just the first reply.
ABBYY reports improved overall ticket resolution time as a direct result. The team also credits the support it received from Cloudset and cites it as one reason it recommends Performset to peers.
In Viacheslav's words
"Delivering a superior customer experience is a core value at ABBYY. Improving our overall ticket resolution time by focusing more on the intermediary response timers helps us effectively meet SLAs and achieve customer excellence standards. The support from Cloudset has been amazing, and we would definitely recommend Performset."
Viacheslav Prodan, Senior Director of Systems, Processes and Automations at ABBYY
Measuring what customers actually experience
By measuring the middle of a ticket as well as the start, ABBYY's SLAs now reflect what customers go through. Agents know what is due and when, and leaders can see whether commitments are being kept across every team, region, and customer type.
