honeygain.com
In just 3 weeks, Ace Waves replaced Honeygain’s underperforming Zendesk AI chatbot, boosting CSAT from 46% to 79% and deflection from 52% to 87% with accurate, empathetic, and safe AI conversations.
Honeygain Moves From Zendesk's Robotic Chatbot To Human-Like AI Agents
Honeygain is the world’s largest crowdsourced web intelligence network
Primary support channel where AI agents are deployed: Chatbot
Chatbot interface: Zendesk
Honeygain’s challenge
Honeygain is the world’s largest crowdsourced web intelligence network, with over 4.2 million monthly visits and more than 2.1 million chatbot conversations every year. For many visitors, that chatbot is the very first interaction with the brand.
Honeygain’s chatbot serves a dual purpose:
- Converts new users: educates potential customers about the product, answers key questions, and helps them decide whether to join.
- Supports existing customers: resolves issues, clarifies policies, and provides 24/7 assistance in any language.
With Zendesk’s native AI chatbot, both missions were falling short:
- Low deflection rate: only 52% of queries were deflected, leaving nearly half to the human agents.
- Low CSAT: satisfaction scores sat at just 46%.
- Robotic and irrelevant responses: created frustration rather than trust. New visitors left before signing up. Existing customers escalated simple issues to human agents.
The result was higher operational costs, longer wait times, and erosion of brand credibility right at the digital front door.
“Our previous chatbot wasn’t the experience we wanted to deliver. With Ace Waves, users feel like they’re talking to a human; we don’t even need a ‘Talk to Human’ button anymore. It’s nothing like the old robotic bot.
Sandra Krikštaponytė,
Product Owner, Honeygain
Multiple AI attempts: one clear winner - Ace Waves
Before partnering with Ace Waves, Honeygain tested several AI-powered support solutions - including Zendesk’s latest AI offering. All promised more than they delivered. Accuracy gaps, long, rigid responses, high-maintenance intent-based configuration, and escalating costs made it hard to justify the investment. The technology simply wasn’t living up to the Gen AI promise.
Ace Waves took a different approach: human-like AI agents fully embedded in Honeygain’s existing Zendesk chatbot interface, requiring no workflow changes or customer retraining.
Within just 3 weeks, agents were live: fluent in 90+ languages, grounded in Honeygain’s latest knowledge base, custom business tasks, and operating with strict hallucination-prevention and safety guardrails. It combined speed with human-like tone, ensuring users always received relevant, brand-aligned answers.
Business impact
- Customer Satisfaction: jumped from 46% to 79%, turning frustrated users into loyal customers.
- Deflection Rate: improved from 52% to 87%, reducing load on human agents.
- Resolution Speed: instant answers, 24/7 in any language, perfect SLA even with high volumes.
- Operational Overhead: eliminated the need for constant decision-tree-based retuning and manual maintenance.
- Competitive Proof: outperformed Zendesk’s own AI in resolution rates, accuracy, and satisfaction during head-to-head pilot testing.
Easy transition
From the customer’s perspective, nothing about the interface changed - only the experience. Conversations that once felt scripted and frustrating were now fluid, helpful, and accurate. Potential customers received clear, confident answers that encouraged sign-ups. Existing customers got issues resolved instantly, without waiting in queues.
For Honeygain’s support team, the transition was equally smooth. The AI agent integrated directly into their existing stack, accessed all the same tools as human agents, and began handling real conversations from day one. Safe escalation protocols ensured no brand-risk responses. The result was a near-immediate lift in both user trust and team productivity.
“We had tried AI before, but it did more harm than good. Ace Waves turned our first interaction into an asset: fast, accurate, and on-brand. For the first time, I trust the AI to represent us.
Sandra Krikštaponytė,
Product Owner, Honeygain
What’s next
With AI agents now handling most frontline support, Honeygain’s CX team no longer spends its days firefighting tickets. Instead, they operate as strategists - shaping the customer journey, refining the knowledge base, and designing new ways for the brand to engage and retain users.
The shift has elevated the team’s role from reactive problem-solvers to proactive drivers of customer loyalty and growth.