TransferGo scales CX for global money transfers with Zendesk AI

TransferGo was founded in 2012 by four migrant friends who met at university in the U.K. and understood the challenges faced by expatriates living away from their home countries. They wanted to make international transfers more fair—and less expensive—for hard-working people.

Building trust in difficult circumstances

Money is often a sensitive issue. Concerns about finances can trigger wide-ranging emotions—especially for people far away from their families in a country they don’t call home.

“As we scale globally, we never want to lose the trust of our customers,” says Marta Survilo, VP of Customer Experience and Operations at TransferGo. “Being available when customers need us—and resolving issues quickly—is non-negotiable for us.”

TransferGo operates across 160 countries, supporting people who often rely on the platform for urgent, high-stakes financial needs—bringing both operational complexity and emotional responsibility.

Survilo oversees a distributed support organization of more than 60 agents across multiple hubs, working alongside Zendesk AI agents to provide continuous coverage. While automation handles most routine requests, human agents remain central in moments that require empathy and trust.

“There are cases where customers feel extremely vulnerable—like when they believe they’ve been scammed,” she says. “In those moments, the last thing we want is an automated response. We want to be there for them and show that we’re a partner they can rely on.”

For TransferGo, being “always on” is not a competitive advantage—it’s a baseline expectation.

“In a fast-moving industry like fintech, being available 24/7 isn’t a perk,” Survilo says. “AI has helped us meet that standard without compromising on care or quality.”

360-degree view of the customer

TransferGo has used Zendesk as the foundation of its customer service operations from the early stages of the company’s growth. As the organization scaled, it consolidated customer service and other operational teams into Zendesk, creating a single operational framework for customer interactions.

“That consolidation was critical to gaining visibility across our operations,” Survilo explains.

Zendesk’s extensibility has also played a key role as TransferGo evolved from basic automation to autonomous resolution.

“As we progressed, we empowered our AI agents through deeper API integrations,” Survilo says. “The next step was enabling them to take direct actions—issuing refunds, canceling orders, or creating new ones.”

That shift fundamentally changed how customer support operates at TransferGo.

“Our AI agents don’t just guide customers—they execute the tasks,” Survilo explains. “This has been a game changer for customer satisfaction and how our teams spend their time.”

Messaging-first strategy enhances AI

As TransferGo continued to grow, customer expectations evolved alongside it. By late 2024, the team identified a new way customers wanted to engage—moving away from slower, asynchronous channels toward live conversations.

“We saw a clear shift toward real-time interactions,” Survilo says. “So we transformed our channel strategy with a messaging-first philosophy.”

Messaging now accounts for 92 percent of TransferGo’s total support volume, making it the company’s dominant customer communication channel. Email and voice remain available, but are reserved for high-touch or highly sensitive cases.

“Messaging allows us to use AI much more effectively,” Survilo notes. “It lets us meet customers where they already are while delivering fast, secure, and empathetic support.”

Supporting this strategy is TransferGo’s help center, treated as a living knowledge base. Instead of a traditional FAQ, it enables both AI and human agents to deliver more accurate, context-aware responses. Regular audits ensure documentation keeps pace with product and regulatory changes, strengthening consistency across every interaction.

With routine inquiries handled automatically by Zendesk AI agents, human agents now have more time to focus on complex, high-empathy cases that require a human touch—reinforcing the connection between employee expertise and customer trust.

From answers to action with AI-powered resolutions

As transaction volumes climbed, TransferGo needed a way to provide 24/7 multilingual support without sacrificing quality—or adding unsustainable costs.

“Our goal was to stay lean while remaining available to customers whenever they needed us,” says Survilo. “AI was the only way to do that at scale.”

Instead of deploying automation all at once, the team took a phased approach. They started with simple “how-to” scenarios, then expanded into deeper use cases like transfer status updates through API integrations.

Today, TransferGo’s AI agent handle rate is 74 percent, meaning nearly three-quarters of customer inquiries are resolved without human intervention. Because Zendesk is SOC 2 certified, customers can trust that their sensitive financial data is handled securely.

The integration of AI has enhanced the company’s operational capacity, enabling TransferGo to manage customer volume with 38 percent greater departmental efficiency.

“Now, our agents have the time and emotional bandwidth to really support customers when they feel vulnerable,” Survilo adds. “That human connection is where we create the most value.”

From reactive decisions to operational clarity

As the organization scaled, visibility became just as critical as automation. Growing volumes and a distributed workforce made it increasingly difficult to align staffing with real-time demand.

“With the consolidation onto Zendesk, the immediate benefit was access to centralized insights,” Survilo explains. “The biggest shift was moving from anecdotal observation to data-driven visibility.”

By leveraging Zendesk’s WFM (workforce managemnt) tool, agent utilization increased by 25 percent, helping the team operate more efficiently during peak hours while maintaining consistent service levels.

“Zendesk WFM gave us the lens we needed to optimize how we staff and plan,” Survilo says. “It’s allowed us to stabilize performance and ensure our resources are consistently aligned with real-time demand.”

AI = enhanced customer and employee experiences

For TransferGo, investing in AI is one of the key drivers of higher productivity. By automating customer inquiries and using AI agents to cover overnight demand, the company significantly reduced manual workload while maintaining always-on support. The use of AI also helps deliver better experiences for both customers and employees.

Higher productivity and positive experiences aren’t the only benefits. Automation drove meaningful savings in cost per CX transaction, while workforce management played a critical supporting role by improving visibility and decision-making across teams.

Ultimately, TransferGo isn’t using AI solely to reduce costs. “With Zendesk AI, operations are more efficient overall, and any cost savings are simply an added benefit,” says Survilo.