Just like most people think of apples when they hear “fruit,” many companies think of Zendesk when it comes to help desk platforms.
But is it really that popular? And more importantly, should you consider using it as your own customer support platform?
In this post, we’ll break down what makes Zendesk stand out, why leading companies choose it, and learn about how top Zendesk customers (like Uber, Upwork, and Vimeo) benefit from the platform.
What Is Zendesk?
As for how many customers Zendesk has, you’ll be amazed. As of 2025, the global list of Zendesk customers includes more than 182,000 companies. And this number continues to grow because Zendesk is more than just another help desk.
What makes Zendesk special?
Zendesk shines, in part, thanks to its strong use of AI. Its AI agents can handle simple customer inquiries on their own, holding natural, context-aware conversations, and can even take action through APIs. Its AI copilot supports reps in real time, suggesting replies and next steps as chats unfold. Zendesk also uses generative AI to power its knowledge base search, so customers can find the right answers fast.
Other notable features include side conversations for private team chats, dynamic dashboards that adapt for each agent, and comment-only agents — all designed to support customers faster.
Zendesk’s Status in the Global Customer Support Market
Zendesk’s numbers speak for themselves.
The customer service platform holds around 28% of the customer support market and powers 0.1% of all known websites. Its reach is truly global — about 55% of Zendesk clients are in the U.S., 29% in EMEA, and 10% in APAC regions. Impressively, more than half of Zendesk’s revenue now comes from outside the U.S.
And as one of the largest customer support platforms, it isn’t slowing down. With 85% of customer interactions expected to be handled without a human agent, Zendesk continues to invest in AI-driven service frameworks to stay ahead.
No wonder big names like Shopify, Uber, and Etsy are among the companies that use Zendesk. So, what makes Zendesk stand out to these and other top brands?
Why Top Brands Are Customers of Zendesk Service Platform
Scalable сustomer support
Zendesk runs on a subscription model, with plans starting at $19 and going up to $169 per agent per month (as of 2025). Feature sets differ across plans, and advanced tools can be added as needed, so you can unlock more tools as your team or request volume grows. There’s an option to add reps from external teams with the comment-only access, which helps teams collaborate without increasing their cost.
Zendesk also makes scaling easier through automation. From ticket routing and follow-up to GenAI and agentic AI tools, it helps support teams handle more requests with less manual work.
Omnichannel capabilities
Zendesk lets you support customers across email, phone, live chat, and social channels like Instagram and WhatsApp, all without jumping between tools. Its AI agents can also reply through all of these channels. In addition, your team can respond to customer posts on Facebook and X directly from within Zendesk.
This way, companies that use Zendesk stay connected wherever customers prefer to reach out.
Analytics and reporting
Zendesk makes it easy to track what’s happening across your support communication channels. You get prebuilt dashboards that show trends for ticket volume, rep performance, and more. Plus, using drag-and-drop widgets, anyone, regardless of technical skill, can build a customized dashboard with whatever real-time insights are critical for your team.
It also has analytics for its AI agents to show you how many requests those agents resolve, transfer, or escalate. It reports voice usage, analyzes business rules, and has Google Analytics for your help center to add even more depth to your metrics. And with Zendesk Benchmark, you can compare your results with similar teams to spot areas for improvement.
Customization and integration options
Zendesk is easy to tailor to your team’s work processes. You can build custom workflows, adjust ticket fields and contact forms, and even personalize your AI agents’ names, avatars, and tone to match your brand. Your team can benefit from dynamic workspaces that adapt automatically to fit their daily tasks, and can design dashboards that show only the insights they need.
Zendesk is a versatile customer support tool that works well across industries.
Zendesk Customers by Industry
From airlines to fintech, Zendesk’s platform adapts to how each industry supports its customers, helping teams work faster, stay organized, and deliver consistent service at any scale.
E-commerce & retail
Zendesk helps retailers handle peak-season spikes with ease. AI can help reps manage over 80% of routine issues, like returns and tracking, and teams can use copilots for quick insights.
It helped Next reduce its average time to handle support emails by 92% and saved Lush $434k annually.
Transportation & on-demand logistics services
Zendesk streamlines travel and delivery support. Using connected communication channels, AI agents handle simple requests while human teams focus on more complex cases.
Ryanair uses Zendesk to manage millions of requests from passengers and speed up response times, saving €2.5 million a year.
On-premises & cloud-based software companies
Both on-premises software companies and SaaS support teams use Zendesk to automate routine tasks and improve collaboration. AI agents resolve simple issues, while integrations with tools like Jira and Slack keep engineers and reps aligned for handling major incidents.
Zendesk’s self-service feature helped Unity deflect almost 8,000 tickets in one year, saving the gaming software provider $1.3 million.
Financial services
Zendesk helps fintechs and banks provide fast, reliable service. AI agents handle everyday questions, and dashboards track compliance in real time.
Fintech company Paysend supports over seven million customers in 170 countries using Zendesk. With Zendesk’s self-service feature, Paysend reduced its ticket volume for live agents by one third, compared to before implementing Zendesk.
Media & entertainment
Media companies benefit from Zendesk greatly, too.
For example, Mediaocean, a media and software advertising company based in New York City, uses Zendesk to support over 100,000 customers worldwide. The platform’s AI-powered knowledge base helps users find answers fast, and reports trending help topics so teams can update content before issues grow.
Across industries, companies that use Zendesk see tangible results. Let’s take a closer look at a few case studies.
How Zendesk Empowers Shopify, Uber, Siemens, Upwork, and Vimeo
If you visit Zendesk’s success stories page, you’ll find the names of many big companies there. Here are some successes of a few top companies that use Zendesk.
Shopify
Shopify has been on the Zendesk customer list since the early days of the former. The Shopify platform grew quickly, and the support team needed tools that could keep up.
Zendesk’s fast loading times and live data made life smoother for everyone. Its integrations were a game-changer. The Twilio API turned the help desk into a full call center, and Salesforce integration made support more personal.
These tools boosted Shopify’s sales, now at more than $20 billion, with a 92% CSAT, and a support team that’s grown from a handful of agents to hundreds.
Uber
Uber became a Zendesk client during its early days, and Zendesk helped Uber scale its customer support worldwide.
Today, the Uber mobile app is among those of companies that use Zendesk live chat heavily. When Uber started in Boston in 2014, it handled about 100 chats a week. Now it handles over 30,000 chats weekly in the U.S. and over 10 million globally. Chat powers driver onboarding and Uber Eats to connect customers, couriers, and restaurants in real time while keeping CSAT above 95%. Automated routing and smart permissions keep conversations moving quickly and provide a consistent customer experience.
Siemens
Siemens Financial Services set out to make its customer support experience faster and more personal across its global teams. With Zendesk, more than 600 agents now work from one shared platform, seeing every customer interaction in one view. AI takes care of routine data requests — nearly 30% of all inquiries — and human reps focus on more complex conversations.
The results are impressive: productivity in the Nordics jumped 23% and customer satisfaction climbed to 86%, beating the 83% benchmark.
Upwork
Upwork is also in the list of Zendesk service platform customers. The world’s leading marketplace for freelancers uses Zendesk to handle over 600,000 support tickets a year across email, chat, and social media.
Over 300 support agents, many of them freelancers themselves, help keep turnover below 5%. Zendesk’s tools make it easier for teams to manage conversations and understand customer needs. Integrations like Forethought now resolve 58% of chatbot interactions, while UnitQ spots recurring issues early.
Vimeo
Vimeo, the world’s leading video experience platform, partnered with Zendesk to rebuild and modernize Vimeo’s support operations.
Now handling 54,000 monthly tickets across 1.7 million subscribers in over 190 countries, Vimeo runs global support in five languages with fast, reliable data and processes. Integrations with Salesforce, Jira, and Slack improved collaboration, while Zendesk dashboards cut median first reply time to five hours and resolution to 16.6 hours. CSAT rose to nearly 90%, which boosted agent confidence and made customer support more efficient than ever.
Customers who moved to Zendesk with Help Desk Migration
Many companies across industries have trusted Help Desk Migration to quickly and securely migrate their data to Zendesk. From entertainment and technology to consulting and gaming, these organizations streamlined their transitions, preserved data accuracy, and kept support operations running without interruption.
- RED Digital Cinema (Irvine, California): A leader in digital cinematography, RED migrated around 3,000 customers and 7,000 tickets from CSV files into Zendesk using Help Desk Migration. With no built-in export tools in their previous system, they avoided costly in-house development by opting for an automated, secure, and efficient migration that preserved data integrity and allowed instant access to historical records.
- Koda Support (Sydney, Australia): This global consulting firm, specializing in customer support and help desk implementations, moved from Front to Zendesk with Help Desk Migration. The automated migration and pre-built customizations ensured all data, including CCs, was transferred seamlessly, supporting their mission to deliver smooth transitions for clients.
- Dovetail Games (Kent, UK): The award-winning simulation game developer migrated its Freshdesk data to Zendesk using the Standard plan. With full guidance and minimal effort, Dovetail successfully preserved its entire customer database, maintaining service continuity and player support efficiency.
Conclusion
It seems like almost every big company relies on Zendesk for customer support, and that’s not just a feeling. Zendesk’s customer list is evidence. Its popularity is well-earned: Zendesk is a powerful, constantly evolving platform that continually sets the standard for great customer service.
Have you decided to become one of the companies that uses Zendesk? If so, Help Desk Migration can help you move your contact list and other customer data, tickets, knowledge base articles, and related support information quickly and securely.
FAQs About Zendesk Customers
Over 182,000 companies worldwide use Zendesk to power their customer support operations.
Leading companies use Zendesk for its scalability, AI automation, omnichannel support, and robust analytics that improve both agent efficiency and customer satisfaction.
Zendesk is popular across e-commerce, transportation, software, fintech, and media — serving businesses from Shopify to Siemens and Paysend.
Zendesk combines powerful AI agents, intuitive dashboards, omnichannel capabilities, and over 1,000 integrations that adapt to any business model.
Yes. Zendesk lets support teams manage email, chat, calls, and social media (like WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook) from one place.
Zendesk AI agents handle simple tickets, suggest replies, power knowledge base searches, and automate repetitive workflows to save time.
Absolutely. Zendesk’s subscription-based pricing and automation tools allow teams to scale easily as their customer base expands.
Shopify achieved 92% CSAT, Ryanair saved €2.5 million annually, and Unity saved $1.3 million in deflected tickets thanks to Zendesk’s automation.
Zendesk has a truly global customer base. About 55% of Zendesk’s users are located in the United States, 29% are based in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), and around 10% operate in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. Notably, more than half of Zendesk’s total revenue now comes from outside the U.S., reflecting its growing international influence.
Yes. Moving to Zendesk is straightforward with specialized migration tools like Help Desk Migration. The process securely transfers tickets, contacts, companies, and knowledge base articles from your old system to Zendesk without downtime. You can even test the process with a free demo migration to verify data accuracy before launching the full transfer.