How Zuora reimagined their workplace experience and cut ticket volume by over 50%

When Karthik Chakkarapani stepped into his role as SVP of Corporate Operations and CIO at Zuora, one thing was clear: the way work happened across the company needed to change.

Zuora is a leading subscription management platform which helps global enterprises launch, scale, and manage their finances in a world powered by recurring revenue. Behind their rapid success of the last decade is a workforce of over 1,600 employees spread across 15 offices in the USA, Europe, Asia and Australia. Their goal: To deliver exceptional customer experiences for today’s subscription economy.

But as a high-growth company operating across departments, tools, and geographies, complexity had crept in so much that it was slowing them down. Departments operated in silos. Work happened across a patchwork of tools. Employees struggled to find what they needed, and support teams were bogged down with routine requests like password resets and app access.  

Information wasn’t the problem anymore. It was access. It was finding the right piece of information at the right time, with context, and acting on it effortlessly. - Sangeeta Roy, VP of Digital Workplace Experience at Zuora

They had outgrown their internal stack, which combined Jira Service Management (JSM) with a custom-built AI chatbot named Zoe. JSM was rigid, difficult to update, and couldn’t adapt to modern workflows. The in-house chatbot while offering some deflection, was ultimately a bolt-on solution—limited in accuracy, hard to scale, and lacking the contextual understanding needed to truly support employees.

Karthik and his team needed to rethink how to simplify their tech stack, remove friction and let employees focus on high-impact work.

Looking beyond the status quo

But solving complexity isn’t just about layering new tools onto old problems. The answer lay in implementing a system that made work smarter, seamless, and more human.

That ruled out most of what was on the market. Incumbents were weighed down by technical debt and inflexible workflows, retrofitting AI into legacy systems. Other modern tools required extensive configuration and ongoing maintenance, adding complexity instead of removing it. What Zuora needed was different—something built for the world they were moving into, not the one they were leaving behind.  

That’s where Atomicwork stood out. Our product philosophy was rooted in building for the future, with AI, automation, and adaptability at the core, unlocking workflows that traditional tools had never attempted to solve.

We needed a partner who would truly work with us. Atomicwork’s strategic vision and roadmap were already 90% aligned with what we were trying to build. - Sangeeta Roy, VP of Digital Workplace Experience at Zuora

More than a vendor, a true partner

The partnership between Zuora and Atomicwork quickly went beyond standard implementation. It was co-creation in action, beginning in early 2024 with deep discovery sessions, aligning Atomicwork’s platform to Zuora’s enterprise goals.

Vijay Rayapati, CEO of Atomicwork, recalls, “The Zuora team wasn’t just using our product and gaining value out of it; they were constantly pushing us to deliver more and think ahead to the next set of problems.”

Feedback loops were fast and constant, decisions were collaborative, and both teams were deeply invested in building a solution tailored to Zuora’s needs. Together, we tackled challenges openly and quickly, co-creating analytics dashboards, refining form logic, and adding AI controls to fine-tune responses.  

The Atomicwork team was with us every step of the way. We defined sprints, burned them down, and delivered on time. They were willing to stretch with us, to build, co-develop, and respond quickly to feedback. - Mark Gill, Head of Infrastructure and Operations at Zuora

Delivering value to employees and teams

Zuora rolled out Phase 1 of Atomicwork to its employees, for IT and HR support in just 4 months from POC.

Atomicwork was embedded directly into Slack as Zoe, integrated with tools like Jira, Kandji and Okta, transforming it into a smart helpdesk.

The impact was immediate. Employees could now find information, track requests and collaborate with support teams in a single flow. “Users love that Zoe acts as a one-stop shop,” said Tara Rajan, User Experience Designer & Researcher. “They can see all their requests in one place, right inside Slack, without switching tools.”  

This streamlined experience extended to managers too—approving requests and closing loops directly in Slack.

Support teams gained powerful insights into what was working—and what wasn’t. “The analytics help us see exactly which parts of a conversation are helpful or unhelpful,” said Privi Venkat, Analyst in the Digital Workplace team. “It saves us time and helps us improve content where it matters most.”

Early wins, tangible results

By December 2024, the impact was clear.

But the biggest shift was cultural. “We rethought a lot of old processes and let go of legacy workflows,” said Mark. “Atomicwork let us do things we never considered possible before.”

The success in IT quickly spread across the business. HR workflows were secured with role-based access. Offboarding and role change journeys were automated. Finance saw faster approvals and tighter SLA tracking.

When Zuora rolled out a new travel and expense system, Zoe handled 70–75% of employee questions within the first six weeks.

“It helped the new system land smoother,” said Sangeeta. “Finance could focus on critical tasks, and employees got immediate answers. That’s the power of great change management paired with intelligent automation.”

Looking to the future

Zuora is now working toward a single AI interface that connects over 150 SaaS apps—what Karthik calls the “agent of agents.” From sales to legal, the goal is to bring all enterprise knowledge, requests, and actions into one unified experience for employees.

“We want employees to stop thinking about which tool to use,” said Karthik. “They should just ask—and it gets done. Imagine an employee needing to book travel, access a specific application, or understand a HR policy – all handled through a single, intelligent interface.”

Tactically, the team is looking to reduce ESM ticket volume by 80% and scale self-service across every function, over the next few months.

As Sangeeta summed it up: "Our ultimate goal is simple – remove all friction so employees can just get work done. With Atomicwork, we’re closer than ever."