Stewart Golf, the premium electric golf trolley manufacturer, has slashed first response times from as long as 72 hours to one minute and held a 100% customer satisfaction score for four straight weeks after deploying Crescendo's AI platform. The AI assistant, branded "Stewie," now resolves 75% of customer enquiries across chat and email, giving the company 24/7 support coverage without increasing headcount-a tangible proof point for support teams grappling with peak volumes and limited staffing.
No more waiting on the fairway
Before the rollout, every support ticket went to a UK-based team working British hours. Weekend coverage was thin, so a golfer in Florida might wait days for an answer that already existed in the company's knowledge base. During Black Friday, bank holidays, and the start of golf season, the backlog could swell into the thousands. Nathan Hooper, Head of Customer Experience at Stewart Golf, estimated the company would have needed to increase its support headcount by 50% to maintain service during peaks and weekends.
The company initially tried building automated workflows in Zendesk and evaluated native AI features, but found those options lacked the conversational experience customers expected. Crescendo demonstrated a working AI assistant using Stewart Golf's existing Zendesk knowledge base within days. The assistant delivers on-brand responses and hands off complex cases to human agents in an average of 24 seconds.
How Stewie delivers around-the-clock support
Stewie handles routine questions about products, deliveries, warranties, and troubleshooting instantly. For more complex issues, the platform escalates to a human agent with full context. This blend of AI and human expertise allowed Stewart Golf to provide consistent support across US and UK time zones without adding staff. The internal team now focuses on high-value customer problems rather than repetitive enquiries.
"Working with Crescendo has changed what we thought was possible in customer experience," Hooper said. "The platform didn't just solve our coverage gaps, it gave us a level of consistency and quality we'd never been able to achieve before. Four consecutive weeks of 100% customer satisfaction isn't something I ever expected to see, and that's a direct result of what Crescendo has built. Stewie has become a genuine extension of our brand."
Results that speak for themselves
The impact is measurable:
- 75% of enquiries resolved by AI across chat and email
- First response times down from 24-72 hours to one minute
- Average escalation from AI to human agent: 24 seconds
- 24/7 coverage across the UK and US
- Internal teams freed for complex issues
Matt Price, CEO of Crescendo, said the approach was about building an experience, not just cutting costs. "Most AI companies think about AI in customer support as a cost problem to solve. Stewart Golf saw it as an experience to build. That mindset is exactly why their results speak for themselves - from multi-day response times to five-star reviews. What comes next is even more exciting, with that same intelligence moving seamlessly from answering questions today to guiding purchases tomorrow. The best sales tool they'd have is just great service."
The platform improves with every interaction. Crescendo's Automatic QA scores every conversation, and Stewart Golf's team reviews edge cases to update their knowledge base. The company plans to implement Crescendo's AI Shopping Assistant later, enabling Stewie to guide customers from support chats to purchase recommendations.
Why this matters for customer support professionals
Stewart Golf's deployment shows that AI can handle the bulk of repetitive queries without sacrificing satisfaction, provided the knowledge base is well-maintained and escalation paths are fast. For customer support teams, the lesson is clear: pairing AI with a strong content foundation can turn a support bottleneck into a 24/7 operation without a proportional increase in headcount. For teams evaluating similar tools, resources like AI for Customer Support can help frame the conversation. And for professionals who want to build the skills to manage AI-augmented workflows, an AI Learning Path for User Support Specialists offers a structured starting point.
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