The company
Founded in 2014, Bolt has grown rapidly by connecting 80M+ shoppers with leading merchants like Revolve, Kendra Scott, and Lilly Pulitzer through their innovative payment solutions. The company has raised over $1 billion in funding and operates with a mission to democratize commerce by making online buying easy, trusted, and consistent for both merchants and shoppers.
We spoke with Elec Boothe, Senior Manager of Support and Technical Writing at Bolt, to learn why they switched to DevRev and how they've used the platform to transform their support and product operations.
The challenge
Prior to DevRev, Bolt struggled with fragmented support systems that couldn't scale with their rapid business growth. The team handled inefficient workflows that forced support agents to spend valuable time on routine tasks instead of focusing on customer needs.
Support, product, and engineering teams worked in isolation, creating significant barriers to effective issue resolution. For a company serving both merchants and shoppers, providing consistent support across their dual customer base proved increasingly challenging. Limited self-service options led to a growing volume of support tickets, further straining their resources.
Their help-site search functionality was particularly problematic, requiring manual intervention and creating friction in merchant interactions. With their business expanding rapidly, Bolt needed a more robust, integrated solution that could scale with their growth while improving both the merchant and shopper experience.
The solution
In early 2024, Bolt implemented DevRev to unify their support and product development operations. DevRev connected Bolt's entire customer-facing organization, bringing together support, product, and engineering teams on a single platform.
The migration was seamless and efficient, and the DevOps side was notably easy. Within just two weeks, we successfully imported around 200,000 Zendesk tickets and 800 knowledge base articles along with 12 workflows.
Elec BootheSenior Manager, Support and Technical Writing, Bolt
Bolt focused on implementing several key DevRev features, including AirDrop for data migration, multi-channel inbox for Email and PLuG, workflow automations, and a comprehensive knowledge base integration. They also deployed the PLuG widget for in-website customer support, enabling merchants to access help without leaving the platform.
A particular highlight was DevRev's search functionality, which transformed Bolt's help-site experience:
DevRev significantly improved our help-site by developing a search widget that automates and enhances information retrieval, solving traditional manual searching issues and streamlining merchant interactions.
Elec BootheSenior Manager, Support and Technical Writing, Bolt
The impact
Since implementing DevRev, Bolt has seen real improvements across the board. The unified platform has led to significantly faster issue resolution and product development cycles:
- Support teams resolve tickets up to 40% faster
- A 25% boost in customer retention by solving issues proactively
Product teams achieved a 35% faster release cycle for customer-requested improvements.
The transition to DevRev was so smooth that our merchants didn't even realize it had occurred. We are now leveraging more of DevRev's capabilities, and both our team and our merchants are very excited about the possibilities.
Elec BootheSenior Manager, Support and Technical Writing, Bolt
Data-backed transformation
With the launch of PLuG search in June 2024, Bolt saw a clear uptick in self-service success:
- AI searches increased from near zero to over 600 per month, indicating successful adoption of knowledge-driven support
- Ticket volumes dropped steadily from a peak of 1933 in May 2024 to 1096 in December 2024 and January 2025
- Average resolution time fell from 129.8 hours in February 2024 to 62.7 hours by January 2025
This reflects both the effectiveness of AI-powered search in deflecting tickets and the increased efficiency of Bolt's support workflows.
Top features
- AirDrop
- Search Functionality within Merchant Help Section on the website
- Customer Support Portal
- PluG, in-website customer support
- Multi-channel inbox for Email, and PLuG
- Workflow Automations
- Knowledge Base Integration
Top benefits
- 40% faster ticket resolution
- 35% faster product delivery cycle
- 25% increase in customer retention rates
- Enhanced search functionality
- Increased agent productivity
- Centralized knowledge management
- Lower ticket volume through PLuG AI searches
- Scalable, future-proof support architecture
Bolt's successful implementation of DevRev demonstrates how a unified, AI-powered platform can transform customer support and product development operations, creating a more efficient, customer-centric organization capable of scaling with business growth.
