Founded in 2011, RemoteLock—an access management platform for smart locks—helps organizations manage physical access to properties, facilities, and spaces from anywhere.
“Our customers include everyone from people who buy a single lock for their front door to clients who manage apartment complexes with more than a thousand units,” says Scott Burns, Chief Success Officer at RemoteLock. “We sell both hardware and software, along with implementation services and customer support.”
That broad customer base creates a unique support challenge. When customers can't provide access to a property, the issue often needs prompt attention. And because RemoteLock supports a wide range of locking hardware, integrations to leading property management software and access control services, finding the root cause isn't always straightforward.
The company knew it needed a new approach to support: one that could deliver faster answers, improve customer experiences, and help its lean team scale efficiently.
Founded in 2011, RemoteLock—an access management platform for smart locks—helps organizations manage physical access to properties, facilities, and spaces from anywhere.
“Our customers include everyone from people who buy a single lock for their front door to clients who manage apartment complexes with more than a thousand units,” says Scott Burns, Chief Success Officer at RemoteLock. “We sell both hardware and software, along with implementation services and customer support.”
That broad customer base creates a unique support challenge. When customers can't provide access to a property, the issue often needs prompt attention. And because RemoteLock supports a wide range of locking hardware, integrations to leading property management software and access control services, finding the root cause isn't always straightforward.
The company knew it needed a new approach to support: one that could deliver faster answers, improve customer experiences, and help its lean team scale efficiently.
Complex problems solved with AI
Today, RemoteLock uses Forethought AI agents by Zendesk to automate support interactions, improve self-service, and provide customers with immediate assistance across channels.
“Forethought AI allows for immediacy,” says Burns. “We want customers to get their support inquiries resolved quickly, even when a live agent is not available to assist them.”
With Forethought, the company deflects up to 35 percent of support inquiries across all channels, including voice and maintains 75 percent chat deflection as customers bring increasingly complex questions to AI-powered support experiences.
“We found a way to scale with consistency and provided our customers a path for immediate agentless support when our queue is deep,” Burns says. “That’s a huge win for us.”
Building an AI strategy around outcomes
Instead of pursuing AI for its own sake, the RemoteLock team focused on measurable business goals from the beginning.
“I think we've set a good stage for not just how to approach an AI project, but how to measure the AI project on the back end as well,” says Burns. “We wanted to show how success looks when you stay true to providing a positive customer experience.”
RemoteLock prioritizes the customer experience ahead of a technology decision.
“It was essential that we select a tool that helps us optimize workflow and improve our data inputs for AI,” Burns says. “This assures consistency and accuracy in the customer engagement.”
Another goal for the RemoteLock team was to improve efficiency while creating opportunities for employees to focus on higher-value work. With a support team of just ten people, scaling service without adding headcount was critical.
“Most importantly, we wanted to provide opportunities for people to grow in their careers,” says Burns.
Using AI-powered automation, the RemoteLock team was able to redistribute support resources across the organization. Team members were able to transition into customer success and sales roles, while support operations became more efficient overall. RemoteLock also expanded customer data visibility by connecting information across systems.
Turning knowledge into answers
Before launching AI-powered support, RemoteLock took a close look at its knowledge base. What they found was a familiar challenge: years of content growth had created inconsistencies, overlapping articles, and gaps in documentation.
RemoteLock used Forethought to identify more than 200 knowledge gaps, helping the team prioritize updates. Some of the older articles were overly broad. Others reflected the writing style of individual contributors rather than a consistent company voice.
"We had some encyclopedia articles," Chris Steinbeck, Senior Director of Customer Support admits. "We used Discover to help us identify what needed to be cleaned up and refined."
Discover analyzes customer conversations to identify knowledge and automation gaps, then generates the content and workflows needed to improve workflow performance. With guidance from the Forethought team, approximately 80 knowledge articles were audited for RemoteLock.
“Discover gave us feedback, and using that information, I updated existing articles or created brand-new articles,” Emina Fregia, Support Operations Manager at RemoteLock, explains.
Training AI like a new teammate
Creating workflows with Forethought felt surprisingly familiar for the team at RemoteLock.
“It was oddly intuitive,” Fregia says. “It was as if I was training a human—it felt like I was teaching somebody else how to do the job.”
Fregia and her team created an AI assistant named Remy, which customers can access through the company's support experience. The team embedded Remy across support channels and within product experiences.
“On our support site, Remy helps answer questions for customers quickly,” Fregia says. “And if an employee is stuck on a case, they immediately go to Remy.”
The team also established a continuous improvement process. When employees or customers encounter an incorrect answer, they can flag the interaction for review, allowing support operations to continuously improve AI performance and content quality.
“That way, I can make adjustments to Remy as needed,” Fregia says. “It’s been very easy for our customers and team to utilize.”
Unlocking AI across every customer touchpoint
RemoteLock's AI journey is far from complete. The company is also expanding automation around new content and the international audience, which will further leverage their content and improve the customer experience for a broader audience.
"When I look at our smaller customers, they really should be a self-serve model permitting them to resolve challenges independent of a support agent to optimize the efficiency of their business,” says Burns. “So we are working to really dial in on their use cases where they are completely self-sufficient."
Long term, the team sees AI as a critical component of its self-service strategy, particularly for smaller customers who benefit from immediate access to answers without needing direct agent involvement.
“We want to make it a better customer experience," says Burns. "Each one of these channels is a different customer experience, and we want people to engage with it."
As RemoteLock continues to evolve its support operation, the company views AI not as a replacement for people, but as a way to help teams work smarter and deliver better customer experiences. The partnership has also reinforced the importance of expertise behind the technology itself.
"The Forethought team has made a difference for us, no question," Burns says. "They have been exquisite."
