Customer Stories / eCatholic
Scaling support without sacrificing quality care
Building lasting relationships with customers by blending personal support with AI-powered efficiency.
A mission to serve ministries with care
eCatholic builds easy-to-use software that helps churches, schools, and ministries share their mission online. Their platform powers websites, online giving, communications, and live streaming for more than 8,000 customers. With a lean support team, eCatholic prioritizes creating “wow” moments for customers. They don’t just solve issues — though there’s plenty of that — they go above and beyond for customers. That’s why Director of Onboarding & Success, Luke Tristani, saw AI Answers as an opportunity to free up his team to focus on high-value, human interactions.
More conversations, shrinking capacity
At the start of 2025, one of Luke’s top team members moved into a product role, creating a coverage gap just as volume was rising.
We’re not looking to replace support teams with AI, but if we can let AI answer the simple questions, it frees us up to create ‘wow moments’ for customers.
Luke needed a solution that could handle repetitive questions, extend support beyond business hours, and integrate seamlessly with Help Scout — without losing eCatholic’s unique voice.
A natural fit in AI Answers
After weighing various AI vendors like Zoom, Maven, and Intercom, Luke found those bolt-on tools required major process changes. AI Answers stood out because it lives where the team already works, in Help Scout.
Inside Beacon, AI Answers provides instant, in-app answers with a smooth handoff to a human when needed. It draws on Docs and other knowledge sources, can be instantly improved with suggestions from recent email conversations, and captures eCatholic’s friendly, approachable tone to stay on-brand.
AI Answers didn’t require a big rollout or risky transition. The team could start small, see results, and iterate weekly.
We needed an extension of our existing Help Scout setup. With AI Answers, customers can self-serve. If they’re not getting what they need, they can come straight to us — all in one place.
More capacity, same personal touch
Since starting to use AI Answers in early 2025, eCatholic has seen a measurable impact. What began with 36 conversations handled in the first week has now grown to nearly 300 per week by August. Their deflection rate, which Luke once hoped might reach 10%, has consistently climbed past that mark, peaking at 15.46% in August 2025, their highest yet.
The results go beyond numbers. With AI handling routine questions, the support team gained valuable breathing room. Luke explained that it eased the transition of a new hire and even let the team hire more deliberately at a pace that was comfortable for the business: “It helped us ease into a new hire, and re-think how quickly we need to grow.”
Customers have noticed the difference. Many are thrilled to find instant, accurate answers right inside eCatholic’s CMS and tools, without needing to wait for business hours.
Even the first week, when AI handled 36 conversations, I was thrilled. That was 36 more than we’d ever had before. Now we’re projecting past 16% deflection, and I think the sky’s the limit.
Keeping humans at the center
For Luke, the biggest win is maintaining balance. AI Answers handles routine questions so his team can focus on creating the memorable moments for which they’re known.
That balance has only gotten easier with recent advancements to AI Answers. With Improvements, Luke’s team can quickly add missing context right from a conversation. There’s no need to rewrite help articles. Help Scout’s AI learns directly from that feedback, which means the next answer is more accurate and on-brand. With Suggested Improvements, the system does even more of the work itself, surfacing pre-drafted updates. The team can approve, edit, or decline those suggestions with a click, making sure AI Answers is more accurate with minimal effort.
These advancements help eCatholic continuously fine-tune their AI so it reflects their knowledge and voice, without pulling attention away from their human-first support.
We’ll always keep human support at the heart of what we do. Help Scout helps us strike that balance — empowering customers to find answers on their own, while making sure our team is right there when they need us.
