--- title: How Shade Station Migrated 814K Records and a Full Knowledge Base from Help Scout to Zendesk slug: shade-station-help-scout-to-zendesk-case-study date: 2026-06-26 author: Raaj categories: [Case Studies] excerpt: "Shade Station moved 298,720 tickets, 443,135 replies, 72,553 contacts, 259 saved replies, and 47 knowledge base articles from Help Scout to Zendesk with ClonePartner. A newest-to-oldest migration strategy kept the support team operational while 8 years of history backfilled in the background." canonical: https://clonepartner.com/blog/shade-station-help-scout-to-zendesk-case-study/ --- # How Shade Station Migrated 814K Records and a Full Knowledge Base from Help Scout to Zendesk ## TL;DR **Customer:** Shade Station (UK's largest independent online sunglasses and prescription eyewear retailer, founded 2000. Part of Blue Green Ltd.) **The Move:** Help Scout to Zendesk (support tickets + Help Scout Docs to Zendesk Help Center) **The Scope:** 814,741 total records: 298,720 tickets, 443,135 replies, 72,553 contacts, 259 saved replies, 47 knowledge base articles across 9 categories. Spanning ~8 years of support history (2018 to 2026). **The Roadblock:** Dual migration required: tickets and a full knowledge base. Product warranty coverage demanded at least 2 years of ticket history. Saved replies needed to be converted to Zendesk macros with placeholder syntax rewrites. **The Outcome:** Full ticket history, saved replies, and knowledge base migrated. Recent tickets available in Zendesk while historical data continued backfilling. Support team never interrupted. --- ## By the Numbers - **Total records migrated:** 814,741 - **Replies (conversation threads):** 443,135 - **Tickets:** 298,720 - **Contacts:** 72,553 - **Saved replies (converted to Zendesk macros):** 259 - **Knowledge base articles:** 47 - **KB categories/collections:** 9 - **Data span:** ~8 years (2018 to 2026) --- ## The Challenge: A Retailer That Needs Its Ticket History for Warranty Coverage Shade Station is the UK's largest independent online retailer of designer sunglasses, prescription eyewear, and watches. Founded in 2000, the company is an authorised retailer for over 100 brands including Ray-Ban, Oakley, Gucci, Tom Ford, and Prada, with an on-site optical lab and in-house dispensing optician. Over 30,000 Trustpilot reviews at a 4.8-star rating reflect the volume and quality of their customer interactions. When the team decided to move from Help Scout to Zendesk, the migration carried a specific operational requirement: product warranty coverage. Shade Station needed at least two years of ticket history to reference when customers returned with warranty claims. Migrating only open tickets was not an option. The full history had to come along. Beyond the ticket data, the migration also needed to cover Help Scout Docs, the company's customer-facing knowledge base, which needed to be rebuilt as a Zendesk Help Center with its category structure, article content, and embedded images intact. And the team's 259 saved replies, essential for maintaining response speed, needed to be converted into Zendesk macros. > *"We were impressed with ClonePartner's approach and understanding of the process and we are looking forward to you completing the migration with us."* > > Dom Scott, Shade Station > *"We are poised and ready to give you 5-star reviews and trust you will deliver."* > > Dom Scott, Shade Station, at project kickoff --- ## The ClonePartner Solution: Newest-to-Oldest Ticket Migration with Parallel KB Transfer ClonePartner ran two parallel migrations: one for tickets and one for the knowledge base. The ticket migration used a newest-to-oldest strategy so the support team could start working in Zendesk immediately while historical data backfilled in the background. **Ticket migration:** - **Newest-to-oldest execution.** Rather than starting from 2018 and working forward, ClonePartner migrated the most recent tickets first. This meant that by the time the migration was a few days in, the support team already had access to all 2025 and 2026 tickets in Zendesk. Older warranty-relevant tickets continued loading in the background. - **Full-thread import.** Each Help Scout conversation was imported into Zendesk as a single ticket with its complete thread, including all replies and attachments, using Zendesk's ticket import API. Attachment-only replies received placeholder text to maintain thread integrity. - **Agent and customer mapping.** Agents were matched by email address. Customers were found or created in Zendesk automatically. Help Scout mailboxes were mapped to the corresponding Zendesk groups and brands. - **Scale guards.** The migration ran in batched pulls and pushes to stay within API rate limits. Conversations with more than 500 replies were flagged and handled separately to prevent timeouts. - **Saved replies to macros.** All 259 saved replies were converted to Zendesk macros, with Help Scout's placeholder syntax rewritten to match Zendesk's macro format. This meant the support team could keep their response templates from day one. **Knowledge base migration:** - **Structure mirroring.** Help Scout Docs organizes content as collections and categories. ClonePartner mapped collections to Zendesk Help Center categories and categories to sections, preserving the hierarchy. - **Article content conversion.** Article bodies were converted to HTML. Images embedded in articles were rehosted to Zendesk. Cross-article links were rewritten after migration to point to the correct Zendesk URLs instead of the old Help Scout Docs paths. - **Full scope.** When Dom confirmed the knowledge base requirements, the instruction was clear: migrate all items, no exceptions. All 47 articles across 9 categories were transferred and verified. --- ## The Results: Tickets, Macros, and a Help Center, All in Zendesk The ticket migration completed within two weeks of kickoff. The knowledge base followed within days. By March 30, Roopendra confirmed that all tickets, saved replies, and Help Center articles were migrated and verified. The newest-to-oldest approach meant the Shade Station team never had a gap in their working data. Recent tickets were available in Zendesk within the first few days, and the full 8-year history backfilled without interrupting daily operations. The two-year warranty window was fully covered. For a team that handles the support volume behind 30,000+ Trustpilot reviews, the transition was operationally invisible. --- ## What Made This Migration Different For support teams planning a Help Scout to Zendesk move, three details from this project are worth noting: - **Newest-to-oldest migration keeps your team productive.** Migrating recent tickets first means the support team can start working in Zendesk within days, not weeks. Historical data loads in the background without blocking daily operations. - **Knowledge base migrations are a separate project.** Help Scout Docs and Zendesk Help Center have different content structures. Images need rehosting. Links need rewriting. Treating the KB as a second migration stream, with its own connection, checklist, and verification, prevents it from being an afterthought that ships broken. - **Saved replies are not optional.** A support team's saved replies represent months or years of refined response language. Converting them to Zendesk macros with correct placeholder syntax means agents keep their speed from day one instead of rebuilding templates by hand.