What is customer service quality assurance?

Customer service quality assurance (QA) is a systematic process of evaluating customer interactions, identifying areas for improvement, and providing effective coaching to enhance the overall customer experience.

Restaurants don’t attain Michelin-star status by chance. From setting the menu to plating, a chef is monitoring the quality and progression of the dish from start to finish. And at the end of the line, the head chef makes a final check before sending the meal to the table. All of this is to promote consistent experiences for the customer—and you can apply this same method to your business.

Customer service quality assurance is a strategy that evaluates customer support interactions and identifies where you can improve to provide five-star service. In this guide, we touch on why QA is so important, how you can establish it in your organization, and how it relates to the customer experience (CX).

More in this guide:

• Why is quality assurance an important part of customer support?
• Benefits of customer service QA
• How do you measure quality assurance in customer service?
• 6 steps to establish customer service quality assurance in your organization
• Frequently asked questions
• Achieve your customer service QA goals with Zendesk

Why is quality assurance an important part of customer support?

QA is important to customer support because organizations can use it to ensure their support teams provide consistent, high-quality service that exceeds customer expectations.

Customers want outstanding experiences whenever they connect with your business—and the right QA processes can help you deliver. According to the Zendesk QA Customer Service Quality Benchmark Report 2023:

• 86% of surveyed organizations agree QA processes like conversation reviews improve the quality of customer service.
• 76% of surveyed organizations agree that QA helps to improve customer satisfaction (CSAT).

You can use quality assurance to improve the CX, create personalized interactions, and turn simple customer transactions into relationships.

Benefits of customer service QA

Customer service QA provides a wealth of benefits that can impact nearly every aspect of your organization, whether you’re in a call center, a contact center, or on a remote support team. Here are some of the most impactful advantages of quality assurance.

Identifies areas of improvement

Arguably the most important benefit of quality assurance is identifying areas of improvement. With an effective QA process, you can highlight your team’s performance trends, identify root causes of inefficiencies, and implement corrective processes. You can also use quality assurance alongside your customer service key performance indicators (KPIs) to facilitate more impactful data-driven decision-making.

Enhances the customer experience

Quality assurance can help you evaluate the state of your support interactions. By consistently monitoring these interactions, you can identify pain points, inefficiencies, and roadblocks in the customer experience.

For example, maybe your agents are unknowingly ending conversations incorrectly—perhaps they’re not asking if there’s anything else they can do for the customer. You can provide a better CX and deliver good customer service by identifying and correcting these sub-optimal interactions.

Boosts agent performance

During QA, managers or other team leaders cananalyze agent performance, identifying agent strengths and areas for improvement. Managers can use this information to provide constructive feedback and reviews as well as tailor training programs designed to improve your support team’s customer service skills.

Improves the employee experience

An efficient quality assurance process can directly contribute to the employee experience (EX). You can use QA to speed up new hire onboarding, provide ongoing coaching and training, and facilitate career growth. Doing so shows your team that you are invested in their development, which can result in improved job satisfaction and lower employee turnover.

Drives customer loyalty

Customer loyalty, or how likely consumers are to make repeat purchases with your company, is directly linked to the customer experience. Quality assurance can help you understand what’s lacking in your CX, identify and rectify problematic agent activities, and build an effective support system. This can boost customer retention, reduce churn rate, and build long-term customer relationships.

How do you measure quality assurance in customer service?

Depending on your organizational structure and business needs, you can measure quality assurance in customer service a few different ways, including with:

• QA software: Quality assurance software uses AI to improve the customer experience. It can automate important tasks, highlight problematic agent conversations, highlight areas for improvement, and more.
• KPIs: Identify and monitor important KPIs, like first contact resolution, to evaluate how effective your support interactions are and how well process changes were implemented.
• QA score cards: QA score cards grade support agents on their introduction, customer service voice, and customer resolutions. You can use score cards for voice calls, email support, messaging, and any other form of customer service communication.
• Customer surveys: When in doubt, ask your customers directly. Request customer feedback through a method like Net Promoter Score® (NPS) for better insight on how customers gauge your support.
• Employee surveys: It’s also important to understand what your customer service team is thinking. Conduct employee satisfaction surveys to identify how they feel about their role and their perspective on your support strategy.

You don’t need to implement every method included above, but combining a few of them is a good idea to get a well-rounded view of your QA efforts.

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6 steps to establish customer service quality assurance in your organization

Now that we’ve covered how important customer support quality assurance is, we’ll dive into some ways you can bring it to your organization. Here are six steps to follow.

1. Define your support vision and goals

Before making any progress in your QA process, you’ll want to clearly define what “quality” means to your team. Take time to assess your current operations. Identify your ideal support vision, what’s important to your customers, and your future goals.

Some organizations may take a cost-focused approach and want to improve agent efficiency to lower labor costs. Others may take a customer-focused approach and want to prioritize improving a related metric like Customer Effort Score (CES).

Whatever your focus is, you’ll create a more effective strategy by aligning your support vision and goals.

2. Pick rating categories for your QA score cards

When developing your QA score cards, it’s important to select the rating categories that align with your vision and goals. For example, if you want to emphasize the beginning of the support conversation, you might choose grading categories for that part of the interaction. This can include the first introduction, using the customer’s name immediately, identifying the customer’s issue, and how empathetic the agent sounds.

3. Choose which conversations to review

Any size business can experience hundreds of customer interactions per week, but it’s inefficient to review every single one. Instead, choose the most important variables to focus on and prioritize conversations with those attributes. QA software with AI and automation features can help with this.

For example, if product knowledge, identification of customer needs, and solution effectiveness are most important for you, AI can automatically scan all conversations for these variables and highlight problematic interactions. This empowers managers to review the right conversations and identify bad customer service without wasting time sifting through everything.

4. Plan calibration sessions

It’s likely that multiple individuals will complete QA reviews of your support agents. Therefore, businesses need to ensure that every quality reviewer follows the same criteria and rating system—and that’s where calibration sessions come in.

Calibration sessions are guidelines for reviewers, promoting consistency and ensuring every manager grades support agents on the same criteria. During these sessions, revisit your QA score card categories, rating scale, general approach, and more to ensure balanced reviews.

5. Measure customer service quality

Once you have a QA system in place, consistently measure customer service quality to ensure your process is effective. Monitor your KPIs like CSAT and customer survey results, noting your performance, and review support conversations and QA score cards to see if you’re trending up or down. By regularly measuring your service quality, you can identify areas of improvement in your process and optimize your customer service training.

6. Close the feedback loop

Data can only tell you so much—it’s what you do with that data that separates good QA from great QA. Use customer feedback or your QA score card data to implement targeted coaching sessions and training to improve your processes and team. When you close the feedback loop and support your employees with additional training, you can improve your QA processes.

Frequently asked questions

Achieve your customer service QA goals with Zendesk

Customer service quality assurance can turn your organization from an inefficient operation to a five-star establishment. That said, you need the right tools and methods to measure QA and monitor it daily. That’s where we can help.

Zendesk provides AI-powered customer service quality management tools. With Zendesk QA, Zendesk customers can implement high-quality CX and QA strategies that drive customer loyalty and improve agent retention.

Try it for free today.

Net Promoter, Net Promoter Score, and NPS are registered trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.

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WFM gives us agents the ability to bring needs together to improve customer experience, get the resources we need to do our job well, and the best work-life balance possible.

How?

By providing clear data that the team can use to make educated decisions on how to optimize processes.

1. WFM gives agents more information on what we need to be doing throughout the day

More information means both the managers and the specialists are able to understand:

• The basics–like when they are scheduled to work, but beyond that…
• Where the team needs some extra support or training
• When to ask for help or more resources
• How they are doing so there are no surprises when it comes to professional reviews and 1:1s
• How to take accountability for our work and celebrate our successes together
• What tickets or activities are making specialists want to pull out their hair or think “there has to be a better way”
• When hiring is needed because there is too much work for people to accomplish
• When reallocation is necessary so that you’re not having to sit there bored, and wait for work
• When team members can take time off, allowing for more flexibility within time off management because you really understand your business needs

WFM tools aren’t so much a measure of how you operate as a person or an employee. Think of them instead as a way for the team to think holistically about how your individual needs can be addressed to make the team function like a well-oiled machine. Because that leads to overall success and happiness for us and our customers

2. WFM lets the team understand where we need extra support or training

The expectation here can vary depending on what goals the managers are pushing towards. But for the agents, the knowledge of the team being more focussed on productivity will naturally lead to more awareness of how they are doing on a day-to-day basis. This coupled with having consistent opportunities to communicate with managers based on performance data, gives agents the space to recognize success and growth opportunities with their managers.

Say you walk into a 1:1 and your manager mentions that they’d like for you to work on your first response time – to ensure customers are getting prompt replies. This is an opportunity for the manager to express why this is important, and the specialist to express what would help them achieve this goal. More staffing in the morning to help with the load, for example. Or maybe they have the kids in the afternoon and need to work on lower priority tickets during that time.

On the flip side, if your manager is very excited about some recent work you’ve done, you have the space to talk about what is working for you, and how they can bring that to the rest of the team.

Great workforce managers go into 1:1s or coaching sessions with some information from their WFM tool to show specialists. That way they can see how they are doing and can start relating their work to how well they are working towards the team’s goals. This is something that can be inspiring to specialists, and even a cause for some team celebration at the best of times!

3. WFM empowers agents to ask for help or more resources

With a more open line of communication, we usually see specialists move from reacting to the feedback provided by managers, to proactively reaching out when they feel they are not working at their potential or at a pace to reach the outlined goals. This creates an increased awareness that the team is working together to reach those goals, often inspiring specialists to identify areas of opportunity and ask for assistance.

At times, specialists accidentally forget to set their AUX code resulting in their unproductive time accumulating much longer than anticipated. When this happens, the agent should reach out to the manager and let them know that their tracking is inaccurate due to the mishap. It can be very easy to update to reflect the proper efficiency metrics.

Remember: in support and CX, like most team jobs in general, communication and transparency are everything.

4. WFM prevents surprises in professional reviews and 1:1s

WFM gives us agents the opportunity to check in with our managers regularly to know how we’re doing. That consistency means there are less surprises.

It’s great for agents being able to work with their managers over time on their goals and their action plans for achieving them consistently. It’s much better than getting to the end of the month/quarter/year, and getting blindsided in a review because they were under-delivering in an area and didn’t know it.

Example:

One specialist is working with their manager to get their productive hours up, but they have been spending extra time on unproductive tasks reflected in their general task usage. They can communicate this to the manager so that they can adjust expectations for productive time accordingly. At the end of the quarter when they go into their review, they will know confidently that they will have a slightly lower number of productive hours based on the team’s goals.

Rather than being shocked by the fact that they are seemingly “not performing to the standard”, they can feel confident in why, and that their manager clearly understands.

5. WFM helps agents take accountability for their work and highlights their successes

With consistent communication comes accountability. With the awareness that the team is working towards common goals, specialists tend to start thinking of the bigger picture.

Example:

As a specialist, you start to understand the importance of either working on a ticket or selecting a General Task/Auxcode. With the awareness of setting your work code or working on a ticket, you are telling your managers what you are prioritizing at that time. This allows you to take ownership over your work, see how it affects your overall workflow.

On the other hand, if you’re successfully solving a boatload of tickets, WFM helps to highlight that. So it’s easier to celebrate the successes you find – you can just point at your scorecard and show off your stellar metrics!

Remember: WFM is a partnership. Though it provides clear actionable reporting to assist operations in making decisions when running the business, the communication and data-keeping it provides also gives specialists and agents structure, information, and resources. And the ability for specialists to engage with their performance, ask for help when needed, and justify the need for more help and support from their superiors.

Work/life balance is becoming increasingly important with more teams working from home and having a level of separation from their office life. This is why it’s imperative that teams have a tool to manage the key metrics and KPIs of interest, as well as promote a workplace that supports and sustains its customers and internal teams.

The post 5 ways WFM for agents is great–explained by a former agent appeared first on Zendesk.

When working to support customers we’re usually looking at two request scenarios – live channels such as chat and voice in which we are helping our customers in real-time, and non-live channels such as emails and web forms in which we set expectations with our customers that we will get back to them within a specified amount of time (thanks SLAs).

Naturally, live channels have designated hours of operation – times you’ll have chat turned on, and times you’ll have it turned off. Non-live channels, however, can have requests flowing in at any time of the day or night, regardless of if you have someone at their computer to help out. If no one is on staff in the evening, and you have non-live customer requests pouring in, you’ll probably have some sort of backlog in the mornings when your team starts their work day. This is why having designated hours of operation built into the forecast is a necessary element to disperse the backlog across the team, and include it in the workload you’re forecasting for your agents – and thus the number of agents you schedule each day. This means more accurate forecasting, and staffing, while creating a better work environment by having accurate goals and expectations for your support teams.

How to set this up in your forecast

Head into your forecast and…

• Click to select a workstream
• On the right information panel, click to expand Staffing Parameters
• Check the box under Availability at the bottom and enter your hours of operation for that workstream
• Click Save and watch your staffing needs automagically adjust!

The post Zendesk WFM: Introducing customizable business hours in Forecast appeared first on Zendesk.

In this guide, you’ll find:

– A brief introduction to WFM’s key features, which include real-time agent activity tracking, comprehensive performance reporting, and accurate forecasting and scheduling

– An overview of QA’s key features, including setting up a scoreboard, using Auto QA, and leveraging the ‘Spotlight’ feature to improve service quality and data-driven coaching

– How implementing WFM and QA can lead to a loop of continuous improvement in service operations for organizations

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This white paper will shed light on how Zendesk’s AI-powered workforce engagement management solutions can be integrated to help businesses meet—and exceed—customers’ rising expectations by:

• Providing better visibility on team performance
• Fostering happier agents, which in turn empowers them to be more productive
• Increasing the capacity of quality interactions handled with AI and automation
• Providing a holistic understanding of customer interactions
• Spotting unhappy customers before they churn

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You can now change your scheduled working time down to the minute and see schedules by the month. Now that’s what we’re talking about.

What’s in it for you

1-minute increments for your schedules:

From time to time, we found that teams needed more options when scheduling. Though it’s common to see shifts start on the hour or half hour, what about the teams that need their agents to come in 10 minutes early for a team huddle at the beginning of the shift? Or the teams that are required to meet a particular amount of minutes and hours a week for particular tasks?

Well, now Tymeshift has you covered. Pick any time, down to the minute, to schedule your agents. Do you need someone to jump on the chat channel at 10:02 am next Tuesday – done. It may seem overly specific now, but when you need it, you really need it.

Monthly view:

This one may seem more obvious because, let’s be real, what scheduling manager doesn’t love a monthly view?

You can now click to see your team’s schedule by month, not just week or day. Life-changing? Maybe. Wildly convenient? Definitely.

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In Reports – under the Reports Templates, we’ve now broken down two options; Default reports and Custom reports.

The big difference is that your default reports can not be edited unless you duplicate them as Custom reports. That way you will always have access to core reports that will have a direct impact, with the ability to duplicate them, then adjust and customize as needed.

Not only is this something that we are excited to enhance with more default reports in the future, but the real reason we’re buzzing about this functionality is the Agent attendance report that you now have access to. This allows organizations to see their agent attendance for more than one day at a time.

What does this mean

• Default reports that give you prebuilt reports that can be duplicated into custom reports and edited as needed
• Custom reports allow you to create and manipulate reports as needed to account for your reporting needs

When you look into the Agent Attendance feature today, you’ll notice one big thing that’s both amazing and possibly limiting: it’s real-time and goes day by day.

Now, whenever you need to look at a few days, a week, or even longer, head into your Reports feature, click into the Agent attendance report under the Default reports heading, and adjust the date range to reflect the days you are looking for.

This is huge for managers and team leaders that want to see how many times their team members were late in the past week or two and highlight behaviors that we need to account for in our scheduling. Whether that be for folks that need some coaching on getting to work on time or parents that need the flexibility to come in 10 minutes later to account for morning traffic getting their kids to school.

Check out the Agent Attendance default report in action

After you click into your Agent attendance default report, in Reports, you’ll see:

• Scheduled Time
• Total Time
• Attendance duration
• Occupancy
• Unpaid General Talk Time
• Late occurrences
• Late duration
• Left Early occurrences
• Left Early duration
• Overtime occurrences
• Overtime duration

All of these metrics will be broken down by agent first and by day second so that you can easily see the totals per agent for the reporting period, and also, click into the agent dropdown to see how this is broken down by day.

Now, if not all this information is relevant to you and your teams , or maybe you want to look at a smaller group of agents rather than everyone, all you need to do is click the three dots next to the Agent attendance report in the Default reports section and duplicate it.

The duplicated report will now show up in your Custom reports section titled “Agent attendance – copy”. Now click into that new Custom report, then click the pencil icon in the top right of the screen, and you can rename the report, adjust the metrics and parameters, and add any filters needed.

And like that, you can now customize how you view your attendance reporting.

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When I first start working with new clients, I interview the executive team, a sampling of employees across all departments, and a sampling of customers across various personas. Doing this allows me to get an unadulterated baseline of the current situation.

My favorite conversations happen with employees because they call it as they see it.
And quite often, what I hear is this:

“We don’t have the tools (or the process are broken, or the policies are outdated) to serve our customers the way they deserve to be served.”

Seriously, their words. And it’s such a powerful statement – and such an affirmation of, what the employee experience is and how the employee experience impacts the customer experience.

Employee experience is mission critical to delivering a great customer experience – and your agents get it. They know what they need in order to deliver a great experience for customers – and it’s not always just training. You need to take a look at what you’re doing to ensure they have what they need before customers can have a great experience.

Let me step back for a moment and define employee experience.

Employee experience is the sum of all the interactions that an employee has with their employer during the duration of the employment relationship.

It includes any way employees “touch” or interact with the company and vice versa in the course of doing their job. It also includes the actions and capabilities that enable them to do their job.
And, importantly, it includes their feelings, emotions, and perceptions of those interactions and capabilities.

OK, so let’s go back to my initial statement: employee experience drives customer experience. That cannot just happen on its own. You need to make sure that your employees are prepared to impact customer satisfaction, to deliver a great experience.

So, employees must have the right tools and the right information to do that.

8 Ways to improve employee experience

The following is a mix of tools, information, and other success criteria to ensure a great experience for both employees and customers.

• Core Values

  Culture is best defined as “core values + behaviors.” It’s often described as “how we do things around here.”

  Core values are really the beliefs of the organization or, more specifically, the people who comprise the organization. Without them, employees (and leaders) go about their days without a north star or a guiding light to make sure they always know what’s right and what’s wrong. Core values guide them in terms of how to interact with each other and with customers.

  Core values should be integrated into everything employees do: hiring, firing, promoting, making decisions, developing processes and policies, and more. If employees ever question what they should do or question if what they’re planning to do is aligned with the organization’s expectations, they can refer back to these values.

  CX Vision

  Your customer experience vision is an inspirational and aspirational statement that outlines what you see as the future state of the customer experience. It briefly describes the experience you plan to deliver. And it serves as a guide to help choose future courses of action.

  It should align with your corporate vision.

  The idea is that this vision fuels innovation and reminds employees that there’s a human being on the other end of your CX strategy and transformation.

  Brand Promise

  Make sure you’ve communicated your brand promise clearly to employees.
  If they don’t know it, how can they live it?
  How can they deliver it?

  A smart CEO uses the brand promise to align all of the activities of the organization. That promise guides people, processes, products, systems, etc. Everything the organization does must support and reinforce the brand promise. Every product, every person, every interaction, every touchpoint, all of it. Every time.

  This is probably one of the key tools for your employees when it comes to delivering a great customer experience.

  Customer Understanding

  Employees need to be well-informed and well-versed on who your customers are and how they impact each customer and his experience.

  Provide persona definitions, journey maps, and customer feedback. The better employees understand customers and their current experience – as well as the desired experience – the better they’re able to adjust course and deliver the experience that is expected of them.

  Automation

  This is one tool that is being used more and more these days.

  Automation isn’t about replacing people.
  It’s about removing menial, repetitive tasks from employees’ plates and streamlining processes.

  That way, employees can spend more time on value-adding work and building or strengthening relationships with customers. They’ll be happier and more productive because they’re doing meaningful work.
  

  Training and Communication

  Training and communication begin at the point of hire, with a solid onboarding program and communication around the importance of customers and the customer experience to the organization.

  Throughout the life of the employee’s employment, offer regular training opportunities (especially as customer feedback, customers, and the experience evolve). Communicate and set clear expectations. And remember to provide ongoing feedback and coaching about how well the employee is delivering on those expectations.

  Caring Leadership

  Anne Mulcahy, former chairwoman and CEO of Xerox Corporation said, “Employees who believe that management is concerned about them as a whole person – not just as an employee – are more productive, more satisfied, more fulfilled. Satisfied employees mean satisfied customers, which leads to profitability.”

  I could not agree with her more.

  Empowerment

  Empowered employees walk around with a sense of ownership, thinking and acting like they own the business. When you own a business, you put your heart and soul into it, into ensuring its success. Empowered employees don’t stand on the sidelines waiting to be spoon-fed, they know what to do. They take the horse by the reins and run with the directive (e.g., the brand promise), being accountable for their roles in the execution of the customer experience and in the success of the business. They work together with others who are just as passionate and who share a common goal.

  These things combined result in efficiencies from a variety of angles.

These eight items improve both the employee experience and the customer experience. But let me throw this out there.

Start by talking to your employees.

Get to know them.

Understand them on a human level, a personal level.

There’s no better way to ensure they have a great experience and can deliver the customer experience you expect than talking to them and involving them in the process.

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You now have the flexibility to tell your forecast to ignore data before a specific date that you define by workstream. This means a more accurate forecast for you, better coverage for your customers, and more favorable schedules for your agents.

Why this is valuable:

Say in the first year, your teams had a very low volume because you were not on your customer’s radar; however, this year, you had a business change that increased your volume immensely–maybe you launched a new viral product or got a jump start from a successful campaign. You would not want to include the first year in your forecast because the transition from the first to the second year is not an accurate representation of how your volume will grow in the future.

If we were using data from years one and two, your forecast would increase the volume drastically for year three rather than reflecting a forecast that leveled out in year two after the business change. Not only is this not ideal, but it’s usually a massive headache for the workforce team. That’s why Zendesk WFM is here to remove the issue before it occurs with a simple solution to eliminate the irrelevant outliers. In this case, we’d eliminate year one and use the data only after the growth.

Two things to keep in mind:

1. You won’t be able to set this date back further than two years because Zendesk WFM is only looking at the past two years of data anyway.
2. You also won’t be able to set a date closer than one month from when you are adjusting the data. Zendesk WFM requires at least one month’s worth of data for the algorithm to generate a forecast for you.

Give it a try:

• Head into the forecast feature
• Click the three dots next to the workstream you want to adjust
• Select the “Historical volume” option
• Click “Select Zendesk historical data”
• It defaults to “Use all available data” so click to toggle that off
• Select the specific date you would like and Zendesk WFM will ignore the data before that date
• Click “Apply” and “Generate the forecast” to begin the forecast generation

Soon, you’ll have a forecast that more accurately reflects your needs based on the restrictions you determined were more reliable.

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Here’s a breakdown of what you now have to use per channel:

Email:

• Occupancy
• Average handle time
• First response time and its target percentage
• Shrinkage
• Minimum staffing
• Availability, if relevant

Chat:

• Occupancy
• Duration
• Concurrency
• Wait time and its target percentage
• Shrinkage
• Minimum Staffing
• Availability, if relevant

Voice:

• Occupancy
• Average handle time
• Speed of answer and its target percentage
• Shrinkage
• Minimum Staffing
• Availability, if relevant

With this more flexible approach, you’ll have increased forecast accuracy per channel and have the option to set the minimum number of people needed regardless of the volume forecasted for that channel. Previously, Zendesk WFM would default minimum staffing to two during low/no volume times as one person may take a break. We recommend this, but now it’s up to you and your staffing strategy.

Why this is important:

When teams have customers call in after hours, unless a voicemail service is offered, we generally won’t see callbacks take place. In this case, no time is spent on this request during working hours, but this overnight ticket will remain in the queue until addressed during your team’s working hours. With this new specificity, our forecast is now considering these types of situations.

Zendesk works with tons of computer phone integration providers, and on Zendesk WFM you can use workstreams to account for this channel even if it’s not native to Zendesk. In these cases, the workstream is set up based on a ticket contact via type rather than voice. Now, in the forecast, you simply change the channel to voice, and you can customize your forecast and staffing needs based on voice metrics.

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Provide in one place the capability of monitoring, analyzing, and correcting agents’ activities, habits, and patterns. All this is helped by grouping criteria that will best suit your needs at any given moment, depending on your goal of investigation at that time.

How can it help? It allows you to:

• Quickly visualize which workstreams are being covered
• Monitor the ongoing adherence of your team and make an informed decision on the fly about the allocation of your workforce
• Have an understanding of the activities of your agents, and what they have, or have not been working on
• Quickly correct activity for the current day, update or delete the activity as needed
• Jump to the ticket your agent is currently working on or worked at any given time in the past

Straightforward and uncomplicated, when getting to the Agent Activity page you’ll be greeted by a list of agents organized by their default Zendesk Groups (something you can change) and respective activities for the day. There’s always the capability of navigating for past days providing the same assessment level of the past days’ activities.

You’ll see:

• Agent Name
• Current day activities (workstreams, general tasks, time untracked)
• The start and end times for each of the activities displayed
• The schedule set for each one of your agents
• The adherence of each agent to their respective schedule
• The capability of deleting finished activities
• The capability of navigating directly from Zendesk WFM to the ticket the agent is working on or worked on in the past
• Access to a summarized view of activities and productivity for each agent

Hot tips:

To reach the full potential of this tool your agents’ schedules should be published on Autoschedule, this way you’ll be able to match the agents’ actual activities with the schedule set for them and their respective adherence to the schedule.

The post Introducing the newest way to keep track of your agents’ activity appeared first on Zendesk.

​​In this episode of Sit Down Startup, David Cramer, the founder of Sentry, delves into diverse topics such as unique product monetization, cultivating a strong belief in success, and managing feedback effectively. The conversation also covers customer engagement strategies, including how to differentiate valuable feedback and how focus and determination pave a path to tech success. Cramer stresses the importance of aligning with prospects who share your vision rather than trying to convince everyone of your value.

Cultivate unwavering belief in success by toughing it out and seeing what happens

Sentry was originally a bootstrapped startup. During this time, Cramer and his co-founders supported themselves by working at other companies. By 2015, Sentry had garnered almost 2,000 paying customers and over half a million in revenue. To stay competitive and continue growing, the co-founders decided to fundraise. Because Sentry had existing customers and revenue, they were confident that securing funds would be easy—but they soon found out they were wrong.

VCs declined to invest in Sentry for two reasons: The startup was already making money, and it was not “fashionable” to back at the time. Cramer had meetings with VCs, but he was unable to pique their interest, which was disheartening.

He recalls, “I just remember most of them not even paying attention. These are 15- to 30-minute coffee chats, and they couldn’t hold their attention. But we go through this and it seemed like no one wanted to give us money and I’m like, ‘What are we doing wrong?’’”

Eventually, Cramer secured fundraising from someone he had previously worked with at Dropbox. Although it was difficult, fundraising taught Cramer an important lesson: “You just have to tough it out and see what happens.”

Align with prospects who understand and connect with your vision

There’s a well-worn bit of advice frequently repeated among startup founders: Go to your audience, find out what they want, and build it. Cramer doesn’t endorse this advice. In fact, he thinks it can lead founders in the wrong direction.

He explains, “I don’t think that’s the right way to build a genuine product that’s going to be successful. It’s a great way to build a business, but it’s not a great way to build a change in product or the way people work or a change in technology. The way I think about it is, we had an opinion around how things should be, and we found customers that validated that opinion and we latched on.”

In Cramer’s experience, listening to the wrong audience can leave founders frustrated. For example, two of Sentry’s core tools are crash reporting and error monitoring. Sentry took existing error logs and made them more useful. Although Cramer and his team knew their tools were valuable, potential customers sometimes declined them, stating that they already had logs and didn’t need an improved version, leaving the founders feeling exasperated.

Instead, Cramer advises founders not to waste their time on people who can’t see the value in what they’re doing. “I realized after far too much time that I shouldn’t try to convince people,” he explains. “I should move on to somebody else who believes in what we are doing. And I think the risk for people is, can you find those people? And if you can’t find them, maybe what you’re doing isn’t worthwhile and you should try and do something else. I think that’s a hard conversation for folks… But we’ve got to find the people who want what we have—not try and convince people that what we are building is what we need right now. If it’s useful, when they need it, they will find it.”

Manage feedback at scale

When Cramer was a teenager, he received a bit of advice that has stuck with him since. “I worked at Burger King. I don’t remember what the context was, but at some point, somebody told me, ‘For every customer who complains, there’s nine more that don’t complain.’ So, I love negative feedback. Negative feedback is so clearly transparent in what the problem is and you can synthesize it very easily. I love talking to customers that have complaints because that will give me problems to fix.”

At heart, Cramer is a problem solver. His strength as an engineer boils down to his enthusiasm for identifying and solving bugs. He adopts the same mindset when dealing with customer complaints and wants to hear from anyone who has a suggestion, even as the company grows and acquires thousands of customers. Cramer says, “As you get bigger, it’s hard to keep that feedback pipeline going. … But I am a very big fan of transparent feedback. That’s why I go back to finding the customers that want what you have—they are way more willing to actively give you feedback because they also want to improve it.”

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Bitly’s links and QR codes may be everywhere, but chances are you’ll find the company’s Global Head of Customer Support, in one of two places: running support experiments from his home office or collaborating with other leaders in his favorite community group, Zendesk for Startups.

“That’s kind of the first place I go to when I’m saying, ‘hey guys, I’m going to test out turning off our chatbot for a bit,’” he said. “Because I’m not the first one to think of something. I don’t need to reinvent the wheel.”

With so much change happening around AI, Harris and his team are spending the year researching and conducting tests to ensure that they’re meeting the actual needs of their customer base. That starts, he says, with acknowledging what you don’t know and not being afraid to ask questions.

“I really want to get a better idea of what it is that we’re missing, right?” he said. “Because we could come into this as support professionals and say, hey I know this is the future and this is the way that customers are going to want to talk to us. But there are still generations of folks and demographics of folks that are used to a different level of support.”

Tune in for more on Brad’s approach to experimentation, what he’s learned, where he’s prioritizing changes, and what he thinks about the future of CX in our latest episode of Conversations with Zendesk.

Have a question for a Zendesk expert, interested in being a guest, or want to suggest a topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at cwzpodcast@zendesk.com—we’d love to hear from you.

The post Building the experiences your customers actually want—with Bitly’s Brad Harris appeared first on Zendesk.

The latest CX Trends data shows that unprecedented demand for AI is driving up the speed and frequency of customer engagement. In this new era of AI-powered CX, AI agents can push beyond traditional bot capabilities to help brands transform service into a competitive advantage.

Together, Zendesk and Ultimate will offer companies the flexibility and control to resolve issues their way–be it fully autonomous AI agents, workflow automation, or human touch. For human agents, it means focusing more time on building relationships, resolving complex challenges, and applying front-line customer expertise to become strategic partners in the business.

“AI is the future of CX and the next generation of AI agents are not just a tool, but a necessary and fundamental shift in how businesses will engage with their customers,” said Tom Eggemeier, CEO of Zendesk. “With Ultimate, we will help our customers set a new standard, with AI agents giving customers the support they need quickly and effortlessly. This means human agents can focus on what they do best: building relationships, resolving complex challenges, and applying innovation and creativity to move businesses forward.”

“Our mission has always been to help businesses use AI to deliver joyful support experiences. We’ve seen 99 percent of CX organizations who adopt AI shift permanently to a hybrid human and AI agent approach,” said Reetu Kainulainen, CEO and co-founder of Ultimate. “As part of Zendesk, we now have the scale to drive this transformation for every business.”

Ultimate’s AI agents automate up to 80 percent of support requests. They leverage any knowledge source and offer full customization to resolve even the most sophisticated use cases. Its automation platform integrates with any backend system and provides robust analytics and reporting. By joining forces with Ultimate, Zendesk will offer AI agents with enhanced intelligence that are not just reactive, but proactive problem solvers, complementing human expertise.

“Traditional chatbots are great in meeting basic CX needs. AI agents can be smarter, more reliable and provide precision support,” said Daniel Newman, CEO of The Futurum Group. “With Ultimate, Zendesk is well positioned to offer AI agents that can tackle sophisticated and complex service use cases, helping resolve customer issues with personalization, speed and dynamic responsiveness.”

This acquisition builds on the launch of Zendesk AI, the fastest-adopted product in the company’s history. With Zendesk AI, Ultimate, and the company’s AI-powered Workforce Engagement Management solutions, Zendesk offers the only complete CX platform that elevates customer experiences, manages service quality, and accelerates business growth.

To learn more about Ultimate, visit ultimate.ai.

The post Zendesk + Ultimate: Setting a new standard of service with AI agents appeared first on Zendesk.

The post The benefits of adopting an AI-powered workforce engagement management solution appeared first on Zendesk.

The dashboard allows managers to closely monitor their team members without hovering over their shoulders or constantly interrupting them throughout the day. This tool is crucial for managers who need high visibility of their agents’ activities. By providing the level of insight one would get from sitting beside their team members, the Agent Status Dashboard ensures managers can stay on top of their team’s productivity and efficiency.

Let’s talk perks:

• Real-time monitoring to maintain situational awareness
• An easy-to-digest summary of your team’s activities, including their current task, the time they have spent on the task, and their Talk availability status
• A real-time overview of your support team to spot potential issues, such as agents who are out of adherence or working on untracked tasks for longer than expected

All this information is available in one place, allowing managers to take real-time action to support their teams without making agents feel micromanaged.

Agent Status in action

When you first land on the Agent Status page, you’ll be able to see an unfiltered view with:

• Agent Name
• Current Activity Name
• Current Activity Time (Duration)
• Scheduled Activity
• In/Out Adherence
• Current Talk State
• Talk State Duration

To better adjust that list to the information you want to consult, use the filtering criteria available (Locations, Teams, Groups, Only agents with Schedules, Only agents with Activities) and/or the Grouping options (Group, Team, Location).

If you’re looking for a specific team or agent, you can also use the search field. (Pro tip: Use the keyboard shortcut CMD/CTRL + F to jump to the search field quickly.)

The post Introducing Agent Status Dashboard appeared first on Zendesk.

Instead of throwing your hands up, get creative with handling the issue. Whether you have more people on staff than you need or you’re desperate for a few more CX agents to lessen the pressure, there are ways to make this problem less awful.

Here are six tips to entice agents to take a break or volunteer to help out—whichever you need at the time.

When your scheduling errors mean you’re overstaffed

• Take a quick break

  Are things a bit slow? Don’t let your agents stare blankly at their screens waiting for the next contact. Instead, you can offer an hour off. Whether it’s playing a game, reading a book, or stopping by a local museum for a quick tour, that break might be just what someone needs today.

• Offer early leave

  The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and no tickets are coming into the queue. Who wants to go home? Look for volunteers who want a shorter day. Of course, you’ll need to be mindful of their contracted hours. But if they can make up that time on another day or don’t need those hours, give them the freedom to choose.

• Encourage a special project

  If time off isn’t possible (or advisable) for your team, then switch to finding more valuable uses for an agent’s time. Ask them if there’s something job-related they’ve been curious about and want to research or a gap they see within current practices/documentation they’d like to start fixing. This is the kind of thing where so many of our CX heroes found their true calling.

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If your scheduling errors mean you’re understaffed

• Provide free lunch

  Sometimes, the marketing team may forget to inform you of a campaign or there could be a software bug, resulting in more inquiries. If you need more people and it’s going to be a rough day, why not sweeten the deal? Order the team lunch if it’s within your budget and entice a few more agents to come in. This will boost morale and be highly appreciated by the team.

• Offer priority time off

  If someone saves you today, make a promise to return the favor later. Follow through on this promise by approving priority time-off requests the next time they make one. You can even create an email template for such situations, with defined parameters like how far in advance the request should be made to avoid any inconvenience.

• Relax the rules

  Maybe it’s a casual dress code or the ability to take an extra break. You know your team best—what would make their day easier? Much like a free lunch, this would need to apply to the whole team. But it’ll make it easier to get volunteers to come in when you need them.

The post Handling scheduling errors: An easy guide for workforce managers appeared first on Zendesk.

• It highlights your trends over time
• It lets you check your gut feelings against real data
• It gives you an idea of where you are vs. where you should be
• It’s a launchpad for creating outstanding schedules
• It tells you, down to minute-level increments, how you should be staffing
• It shows you where and when your team needs help
• It provides a rough idea of the future, which will either give you an edge over your competition or put you on a level playing field with them

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How to forecast manually

A few ways to simplify (a complicated) process

Remember, forecasting helps you plan with real information and not just guesses. So it’s setting you up for success, not telling you what to do with every minute of your agents’ days. Use it as a guide, and you’ll see how worthwhile Forecast can be in no time.

If you want to do it manually, follow these four simple steps:

1. Start now

The more data you have logged, the more information your Forecast has to work with and make those predictions as accurate as possible. Your future self (and team) will thank you.

You can use an automated call distributor system (or ACD), or you can have your agents log this themselves. You’ll want to determine the call volume and the call duration.

2. Look for recurring patterns

If you have a dip in call traffic every Friday afternoon, make a note of it. Every Wednesday morning, do your social media chats catch on fire? Take note of that, too. If you have data going back a few years, you might even find specific weekends where things always get hectic—and maybe they’re not even where you’d expect them to be.

3. Take “destabilizing events” into account

Remember, it’s called forecasting for a reason. This isn’t just about looking back, it’s about looking forward. So, if your company is going to launch a Super Bowl campaign or cut the price of your products in half, you’d expect an increase in call volume. Make sure your marketing and sales teams keep you in the loop so you can prepare for these events in advance.

On the other hand, if you’re expanding your customer support services (adding a chatbot or a new social channel, for example), you must account for those new contacts, too. You’ll need extra hands on deck. Consider what those channels might look like and estimate how much of current traffic will reroute there and how much new traffic they might generate.

4. Accept the inevitable: This. Isn’t. Perfect.

For all the work it involves, you’ll never know everything. You’ll never get staffing perfect every time. But you will get closer and closer as you go along. And in those golden days when everything runs smoothly, you’ll love it. The more you forecast, of course, the better balance you’ll have between smooth sailing and the odd stormy day.

How to forecast effortlessly

If you’re a Zendesk customer, you can set up Zendesk WFM in less than two minutes—the setup process is extremely simple. Once you’ve set it up, you can leverage all the data you’ve already logged in your Zendesk account to create accurate forecasts using our unique forecast feature.





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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/agent-attendance/ Fri, 08 Mar 2024 10:30:58 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=644264 This will save you time on Zendesk WFM when you need to understand who’s in and who’s not while providing: Better visibility for the attendance events (lateness, absence, overtime) Information that might be valuable for Payroll Reports (such as clock-in and out information, time logged as a duration in hours, and unpaid breaks) Quick access […]

The post The fresh approach to tracking daily attendance appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> This will save you time on Zendesk WFM when you need to understand who’s in and who’s not while providing:
• Better visibility for the attendance events (lateness, absence, overtime)
• Information that might be valuable for Payroll Reports (such as clock-in and out information, time logged as a duration in hours, and unpaid breaks)
• Quick access to the report through a dedicated menu selection
• Seamless navigation to past days
• An easy count of your agents per filtering selection



Upfront, you’ll be greeted with a vast choice of metrics and indicators that will provide an eagle-eye view of the presence or absence of your team members – no setup effort required. This summary view also helps you understand the presence of the agent against the schedule the agent was allocated with a very quick glance.

But for the agents with no schedule, you’ll also be able to see important information like the duration of unpaid breaks.

We’ve made life even easier here by providing filters and grouping options so that you can quickly see the following information by agent:

• Scheduled – start and end time for the agent scheduled for the day
• Time scheduled – the duration of the scheduled period
• Logged – the time the agent clocked in and if it’s currently clocked in or not
• Time logged – duration of the time the agent was/is clocked in
• Unpaid breaks – duration of the unpaid breaks of the agent
• Late – the duration of the agent’s lateness
• Left early – how early the agent left before the shift end
• Overtime – how long after the shift ended your agent clocked out
• Unplanned time off – the duration of time off unplanned (the unplanned classification comes from Time Off Request Reason Types)
• Planned time off – the duration of time off that was planned (the planned classification comes from Time Off Request Reason Types)
• Occupancy – for the total time your agent is logged, what percentage of time is spent on productive tasks

You also now have the capability to navigate to past days! No more missing information for yesterday or last week.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/exclude-volume-outliers-2/ Fri, 08 Mar 2024 10:22:00 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=644257 Introducing a simple way to exclude inbound volume outliers in your forecast within Zendesk WFM. It’s time to get more specific with your forecast and exclude any outliers from your inbound volume to make your forecast more precise. That’s right; you can now remove dates and times that may skew your forecast. Why exclude outliers? […]

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]]> Introducing a simple way to exclude inbound volume outliers in your forecast within Zendesk WFM.

It’s time to get more specific with your forecast and exclude any outliers from your inbound volume to make your forecast more precise. That’s right; you can now remove dates and times that may skew your forecast.

Why exclude outliers?

As always, accuracy. Accuracy is the key to forecasting for almost every reason in the book. Still, sometimes things come up in our inbound volume that could significantly impact your forecast volume afterward.

Now, you can remove those outliers and still have Zendesk WFM’s forecast do the heavy lifting for you, knowing that your forecast is now that much more accurate.

What’s in it for you

Sometimes things come up that we can anticipate, and sometimes things come up that we can’t, but either way, events can have a major impact – driving your inbound volume up or down drastically as a result.

Your predictable events may be a planned marketing campaign, scheduled system maintenance, or the release of a new product or feature. Those non-predictable events may include an outage, recall, or an under-communicated company change. Whatever the event, you’ll probably see a spike in inbound volume (or, at times, a decrease) from customers contacting your teams to get more information on what the heck is going on (good or bad).

It’s always good to understand how these events impact the team, but because they are generally one-off and will not have a long-term impact on your inbound volume, you’ll likely want to analyze the effect for future events and then remove the impact of that event from your forecast as it does not accurately represent your day to day volume.

If you leave it as is, you may see your trending volume increase for a particular time/day/week, but if you exclude the outlier, you can better rely on the volume output based on your standard volume.

Excluding outliers in action

All you’ll need to do is:

• Select the workstream with an outlier you’d like to exclude
• Click the Exclude outliers heading to the right of your forecast
• Click the plus icon
• Name your outlier (so that you can remember why you excluded this down the line)
• Select the start and end date and time
• Click the blue Save button towards the bottom right corner
• And watch the automagic

Here’s what that will look like:



And here’s the result!



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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/workforce-optimization/ Thu, 07 Mar 2024 17:49:59 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=644181 What is workforce optimization? Workforce optimization (WFO) is a business strategy that combines workforce management (WFM) and quality assurance (QA) principles to maximize workforce efficiency. WFO intertwines performance data, emerging technologies, and coaching to help employees, departments, and businesses operate at peak performance. Businesses today walk on a tightrope when it comes to customer service […]

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What is workforce optimization?

Workforce optimization (WFO) is a business strategy that combines workforce management (WFM) and quality assurance (QA) principles to maximize workforce efficiency. WFO intertwines performance data, emerging technologies, and coaching to help employees, departments, and businesses operate at peak performance.

Businesses today walk on a tightrope when it comes to customer service and efficiency. On one side, a capable workforce is always available to meet consumer demand. On the other, there’s a profitable balance sheet. Leaning too far in one direction compromises the other, so organizations must find balance to get across to safety. That balance is workforce optimization.

Businesses can use WFO to optimize their operations, customer experience (CX), and balance sheet simultaneously. In this guide, we cover workforce management in detail so you can traverse the tightrope of your day-to-day operations.

More in this guide:

• Key components of workforce optimization
• Benefits of workforce optimization
• How to achieve workforce optimization
• Workforce optimization strategies and best practices
• Frequently asked questions
• Improve your workforce optimization with Zendesk

Key components of workforce optimization

Workforce optimization combines two key components: workforce management and quality assurance. Here’s how these variables mix to form a comprehensive WFO strategy.

Workforce management

Workforce management is a set of processes and technologies a business can use to manage employees and resources, optimize productivity, and ensure the organization complies with laws and regulations. Some essential components of WFM include:

• Forecasting: accurately predicting future staffing needs based on historical business trends and anticipated customer demand
• Scheduling: assigning employee shifts and ensuring there’s adequate coverage during peak periods
• Real-time activity monitoring: monitoring employee schedules and customer demand hourly, allowing teams to make on-the-fly adjustments when necessary

Workforce management ensures the right employees are in the right place at the right time to optimize efficiency, labor budgets, and customer satisfaction.

Quality assurance

In the scope of WFO, customer service quality assurance (QA) focuses on reviewing conversations to improve your support team’s performance and increase customer satisfaction. Some important components of QA include:

• Scoring/evaluation: assessing support agent performance based on the quality of support interactions, customer surveys, workforce management metrics, and more
• Actionable feedback: providing constructive feedback to employees based on prior scoring gives them a pathway to improvement

Quality assurance can boost productivity and employee engagement. It can also ensure that agents deliver an outstanding customer experience time after time.

Benefits of workforce optimization

Workforce optimization brings a host of benefits to an organization. Here are some of the most important ones you should be aware of.

Increased operational efficiency

Workforce optimization helps businesses maximize their workforce’s productivity and increase operational efficiency. With forecasting, workforce scheduling, and real-time team management, companies can align staffing needs with anticipated workloads. This ensures they have the right amount of employees on call to deliver good customer service.

Improved customer experience and loyalty

Every organization should prioritize the customer experience, and workforce optimization can help achieve CX goals. For example, managers can use WFO to ensure every employee receives comprehensive training, which can result in reduced wait times, personalized service, and a consistent CX across channels.

Organizations can also lean on AI-powered reviews that speed up the QA process—giving them the feedback they need to improve their processes. All of this, in turn, can enhance customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.

Reduced costs

Workforce optimization makes an organization more efficient, causing a noticeable impact on your bottom line. For example, workforce managers can use AI-powered WFO tools to forecast optimal staffing needs for agents. This can lower labor costs, ensuring enough employees are working to optimize the CX but not enough to impact the budget negatively.

Enhanced employee satisfaction and development

Businesses can use a workforce optimization model to identify team training gaps, opening the door for implementing training modules and prioritizing employee growth. Additionally, WFO fosters clear communication and opportunities for performance feedback. Employees who feel like their employer is invested in their future may show more dedication and satisfaction in their role.

How to achieve workforce optimization

There’s no clear pathway for achieving workforce optimization—what works for one business might not for another. That said, there are a few things you should do to ensure you get the most out of your WFO efforts:

• Define clear objectives: Before enacting a new WFO plan, establish clear and actionable objectives. Whether they’re CX-focused or profit-oriented, defined goals will guide your optimization efforts.
• Promote collaboration: Don’t develop your strategy in a silo. Encourage all relevant employees and departments to weigh in on your WFO strategy and identify any inefficiencies in your current operations.
• Leverage technology: Resources like workforce management software can streamline your efforts and push optimization even further.

Organizations can create an efficient workforce optimization philosophy by adopting these strategies.

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Workforce optimization strategies and best practices

There are several best practices you can follow to get the most out of workforce optimization. Here are some of the most impactful.

Adopt a customer-first mindset

Businesses must adopt a customer-first mindset before optimizing scheduling or training employees. Being customer-first means putting the customer at the center of organizational decision-making rather than purely focusing on products or profits.

This can involve understanding your customer’s expectations, analyzing their feedback, and aligning training and performance goals with customer satisfaction. When prioritizing the customer, you’ll naturally make the best operational decisions for your business.

Optimize your hiring and onboarding

Quality managers can mold even the most subpar candidate into a five-star employee, but it’s much easier if a business hires quality individuals from the start. Look for candidates with the values and customer service skills that align with your organization, regardless of experience level.

After hiring the right people, ensure your employee onboarding process is as smooth and efficient as possible. Ensure you give them the right materials and lean on QA to deliver systematic feedback and targeted coaching. This empowers your new hires to hit the ground running and deliver a great CX.

Empower your employees

Consider investing in tools like workforce management software to empower your employees. These tools can assist them in the following ways:

• Giving them a clear, detailed view of their schedule
• Providing timely notifications that alert them to new tasks
• Allowing them to manage time-off requests and swap shifts with other employees

Additionally, WFO tools can help on the QA side as well. QA software makes it easy for managers to provide targeted coaching and monitor performance trends to see the impact of that training. Overall, you can support your employees and enhance their skills by arming them with the right tools.

Collect accurate data

Accurate data is the cornerstone of effective workforce optimization. Poor data reporting leads to poor strategy, and effective WFO processes and tools can give you more accurate insights.

For example, with WFO software, you can automate your reporting to:

• Keep track of real-time key performance indicators (KPIs) to identify notable performance.
• Spot bottlenecks in your customer experience.
• Understand the true relationship between your metrics, performance, and what leads to the best outcomes.

Utilize AI and automation

Intelligent automation and AI are leading the charge as the next generation of customer service. Use this technology to analyze your total coverage rather than using manual processes that rely on a small subset of your whole. You can also use AI to automatically identify patterns in datasets, provide actionable insights, streamline routine tasks, and more.

For example, businesses can use AI to assist their QA when reviewing customer support conversations. AI-powered filters can analyze dialogue based on quality, tone, level of service, and more. This means managers can pinpoint potentially problematic interactions without sifting through every recording.

Regularly review and improve

Workforce optimization isn’t a set-and-forget approach. Regularly analyze performance metrics, customer feedback, and industry trends to identify areas for improvement. Committing to this process can ensure that your WFO strategy is consistently up to date and most effective for your business.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between workforce management and workforce optimization?

Workforce management and workforce optimization seek to maximize a workplace’s efficiency and skill sets. The difference is that workforce optimization combines workforce management and quality assurance. In other words, workforce management is a component of workforce optimization.

What is staffing optimization?

Staffing optimization is scheduling the right number of employees to meet customer demand without negatively impacting labor budgets.

What is the role of QA?

The role of quality assurance in a business is to ensure that employees are trained and able to efficiently meet customer expectations and contribute to enhanced business performance.

What is the difference between QA and QC?

QA focuses on the more intangible aspects of workforce optimization: employee training, performance reviews, and ensuring that support agents are well-equipped in their roles. Quality control (QC) focuses on the product and identifies any defects in the design or functionality.

Improve your workforce optimization with Zendesk

Workforce optimization is a crucial business strategy that combines workforce management and quality assurance to help you traverse your organizational tightrope. It’s especially important for optimizing your customer support operations.

That’s why we offer a wealth of WFO capabilities to help Zendesk customers enhance the agent experience, improve productivity, and reduce service costs. Our AI-powered workforce management can automate forecasting, scheduling, reporting, and more. Meanwhile, our QA tools help support teams automate their operations so they can drive more revenue, boost customer satisfaction, and reduce churn.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/michelle-obama-relate-2024/ Tue, 05 Mar 2024 14:30:28 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=643972 Former First Lady Michelle Obama has spent her life challenging us to reconsider where that “supposed to” comes from—and who determines it. Her life shows us that you don’t have to look a certain way or act a certain way to fit in; you don’t have to make a lot of money or come from […]

The post Former First Lady Michelle Obama to join us at Zendesk Relate appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> Former First Lady Michelle Obama has spent her life challenging us to reconsider where that “supposed to” comes from—and who determines it. Her life shows us that you don’t have to look a certain way or act a certain way to fit in; you don’t have to make a lot of money or come from a certain group or class or faith in order to matter. Each of us can write our own story. And when we share those stories with one another, we can lift each other up along the way.

Soak up the wisdom live and in-person from the mainstage. Register now for Zendesk Relate in Las Vegas.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/ai-as-a-service/ Tue, 05 Mar 2024 00:24:07 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=643985 What is AI as a service? AI as a service (AIaaS) is a service offered by third-party vendors that allows businesses to incorporate AI-powered tools and capabilities into their systems. AIaaS is a low-risk and cost-effective model because businesses can deploy AI without investing in resources to build and implement it from scratch. The Jetsons […]

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What is AI as a service?

AI as a service (AIaaS) is a service offered by third-party vendors that allows businesses to incorporate AI-powered tools and capabilities into their systems. AIaaS is a low-risk and cost-effective model because businesses can deploy AI without investing in resources to build and implement it from scratch.

The Jetsons nailed artificial intelligence.

Premiering in 1962, the cartoon accurately depicts many technologies we use today—including AI. The show illustrates the benefits and challenges of intelligent automation and how people can implement AI at home and in the workplace. From voice assistants to AI-powered supercomputers, The Jetsons was ahead of its time.

Today, most businesses can access advanced AI technology and be as efficient as Spacely Space Sprockets, the AI-powered factory in The Jetsons, by using AI as a service (AIaaS). If you’re new to this, no worries. Our guide describes the types of AIaaS, benefits, challenges, examples, and trends so you can seamlessly move into the future.

More in this guide:

• Types of AI as a service
• Benefits and challenges of AIaaS
• Popular AI as a service vendors
• AIaaS trends for 2024 and beyond

Types of AI as a service

Businesses can leverage different types of AI services depending on operational needs. Like software as a service (SaaS) business models, companies can subscribe to AIaaS plans that provide AI for customer service tools. Here are some popular types of AIaaS and use cases.

Bots and virtual assistants

Bots and virtual assistants are types of conversational AI that use deep learning, machine learning algorithms, and natural language processing (NLP) to learn from human interactions. They improve with each interaction, delivering a more natural, personalized experience over time.

Businesses often use AIaaS solutions to deploy AI chatbots for convenient customer self-service, like troubleshooting common issues or surfacing answers to FAQs.

Adding customer service chatbots to your website, live chat and messaging platforms, mobile apps, and social media accounts allows you to meet customers where they are on their preferred channels. Additionally, service desk chatbots can provide IT support to internal teams.

Examples of bots and virtual assistants: Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant

Machine learning frameworks

Machine learning (ML) frameworks are cloud-based software libraries and tools that allow developers to build custom AI models. AIaaS providers offer pre-built ML frameworks that enable businesses to easily train and deploy these AI models without the heavy spend of in-house dev resources.

Examples of ML frameworks: Google Cloud AI and Microsoft Azure Machine Learning

Application programming interfaces

Application programming interfaces (APIs) allow different software apps and systems to communicate, interact, and share information. AIaaS vendors provide APIs so businesses can seamlessly connect the systems they currently use with AI-powered tools, without building the AI models themselves. For example, businesses can integrate bots and voice assistants with their own live chat software or website without code.

Examples of application programming interfaces: IBM Watson Natural Language Understanding API and Amazon Rekognition API

Artificial Intelligence of Things

Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of devices connected to the Internet that share data with each other. The devices contain sensors that exchange information in real time. Artificial Intelligence of Things (AIoT) embeds AI technology and machine learning capabilities into IoT, analyzing data to identify patterns, gather operational insights, and detect and fix problems.

AIoT devices can send relevant information to the cloud (with user permission) to assist with a product’s performance. AIaaS providers may offer forecasting services that enable IoT devices to predict when a machine and equipment may need maintenance, helping businesses avoid expensive interruptions.

Examples of AI for IoT: Google Cloud IoT Core and Microsoft Azure IoT

Benefits and challenges of AIaaS

Like any service, AIaaS comes with its share of pros and cons. Let’s start with a few common benefits of AIaaS to consider.

• Boost team productivity and efficiency: AIaaS allows you to leverage AI-powered features, such as intelligent routing and triage, generative AI, and sentiment analysis. These tools help streamline workflows and improve your team’s skills, resulting in increased productivity without additional headcount.
• Enhance the customer experience: According to the Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2023, most businesses are using AI to answer general questions, make recommendations to customers, improve agent productivity, and provide customers with 24/7 support. With AIaaS, businesses can implement AI faster to deliver personalized, conversational support and level up their CX.
• Reduce costs: Two-thirds of business leaders believe AI and bots will drive major cost savings now and in the future, according to our CX Trends Report. AIaaS is a cost-effective way for businesses to use plug-and-play AI functionality to keep up with evolving business trends and customer expectations—without heavy IT spending.
• Scale faster: Small businesses and startups may need more money and resources than established companies to implement in-house AI. AIaaS levels the playing field, allowing businesses of all sizes to deploy AI. The right AIaaS provider grows with your company, allowing you to adapt the AI capabilities to your needs and increase scalability.

Feeling uncomfortable with new technology, especially AI, is completely normal. Though AIaaS offers rich benefits, these challenges may be something to consider when picking the right AIaaS solution for your business.

• Risk of biased or unreliable data: If somebody trains an AI model on unreliable, biased, or unethical data, it could result in inaccurate results and decision-making. AIaaS providers should offer tools and services that help businesses ensure datasets are reliable, ethical, and unbiased.
• Concern about data privacy and security: AI-powered software needs access to large amounts of data (known as big data) to learn and personalize the customer experience (CX). Your AIaaS vendor will have access to this sensitive and personal information. So, the vendor you choose must have advanced data privacy and protection software to minimize the risk of exposing information during a security breach.
• Compliance with regulatory standards: Regulations governing the use of AI may vary across industries or locations. That means it’s important to make sure the AIaaS vendor you choose meets compliance standards relevant to your business. It’s also essential for the vendor to be transparent and proactive in sharing any compliance changes.



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Popular AI as a service vendors

Choosing the right AIaaS vendor can help you successfully implement the AI tools that fit your business needs. Here are a few of the top AI as a service providers and examples of what they offer.

Amazon Web Services

Amazon isn’t just an e-commerce marketplace with fast delivery. It’s also a cloud computing provider offering AI and machine learning services. Its AIaaS, Amazon Web Services (AWS), offers tools for businesses to build, train, and deploy AI models. AWS AIaaS offerings include:

• Amazon SageMaker: This service makes it easy for dev and data teams to build, train, and deploy machine learning models.
• Amazon Rekognition: This computer vision service provides capabilities for image and video analysis, including object detection and facial recognition.
• Amazon Lex: This offers natural language processing capabilities for building chatbots and conversational interfaces.
• Amazon Polly: This text-to-speech service converts text into life-like speech useful for voice-enabled applications.

Google Cloud

Of course, Google would make an appearance on this list. Google Cloud offers a suite of AI solutions and ML services that extend from NLP to computer vision. Here are a few cloud services offered in its toolset:

• Google Cloud AI is a set of machine learning tools and AI services for data scientists and dev teams that includes support for TensorFlow (the open-source ML framework that powers most Google products) and scikit-learn (a data analysis and algorithm library).
• Google Cloud Natural Language API is a natural language processing tool for sentiment analysis and content classification.
• Google Cloud Vision AI is a computer vision service for image and video analysis, featuring object detection and labeling as well as facial recognition.
• Google Dialogflow is an advanced AI platform for building conversational interfaces that use ML models, such as chatbots and virtual assistants.

OpenAI

You’ve likely heard of OpenAI’s generative AI tools ChatGPT and Dall-E, but its AIaaS offers so much more. OpenAI’s cloud-based AI services and models help developers, too. Some examples include:

• GPT-3: This is a language model that uses natural language processes and generative AI. It is available through an API, allowing developers to build custom AI applications.
• OpenAI Codex: An AI model designed for code generation, it assists developers in writing code more efficiently.
• OpenAI DALL-E: This creates unique visual content from text inputs.

These three cloud platforms are just the tip of the iceberg in the AIaaS landscape. While Amazon, Google, and OpenAI are the most popular companies providing AIaaS services for a wide range of use cases, other AIaaS vendors may have offerings that better fit your business needs.

AIaaS trends for 2024 and beyond

As we continue finding new ways to use AI in customer service, businesses must implement AI to keep up with the competition. Here are a few AIaaS trends to keep an eye on now and in the future.

Natural, human-like conversational experiences

It’s no wonder that 65 percent of business leaders believe that AI and bots are becoming more natural and human-like—because they are. AI-powered bots use data from the customer’s knowledge base to generate accurate, conversational replies. You can even create a unique chatbot persona to match the voice and tone of your brand to enhance the customer experience.

Consumers are already familiar with Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant and have embraced the convenience of conversational AI. And because bots learn from each interaction, conversations with AI will only get better.

Deeper personalization

Consumers now expect immersive experiences when interacting with brands. They understand that businesses collect data and, per our CX Trends Report, 59 percent want them to use it to personalize their experiences. AIaaS can provide pre-trained bots that use NLP to understand user intent and customize responses based on previous interactions.

Better collaboration and reduced data silos

Traditional support roles are evolving and responsibilities are being redefined. According to our CX Trends Report, 72 percent of business leaders believe that merging teams and responsibilities increases operational efficiency, meaning cross-functional collaboration and sharing data is a must. AIaaS provides technology that makes it easy to consolidate fragmented data in one place, break down data silos, and collaborate more efficiently.

Rise of the machines

AI made the jump from sci-fi cartoons to real life and has quickly become a crucial part of enhancing both customer and employee experiences. Businesses and customers alike have embraced the technology and understand that the benefits of AIaaS are essential to stay innovative and competitive. Using AIaaS, you can implement user-friendly AI-powered tools to optimize your systems, meet business needs, and crush your competition.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/ai-automation/ Tue, 05 Mar 2024 00:24:03 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=643983 Olivia is a customer service agent at a bustling, understaffed customer service department. She primarily responds to written support requests, like emails and chats, and can handle 30 to 50 messages per shift. However, her capacity often fluctuates based on the complexity of the tasks. To free up her time, bots quickly answer customer questions […]

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Olivia is a customer service agent at a bustling, understaffed customer service department. She primarily responds to written support requests, like emails and chats, and can handle 30 to 50 messages per shift. However, her capacity often fluctuates based on the complexity of the tasks.

To free up her time, bots quickly answer customer questions or acknowledge receipt of the query and when customers can expect a reply. This keeps her workload manageable, stress levels low, improves the customer experience, and helps her stick to her schedule.

That’s the power of intelligent automation.

In this article, we will discuss the definition of intelligent automation, key components, and details about how you can leverage IA for customer service within your organization.

• What is intelligent automation (IA)?
• Why is intelligent automation important?
• 5 components of intelligent automation
• How can AI automation help employees work more efficiently?
• Examples of AI automation customer service use cases
• Discover the true potential of AI and automation in customer service

What is intelligent automation (IA)?

Intelligent automation (IA) describes the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and cognitive technologies such as business process management (BPM), robotic process automation (RPA), and optical character recognition (OCR).

Sometimes called “cognitive automation” or “hyperautomation,” IA allows businesses to automate repetitive tasks and processes. In customer service, intelligent automation helps agents provide faster support in addition to stand-alone options like chatbots.

What is the difference between AI and intelligent automation (IA)?

To put it simply, artificial intelligence is a tool for efficient problem-solving, while intelligent automation combines several tools and technologies (including AI) to automate tasks, workflows, and processes. Since the technology is constantly combining and evolving, there are some blurred lines between the definitions of artificial intelligence, intelligent automation, and other methods of business process management (BPM). Here are the basics:

• Artificial intelligence is a machine’s ability to perform cognitive functions typically associated with human minds, according to McKinsey.
• Intelligent automation uses automation technologies like AI, business process management (BPM) and robotic process automation (RPM) to simplify organizational processes, streamline and scale decision-making, and improve operational efficiency, according to IBM.

Why is intelligent automation important?

Intelligent automation benefits businesses by streamlining manual, routine tasks. It increases operational efficiency, reduces human error, and can lower business costs.

Here are a few benefits of intelligent automation and why they should matter to business leaders:

• Increases efficiency by reducing repetitive work
• Helps teams accomplish more with fewer resources to keep operational costs low
• Controls operational costs by alleviating the need to add more support agents to the payroll
• Improves the customer experience by enabling agents to resolve customer issues faster

5 components of intelligent automation

Intelligent automation uses several technologies to achieve necessary functionalities, but the five basic components of intelligent automation include artificial intelligence, robotic process automation, business process management, automation tools, and data.

So, let’s demystify these components and how they make intelligent automation possible.

1. Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) is essentially the brains of the operation. AI often powers intelligent customer service tools that assist with sentiment analysis, personalization, and problem-solving to streamline support interactions.

AI refers to the ability of computers and software to assist with, and sometimes perform, cognitive tasks humans are traditionally responsible for. For example, making decisions, understanding context, and personalizing responses. Using data, AI continuously learns, making it a powerful tool for problem-solving.

AI makes intelligent automation possible using these techniques:

• Machine learning (ML): A type of AI that utilizes algorithms to learn from the data it acquires.
• Optical character recognition (OCR): Sometimes known as “text recognition,” OPR can identify text and repurpose data from documents, images, and PDFs.
• Natural language processing (NLP): A machine’s ability to recognize, understand, and output spoken and written human language.

Together, these techniques and algorithms help the software “think,” better comprehend customer requests, and enhance support.

2. Robotic process automation

Robotic process automation (RPA) is the task handler and rule follower. It’s also a key component of chatbots but primarily uses pre-defined business rules to influence bot outputs instead of learning from interactions and delivering humanistic replies.

RPA allows bots to execute repetitive, back-office tasks and processes like data entry and extraction, filling out forms, processing orders, moving files, and more.

For example, RPA bots can follow predefined rules to automate tasks and workflows. However, they’re unable to make decisions or think for themselves. So, to achieve intelligent automation, you must use robotic process automation with AI.

3. Business process management

Business process management (BPM) is the operations specialist of the intelligent automation group. For instance, let’s say you want to create an IA function to optimize change management—or how your business will use tools to manage and adapt to change. BPM can influence implementation planning, help capture data, and streamline creation of your change roadmap.

BPM is a discipline that relies on various software and processes to manage a business’s operations, including modeling, analysis, optimization, and automation.

The primary job of business process automation is to identify and eradicate inefficiencies by reassigning tasks that are time-intensive or prone to human error to AI automation.

4. Automation tools

Automation tools such as apps and integrations act as helpers. They automate workflows and processes, and enhance existing functionalities.

These integrations and automation tools often serve a specific purpose, like:

• Enabling communications between platforms
• Streamlining data sharing
• Identifying support congestion
• Automating general tasks
• Assisting with replies

By adding apps and integrations, businesses can customize intelligent automation from end-to-end to effectively serve customers and departments with unique needs.

5. Data

Finally, data is the key piece of the intelligent automation ecosystem. IA uses raw data to train its systems and set up intelligent workflows. Over time, IA can also continue learning and improving using data from interactions.

IA uses data to train itself and generate relevant responses to prompts it receives. Data also plays a key role in machine learning, ensuring the IA learns from each support interaction and user feedback.

Robotic process automation also uses data to follow predefined rules and compliance standards.

Business process management uses data to detect inefficiencies and enact changes that improve existing processes.



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How can AI automation help employees work more efficiently?

Many employees are hesitant to embrace AI for fear of job displacement. There is some merit to this concern, as a report from Gitnux predicts that AI will replace 85 million jobs by 2025. But the study also estimates that AI will create approximately 97 million new jobs.

AI isn’t a replacement for human talent, and businesses should use it as a support aid to enhance productivity.

For customer service, businesses can lead with an automation-first strategy to help human agents deliver better support. Here are some ways AI helps customer service teams:

• Saves agents time by taking over complex and repetitive tasks
• Identifies opportunities for streamlining operations
• Analyzes large amounts of data and delivers key insights
• Organizes support requests to keep agents on track
• Monitors regulatory guidelines to ensure compliance

Applications of AI automation and IA

Businesses can leverage intelligent automation to streamline their processes for various industries, from customer service and sales to marketing and operations. IA can help keep costs low by removing inefficiency from the equation and freeing up time for other high-priority tasks. See some examples of these applications below.

Make suggestions

Businesses can use automation to provide predictive suggestions that can speed up processes and improve productivity. Teams can use IA to:

• Draft emails and press releases
• Create internal process docs
• Brainstorm ideas
• Help edit text for basic grammar and syntax rules

Customer support teams can use intelligent automation to help write and send personalized replies to customers at scale. AI can save agents time on the basics so they can invest more time into things like personalization, this could include:

• AI-suggested macros and help center articles for agents to choose from while assisting a customer
• Auto-filled response options using a few contextual words from an agent

These automations benefit existing agents but are also useful to new hires, who may be slower to resolve tickets as they learn details about your business, its offerings, and performance expectations.

Automate workflows

Workflow automation helps team members handle smaller, repetitive responsibilities with ease. This also increases productivity by tackling time-consuming sales, support, IT, and marketing tasks.

Administrators can set up event-based (triggers) or time-based (automations) business rules so the AI will automatically address a task when the need arises without human intervention.

Gather data and insights

AI-driven tools like chatbots can aid in data collection, assess unstructured or historical data, and rapidly generate insights.

A few other ways businesses can use intelligent automation data include:

• Generating predictive analytics to aid in decision-making
• Gathering key context from customers before escalating tickets
• Detecting anomalies
• Prioritizing tickets and communications with high profitability potential
• Identifying how customer intent relates to purchasing behaviors
• Sharing personalized recommendations

Drive sales and conversions

Much like gathering data and insights, IA can help businesses drive more sales by providing strategy recommendations and optimizing existing sales processes.

Some ways IA can help create or identify upsell and cross-sell opportunities are through:

• Lead scoring
• A/B testing suggestions
• Real-time product recommendations
• Industry and market trend predictions
• Customer intent and sentiment analysis

Support customers

Aside from serving as a worthwhile resource for internal use, intelligent automation can also be a valuable tool for customer self-service.

For example, chatbots can provide conversational support for most minor issues and many customers like using them because of the added layer of convenience.

AI automation can improve customer service convenience by:

• Sending help center articles to customers or employees
• Answering frequently asked questions around the clock
• Routing customers to the best agent or department to resolve their issue

Invest in intelligent process automation

Discover the true potential of AI and automation for customer service by incorporating intelligent process automation into your workflows.

When you equip your support teams with AI-powered tools like chatbots, virtual assistants, and agent workspaces that enhance productivity, you empower them to take customer service to the next level—and maybe even capitalize on sales opportunities.

Learn more about Zendesk AI for customer service to take customer care to the next level and exceed customer expectations.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/arc-donald-muir/ Mon, 04 Mar 2024 21:39:56 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=643976 In this episode of Sit Down Startup, get to know Donald Muir, the creator and driving force behind Arc, a digital bank crafted for the tech-savvy crowd. Muir, along with his co-founders Nick Lombardo and Raven Jiang, started Arc while they were attending Stanford Business School. Within two years of launching their business, the tech […]

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In this episode of Sit Down Startup, get to know Donald Muir, the creator and driving force behind Arc, a digital bank crafted for the tech-savvy crowd. Muir, along with his co-founders Nick Lombardo and Raven Jiang, started Arc while they were attending Stanford Business School. Within two years of launching their business, the tech landscape was shaken when Silicon Valley Bank collapsed.

Join us in this episode as Muir shares his insights on navigating the aftermath of SVB’s collapse, the importance of teamwork in revolutionizing online banking, his perspectives on fostering cross-departmental collaboration, and the significance of an execution-driven mindset.





The aftermath of the explosion: How Arc rose to the occasion

On March 8, 2023, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) announced the need to raise $2.25 billion in equity to bridge the gap caused by the fire sale of its long-term bond portfolio, which resulted in a staggering $1.8 billion loss. Unfortunately, this caused the market to panic, leading to the collapse of SVB that very night.

The next morning, Muir was inundated with phone calls from anxious founders who had accounts with SVB. The Arc founder understood the gravity of the situation. He says, “Not only were they operating in a challenging fundraising environment and a depressed tech environment where it’s harder to make sales and harder to grow revenue, but they also don’t know when their next funding round is going to occur or where it’s going to come from. Now, they have to worry about their existing cash—now even more precious in this environment—potentially being lost.”

Muir and his team had to act fast to make sure Arc could keep these startups afloat while SVB went under. They devised marketing collateral and streamlined the onboarding process, enabling Arc to establish FDIC-insured accounts for these startups within 10 minutes. Arc played a pivotal role in helping founders withdraw cash from SVB, diversifying their holdings, securing their deposits, and ensuring they could meet payroll commitments in the following week. Reflecting on this tumultuous period, Muir described it as “the most intense 72 hours of my professional career.”

When Muir received those panicked calls from founders, his team was willing to do whatever it took for Arc to accommodate these new clients. Employees even assumed temporary new roles within the startup.

He recalls, “The team went into overdrive. We set up new [job descriptions] for everyone outside the engineering team. Everyone from our office manager to our head of talent to our SDRs joined the onboarding team with the influx of demand, and we managed the rest over Slack. It was constant communication. The level of cross-functional collaboration that I witnessed, that our team experienced over that three- to four-day period, was really remarkable. And it’s something that we want to continue beyond this episodic black-swan event.”

Indeed, Arc has been able to maintain this strong cross-functional collaboration. It remains a driving force behind the ongoing growth of the startup. Muir says, “The team leveled up. The business grew. We are on track for 10x plus this year. The momentum hasn’t slowed since March of 2023. The team rose to the occasion and worked cross-functionally in a way that I hadn’t seen at any point in my career.”

The importance of an execution-focused mindset

When it comes to his employees, Muir knows exactly what kind of team member can help Arc succeed: “The defining attribute that I look for when hiring new architects onto the team is this entrepreneurial trait. I look for individuals who have that hustle, that grit.”

Many of Arc’s senior engineers founded their own tech companies. Hiring experienced founders and ensuring open communication within the team ensured swift resolution of issues following SVB’s collapse. Muir explains, “If there was an issue onboarding a customer, it would be resolved within minutes. We would have engineers plugged in directly with sales, they would get on the phone with the customer to make sure the onboarding process was seamless.”

Effective team communication also enables Arc to meet customer expectations and needs, especially around product design. “We were spinning up new products, and that insight came directly from those conversations and inbound emails from customers saying, ‘Hey, how can I max out FDIC coverage? How can I diversify my cash today across multiple banks, not just one?’ We spun up that feature set within hours and days of SVB’s collapse, and that was purely driven by live market feedback.”

Muir’s steadfast approach significantly impacts Arc’s continued success, advocating for a mirrored mindset within his team. It’s something that he looks for during the hiring process. “I am a very execution-driven operator,” he says. “I believe that there are such things as really smart people and really good ideas, but ultimately what sets you up for success is putting your head down, working hard, and executing. You can have the best idea in the world but without grit, perseverance, and pure execution, you are never going to succeed. So in our case, that’s one of the key elements we look for.”

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/intelligent-call-routing/ Fri, 01 Mar 2024 19:46:29 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=643832 What is intelligent call routing? Intelligent call routing (ICR) is a refined telecommunications technology that efficiently directs incoming calls based on various factors, such as the caller’s needs and agent availability. ICR optimizes call handling and improves customer experiences by using data points and algorithms to connect callers with the most qualified agents. Most customers […]

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What is intelligent call routing?

Intelligent call routing (ICR) is a refined telecommunications technology that efficiently directs incoming calls based on various factors, such as the caller’s needs and agent availability. ICR optimizes call handling and improves customer experiences by using data points and algorithms to connect callers with the most qualified agents.

Most customers are all too familiar with the frustration of calling traditional service lines. It’s a seemingly endless maze of robotic prompts, hold music, and uninformed agents that make customers repeat the same information. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Intelligent call routing bypasses the blind turns of the phone maze so interactions with agents are fast, effective, and painless. Find out how ICR can help you ditch the one-size-fits-all approach to communication and how you can turn your business into an icon of customer satisfaction.

More in this guide:

• How intelligent call routing works
• Benefits of intelligent call routing
• Intelligent contact routing best practices
• Frequently asked questions
• Find the right intelligent routing provider

How intelligent call routing works

Intelligent call routing takes a three-pronged approach to efficiently manage incoming calls within call center software:

1. Data gathering: The ICR system gathers caller data when a call comes in. This can include caller ID, location, time of day, the reason for calling, and past interactions with the company.
2. Analysis and matching: The ICR system then analyzes this data against predefined routing rules and agent skill sets. These rules consider factors like the caller’s needs and the agent’s expertise, workload, and even language proficiency. The system then determines the appropriate agent to handle the call.
3. Routing and connection: Finally, the ICR system routes the call to the chosen agent directly or through a call queue if the agent is unavailable.

ICR can be integrated with other call center technologies, such as interactive voice response (IVR) software and automatic call distribution (ACD), to further improve efficiency.

Benefits of intelligent call routing

Businesses that adopt intelligent routing to field inbound calls can experience three primary performance benefits.

Improves first contact resolution

Intelligent call routing revolutionizes first contact resolution by ditching the one-size-fits-all approach. The solution gathers data about callers and their needs, then uses smart algorithms to match them with the right agent on the first try. This eliminates tedious transfers, ensures expertise from the get-go, and expedites issue resolution, leaving you with happier customers and fewer callbacks.

For example, Wyze Labs received upwards of 300 phone calls per day, and its traditional call system was impeding support operations, resulting in missed calls and unhappy customers. After switching to an intelligent routing system with Zendesk—one that leverages the help of AI in the call center—the smart home technology provider’s first call resolution improved by 98 percent.

Increases agent efficiency

ICR increases agent efficiency by ensuring agents receive calls that align with their skills and expertise instead of navigating a whirlwind of diverse issues. ICR analyzes agents’ skills and the call’s complexity before expertly matching the right problem-solver to each query. This targeted approach improves agent productivity as they can apply their specialized knowledge to relevant issues.

Reduces first reply times

ICR slashes first reply times by transforming the queue from a frustrating bottleneck into a well-oiled machine. By using data-driven insights, intelligent call routing prioritizes calls based on urgency, complexity, and even customer sentiment, allowing high-value customers and urgent issues to bypass long wait times. Intelligent prioritization ensures the right calls reach agents faster, minimizing hold times and reducing overall queue length.

Switching to intelligent routing allowed Netwealth, for instance, to track response times within its call center and identify pain points in its routing strategy. This visibility allowed the wealth management company to adjust and reduce their first reply time to 40-60 seconds.

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Intelligent contact routing best practices

If you stick to your old ways after switching to intelligent contact routing, it’s unlikely that you’ll receive all the benefits of its advanced functionality. Incorporate these best practices into your operations to unlock ICR’s full potential.

Integrate systems and harness data

Data is the core component that allows ICR to work its magic. Integrating ICR with your other systems lets you see a full picture of your customers, agents, and broader operations. Agents can enter conversations better prepared to handle inquiries, and the system can share real-time data to make call center workforce management easier.

Tip: Integrating ICR call volume and wait time data with your analytics solution can help you forecast staffing needs.

Segment your customer base

Use customer segmentation to identify and prioritize high-value customers within the ICR system. If your company doesn’t have designated VIPs, you can evaluate factors like purchase history and frequency of transactions to identify which customer relationships take precedence.

Tip: While speed of service is an important factor, you should also consider the quality of support. Dedicating experienced agents to handle VIP customers’ issues will help you achieve service level agreements and provide great customer experiences.

Evaluate your agents’ strengths

The “intelligence” of your ICR system will be limited if you treat every agent as an interchangeable part of the machine. Instead, look at them as individuals and assess their hard and soft call center skills to identify which calls they’re best suited to handle. Analyze call handling time, resolution rates, and customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores to identify agents’ strengths and weaknesses.

Tip: Foster a culture of continuous learning to fill gaps in agent skills and develop a dynamic team that can take on any issue. Helping agents achieve their career goals will improve your ICR process while reducing employee turnover.

Establish call handling processes

You can contribute to the efficiency of your IVR system by creating comprehensive call handling processes. First, define clear escalation procedures to handle complex or high-priority issues, including points of contact that will handle specific requests. Visualizing this structure in a phone tree can help you identify support gaps or pain points where additional employee support is required.

Additionally, direct your employees on how to manage their time to maximize availability. If agents update customer profiles in real time, for example, they’ll be ready to take the next call immediately. Or if they need time between calls to handle administrative tasks, agents should update their status in the system so ICR can route calls to free agents.

Tip: Updating customer data in real time is the most efficient way to maintain agent availability, but it shouldn’t hinder the agent’s effectiveness. Make sure your agents prioritize being mentally present for the task at hand to deliver the best service.

Measure KPIs

Measuring key performance indicators (KPIs) associated with intelligent call routing systems is essential for tracking progress and improving customer service operations. Key call center metrics to monitor include:

• First contact resolution
• Call wait time
• Call abandonment
• IVR transitions

By regularly evaluating these customer experience KPIs, you can identify opportunities to fine-tune routing algorithms, optimize agent skill matching, and enhance overall system performance. This iterative approach ensures that ICR systems evolve with changing business needs and customer expectations, ultimately leading to improved operational efficiency and a more positive customer experience (CX).

Tip: Collecting post-call customer satisfaction scores can provide a complete picture of how your call routing strategies contribute to the overall customer experience.

Frequently asked questions

What are intelligent call routing applications?

Intelligent call routing applies to various business environments where efficient and effective handling of incoming calls is critical. Common applications for ICR across different industries include:

• Contact centers handling support requests by analyzing caller history and agent skills
• Sales teams directing sales inquiries to the appropriate representative based on potential value or geographical location
• Healthcare systems managing patient inquiries, appointment scheduling, and routing calls to specialized staff
• Emergency services routing calls based on the type of emergency, location, and the available resources

Should I use an intelligent routing system?

You should use an intelligent routing solution if your organization handles high inbound call volumes or diverse customer interactions. Intelligent routing enables your business to direct calls to the most suitable resources, reduce wait times, and create a better customer and agent experience.

What is an example of intelligent routing?

Here’s an example of intelligent routing for a customer that’s experiencing issues with their project management software:

1. The customer calls the support line and is greeted by the IVR system, which asks for their reason for calling.
2. The customer selects “technical issue” and provides the product’s model number.
3. The ICR system analyzes the customer’s information against available agents’ noted skills.
4. Due to the urgency of the request, the ICR system bypasses the queue and uses skills-based routing to connect the customer to an agent who specializes in that particular product issue.

Find the right intelligent routing provider

An intelligent routing system is more than just a map that customers use to navigate a phone maze. It’s more akin to a chainsaw that cuts through walls so they can get from point A to point B effortlessly. But for that to work, your software provider must deliver the right tools for success.

Features like data analysis, rule customization, and seamless integration are just a few factors you should consider. Partnering with Zendesk unlocks a bounty of resources that optimize operations and support continued growth. With the help of AI, self-service features, and cutting-edge workforce management tools, you can turn your call center into the envy of your competitors.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/revenue-churn/ Thu, 29 Feb 2024 22:53:41 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=643786 What is revenue churn? Revenue churn measures the monthly recurring revenue (MRR) loss from existing customers over a specific period. This metric focuses on customers who have canceled or downgraded their monthly subscriptions. Revenue churn is most relevant for software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies or subscription-based businesses. Today’s consumer has an endless amount of choices at their […]

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What is revenue churn?

Revenue churn measures the monthly recurring revenue (MRR) loss from existing customers over a specific period. This metric focuses on customers who have canceled or downgraded their monthly subscriptions. Revenue churn is most relevant for software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies or subscription-based businesses.

Today’s consumer has an endless amount of choices at their fingertips. They can find almost any product or service from the palm of their hand, and if you don’t satisfy them at every turn, you run the risk of churned customers and decreased revenue.

Revenue churn rate is a metric that helps businesses identify the monthly revenue they lose with every lost customer. In this guide, we cover the basics of revenue churn, how you can calculate and reduce it, and how being attentive to your customer experience (CX) can make a significant impact.

More in this guide:

• Why is revenue churn rate important?
• Revenue churn vs. customer churn
• How to calculate revenue churn rate
• Common causes of high revenue churn
• How to reduce revenue churn rate
• Frequently asked questions
• Reduce your revenue churn with Zendesk

Why is revenue churn rate important?

Revenue churn rate is significant because any amount of lost revenue is impactful. If your organization is experiencing high revenue churn, you need to understand why.

It’s natural for consumers to end their relationship with your business occasionally. However, a pattern of consistent customer cancellations or downgrades indicates that there may be issues with your product or your customer experience. Understanding this metric can help you in key areas like:

• Customer retention: Revenue churn can help identify what your customers appreciate—and what they don’t. This can lead to a better CX and improved customer loyalty.
• Product improvements: Monitor your revenue churn when establishing new systems or product features. If it stays consistent—or even reduces—that tells you your customers value your new approach.
• Increased revenue: You can improve your processes by understanding why customers leave. This can reduce the cost of customer acquisition and increase long-term revenue.

When you understand your revenue churn, you’ll be more in tune with your customer base and more likely to build long-term relationships.

Revenue churn vs. customer churn

While different, revenue churn and customer churn are two sides of the same customer retention coin.

Customer churn rate is the percentage of customers who stop doing business with an organization over time. This metric can offer insight into how well an organization can retain its customers.

Revenue churn rate measures the loss of monthly revenue from customers over time. This metric provides insight into how well an organization can produce revenue from its customer base.

This is an important distinction because, while these terms are related, they can mean different things for your business. Let’s take a look at two fictional businesses:

• Peak Impact Fitness lost 10 customers who paid the company $10 per month, or $100 of revenue.
• Plugin Fitness only lost two customers, but they each paid $200 per month, or $400 of revenue.

In the above examples, Peak Impact had a higher customer churn rate (10), while Plugin had a higher revenue churn rate ($400).

How to calculate revenue churn rate

You can calculate revenue churn rate in two ways: gross revenue churn rate and net revenue churn rate.

Gross revenue churn rate

Gross revenue churn rate measures how much revenue a business lost in a period without factoring in new customer acquisition. This is a useful formula for examining revenue churn in a vacuum.

Gross revenue churn rate formula

( X ÷ Y ) x 100 = Z

X= Churned revenue in a period
Y = Monthly recurring revenue in the previous period
Z = Gross revenue churn rate

To use this formula, divide your churned revenue for a month by your MRR from the previous month and multiply by 100.

For example, Peak Impact Fitness wants to measure its gross revenue churn for July. It had an MRR of $50,000 in June. During July, it registered a churned revenue of $7,000. First, the business divides $7,000 by $50,000 to get 0.14, then multiplies that by 100. So, Peak Impact’s gross revenue churn rate for July is 14 percent.

Net revenue churn rate

The net revenue churn rate measures how much revenue a business loses in a period while also considering new business gained. This is a useful formula for growing companies or organizations that want to see how their growth rate offsets their churn.

Net revenue churn rate formula

[ (X – W) ÷ Y ] x 100 = Z

W = Expansion revenue
X= Churned revenue in a period
Y = Monthly recurring revenue in the previous period
Z = Net revenue churn rate

To use this formula, subtract expansion revenue from churned revenue for a month before dividing the result by MRR from the previous month and multiplying by 100. To illustrate, let’s revisit Peak Impact.

In June, it had an MRR of $50,000. During July, it had a total revenue churn of $7,000—but it also had $5,000 in expansion revenue. To calculate, Peak Impact subtracts $5,000 from $7,000 to get $2,000. Next, it divides that by $50,000 to get 0.04 before multiplying by 100 to get 4 percent.

This is a good example of how gross and net revenue churn rates differ, as Peak Impact had a gross revenue churn of 14 percent in July but a net revenue churn of only 4 percent.

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Common causes of high revenue churn

Businesses can experience revenue churn for a myriad of reasons, but it usually comes down to issues with your product or customer experience. Here are some common reasons for a high churn rate, along with insight from our Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2024:

• Bad customer service: Our CX Trends Report states that 80 percent of consumers expect support agents to help them with everything they need. Unhelpful and inexperienced reps who constantly transfer your customers to other agents could impact churn.
• Customer dissatisfaction: Unhappy customers come in all shapes and sizes. They could notice your product quality slipping or be annoyed at your lack of self-service capabilities.
• Lack of innovation: Per our CX Trends Report, 65 percent of CX leaders see artificial intelligence as a strategic necessity. Consumers expect the latest and greatest innovations, and if they aren’t getting it from your brand, they might look for a company that can.
• Subpar data security: According to our CX Trends Report, 70 percent of consumers won’t purchase from a business with poor security measures. If your consumers are concerned about how you’re using their data, they may churn.
• Poor customer onboarding: Efficient onboarding immediately delivers value to your customers and shows them your product’s capabilities. Without that, they may become overwhelmed or switch to a competitor.

How to reduce revenue churn rate

In addition to identifying and mitigating the reasons for churn, businesses can reduce their revenue churn rate in several ways. Here are some of the most impactful.

Adopt a customer-first approach

Being customer-first means putting the customer at the center of organizational decision-making instead of only focusing on profitability. This approach involves listening to customer feedback, anticipating customer needs, providing personalized experiences, and seeking ways to consistently deliver a positive CX.

When organizations focus on the customer with every decision, they are more likely to meet or exceed customer expectations. And when customers are happy with the organization they’re doing business with, they are likely to stick around long term.

Invest in the customer experience

A commitment to the customer experience goes beyond adopting a customer-first approach—it also means equipping your team with the tools to deliver good customer service time after time. Consider investing in solutions like customer service software to streamline and enhance the customer experience.

This software can assist your team in several ways, like helping you build a knowledge base so customers can find answers on their own or deploying chatbots to be the first line of defense for consumer concerns. These types of features can help to reduce your churn.

Find out why your customers churn

Knowing that your customers are churning isn’t enough—you need to know the why. Identifying patterns through customer surveys, analyzing key performance indicators (KPIs) like customer service metrics, speaking to your support team, and other actions can reveal why your customer base is churning. When you discover why your customers are leaving, you can implement steps to change.

Learn to identify high-risk customers

After you identify patterns that lead to customer churn, it’s important to learn how to identify high-risk customers before they leave. By proactively addressing concerns or engaging in targeted messaging, you can rectify the situation before it’s too late.

For example, you may discover that individuals who haven’t interacted with your marketing emails for two months usually churn. In this situation, you may send them a personalized discount or product offer to get them to re-engage with your brand.

Establish loyalty programs

Establishing a customer loyalty program is an excellent way to prevent customers from churning. These programs incentivize consumers to remain loyal to your business by offering exclusive benefits, discounts, and rewards. Doing so can help reduce churn, improve your customer retention rate, boost your customer lifetime value, and increase profitability.

Strive for continuous improvement

Regularly assess and refine your process and product based on feedback and customer retention metrics. A commitment to continuous improvement ensures that your business remains agile, responsive to market changes, and aligned with changing consumer preferences.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good revenue churn rate?

Revenue churn differs for every business, and what’s good for your organization or industry may not work for others. Some organizations shoot for a 5 percent monthly churn, while others accept 40 percent.

What is the difference between revenue and churn?

Revenue is how much money your organization brings in during a given period, while revenue churn is how much money your organization loses during a given period.

What is an example of revenue churn?

If you had a monthly recurring revenue of $10,000 in January and had a revenue churn of $1,250 in February, your gross revenue churn would be 12.5 percent for February. You get this number by dividing $1,250 by $10,000 and multiplying that number (.125) by 100.

What is negative revenue churn?

A negative revenue churn occurs when the incoming revenue from new business exceeds the lost revenue from churn. In other words, you are gaining more subscribers or new business than you are losing.

Reduce your revenue churn with Zendesk

A high revenue churn rate can cause significant problems for your business. Organizations need to adopt a customer-first approach, invest in CX, and understand why their customers are churning to minimize the impact on their balance sheets. While you can do this independently, you’ll find more success by partnering with a customer experience expert.

At Zendesk, we provide a comprehensive CX solution that helps businesses of all sizes form meaningful connections with their customers, increase long-term loyalty, and improve their customer retention—all of which can reduce revenue churn. Try us for free today.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/new-integrations-feb-2024/ Thu, 29 Feb 2024 22:25:48 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=643763 Here are the newest integrations from Zendesk to help your team provide top-quality experiences. Route Route (Support) is at the forefront of enhancing the post-purchase journey, offering unparalleled protection and convenience to both brands and their customers. Route’s strategic integration with Zendesk redefines customer support dynamics for e-commerce entities, enabling support representatives to seamlessly monitor, […]

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]]> Here are the newest integrations from Zendesk to help your team provide top-quality experiences.

Route

Route (Support) is at the forefront of enhancing the post-purchase journey, offering unparalleled protection and convenience to both brands and their customers. Route’s strategic integration with Zendesk redefines customer support dynamics for e-commerce entities, enabling support representatives to seamlessly monitor, address, and initiate claims without ever leaving the Zendesk interface. This integration equips support teams with all the necessary tools and information to effectively resolve customer issues, ensuring a seamless and transparent post-purchase experience that not only meets but exceeds customer expectations.

UltimateGPT for Knowledge Base

UltimateGPT for Knowledge Base (Chat) enables customers to automate 60 percent of their digital support channels–decreasing costs, empowering agents, and delivering amazing customer experiences. Retain all of your conversation data in Zendesk–not a third-party app–route and enrich Zendesk tickets, create smart escalations to human agents, and measure your bot’s performance in Zendesk.

App Authorizations (Support)

App Authorizations helps you review app authorizations and revoke them if no longer needed. With this app, you can see integrations that have access to your Zendesk data. You can view when it was authorized, who authorized it, when it was last used. Most importantly, it also offers you the ability to revoke tokens you authorized that you want to cycle.

Next Matter

Next Matter (Support) connects tasks, teams, tools, and external people in automated workflows, designed to work exactly like you do. Trigger end-to-end workflows directly from Zendesk, and empower any support rep to boost customer experience by owning and resolving workflows like an expert. This tool and sidebar app enables you to run, track, and resolve complex support tickets without leaving Zendesk.

Additional apps added in February:

• Shopify Cart Builder by Perfo (Support) lets you quickly create full carts for customers in the agent view sidebar. This app pulls in all the Shopify products and variants in the store and provides a UI to pick and choose variants and quantities, then outputs a URL with a pre-filled cart.
• Stylo Sentiment Scores (Support) provides sentiment analysis, automated ticket categorization, and automation support. Identify and prioritize important tickets before customers escalate, automatically categorize and tag tickets for powerful reporting, unlock product insights with sentiment trends, track agent performance trends, and enhance customer care by identifying which accounts need attention sooner.
• Octopia (Support) is a game-changer for seamless marketplace communication and efficient order management. With an easy installation process, Octopia consolidates messages from various marketplaces, providing a centralized hub for swift responses. Gain comprehensive insights into orders, ensuring informed customer interactions.
• Telephony Integration by Knots (Support) is a simple solution that works with old telephone systems. Create a ticket as soon as an agent takes a call, providing comprehensive customer information upfront. Integrate with old systems, including Placetel, Alcatel, 3CX, Cisco, Swyx, Avaya, etc.
• Ticket Export & Archive by Knots (Support) simplifies data management by allowing you to export tickets from Zendesk and store them in your SFTP/FTP server or cloud storage. You can customize the folder in your storage based on data your way–by ticket ID, requester data, etc.
• Auralis (Support) is a comprehensive AI-powered service designed to improve customer service by offering a range of AI tools such as chatbots and intelligent automation. These tools provide instant answers to customer queries with high accuracy, enhancing satisfaction and efficiency.
• Support Sidekick AI (Support) uses your Zendesk history and GPT so your agents can send better responses for less. Draft read-to-go before you even open Zendesk, analyze the email to extract questions, intent, or tone–and search through your closed ticket database to find the tickets most relevant to the customer’s question.
• GrowthDot Suite Pro (Support) gives you access to GrowthDot’s four apps (Proactive Campaigns, Email Tracking, GDPR Compliance, and Sanctions Check) for one low price. It’s your all-in-one solution for email marketing, privacy compliance, and reputation management.
• USU Agent Assist (Support) provides a widget that automatically searches for information relevant to the current open issue and displays it compactly. The agent can solve the issue using the information or can take over parts of it that are relevant to the solution.
• Ticket Guardian (Support) transforms your Zendesk ticketing system into a powerhouse of efficiency and accuracy by integrating pre-send validation checks directly into your workflow. Ensure that every response meets your high standards for quality and personalization. It automatically checks tickets for common errors or omissions, such as unfilled placeholders, before they’re sent.
• Onward Package Protection (Support) makes it so you can easily see which orders are protected with Onward VIP Protection+ and be able to make a claim on behalf of your customers from within Zendesk. Ensure customers get what they purchased while also rewarding them for being a loyal customer.
• External Attachment Storage (Support) is a tool to manage and reduce the amount of attachment storage used within your Zendesk instance. Store attachments externally to Zendesk on an industry leading secure third-party storage system with the option to delete attachments after a given period, helping to comply with data protection and retention.
• Gravite (Support) is an application to help product teams understand the issues they encounter by collecting user feedback from different sources. This seamless integration between Zendesk and Gravite helps you leverage tickets containing valuable customer feedback to continually improve your product based on your customers’ needs.
• evaluagentCX (Support) helps contact centers improve the quality of sales and service interactions and provide an elevated and differentiated customer experience. By acting as a QA co-pilot, evaluagentCX identifies the must-monitor interactions, delivering time and process efficiencies and enabling rapid, measurable agent performance improvements through targeted coaching.
• Shopware 6 Connector and Shopware 5 Connector by MorfDev (Support) allow you to connect your Shopware 5/6 stores and display customer information on the Zendesk side. In addition, the application can connect several Shopware 5/6 stores at the same time and display information for each store.
• Translation by Language I/ – Inline (Support) enables support agents to communicate with customers in 100+ languages through tickets, messaging, and chat. The app allows agents to easily perform inbound and outbound translations directly within Zendesk’s conversation area, with the ability to adjust preference settings from the sidebar.
• Multiple JIRA Instance By IntegrateCloud and Jira Service Management by Integrate Cloud (Support) create a seamless workflow between Zendesk Support tickets and Jira issues. Support teams can easily escalate and link Zendesk tickets to Jira issues. Notify engineering of bugs that are impeding your customer’s experience and get updates on the issue’s resolution—all from within Zendesk.

New themes added in February:

Aarlborg is a user-friendly theme with a minimalistic design. The theme is straightforward from both the user and admin sides, so you can easily find and enable necessary options and views. Moreover, users will feel comfortable visiting well-arranged pages.

Eidolic is an easy-to-navigate, professional, and mobile responsive theme for Help Center. Effortlessly customize headers, footers, and more without delving into code. Eidolic’s clean design and polished interface elevate your brand image, instilling trust and confidence.

Dexo 128 is a Zendesk theme with a professional and aesthetic design, brimming with features. It showcases a variety of customizable blocks and calls-to-action. All these elements are easily brandable and customizable without any coding required, facilitating the quick launch of a customer-pleasing help center.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/translating-iconic-experiences-to-a-digital-space-podcast/ Thu, 29 Feb 2024 22:04:50 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=643711 If you’ve ever walked into an Aesop store, it’s a full sensory experience. The smells, the sights, the samples—and the incredibly warm and knowledgeable staff. It’s hard to imagine such a rich experience ever existing online and yet, the team at Aesop is tackling just that. The work began in 2020, when much of the […]

The post Translating iconic experiences to a digital space—with Aesop’s Carine McGinnity appeared first on Zendesk.

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If you’ve ever walked into an Aesop store, it’s a full sensory experience. The smells, the sights, the samples—and the incredibly warm and knowledgeable staff. It’s hard to imagine such a rich experience ever existing online and yet, the team at Aesop is tackling just that.





The work began in 2020, when much of the world retreated from physical spaces. “It was a huge catalyst for us in terms of our digital transformation,” said McGinnity. “We have a very distinct and recognizable customer experience within our stores.”

Much of that experience hinges on engaging nearly all of a customers’ senses—seeing the products, smelling and touching them, and connecting through meaningful conversations with retail consultants. It’s an effort with its fair share of challenges, McGinnity admitted. Even so, her team is working hard to bring their vision to life.

From creating an on-brand bot to building custom applications for Aesop’s agents-turned-retail-consultants, learn more about McGinnity’s innovative leadership—including why deflection isn’t part of her lexicon and what’s next on her transformation roadmap.

Have a question for a Zendesk expert, interested in being a guest, or want to suggest a topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at cwzpodcast@zendesk.com—we’d love to hear from you.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/join-us-at-zendesk-relate-2024/ Wed, 28 Feb 2024 05:33:46 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=643465 AI is radically transforming the world of customer service, and at Zendesk Relate, you’ll gain insights and best practices to lead your organization through this next wave of transformation successfully and make your business ready for AI-first service. You’ll leave with the perspective, connections, and know-how to provide more meaningful experiences, deliver automated service through […]

The post The AI-powered future of CX and EX is here—let us be your guide appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> AI is radically transforming the world of customer service, and at Zendesk Relate, you’ll gain insights and best practices to lead your organization through this next wave of transformation successfully and make your business ready for AI-first service.

You’ll leave with the perspective, connections, and know-how to provide more meaningful experiences, deliver automated service through next-gen digital agents that customers love, and equip your agents and admins with the knowledge to harness customer data smartly and ethically in the AI-driven future of customer service.





An unforgettable personalized experience awaits you

Expect to be wowed, moved, and inspired as our in-person event brings together thousands of senior business leaders, CX, EX, IT, and HR practitioners, Zendesk partners, analysts, and industry experts for three adrenaline-pumping days in Las Vegas.

You can expect more than 60 sessions on the hottest topics in CX today, including interactive breakout sessions, eye-opening demos, inspiring customer stories, fun evening events, exciting product launches, visionary Zendesk roadmap, exhilarating networking opportunities, and powerful keynotes from customer experience leaders. Here’s a sneak preview:

• Hear a keynote address, “Unveiling what’s next: revolutionizing service with the power of AI,” from Zendesk CEO Tom Eggemeier.
• Join Zendesk CIO Craig Flower in a Fireside Chat, “Building best-in-class IT service operations” with American Expediting CIO Kirk Serjeantson.
• Author, corporate culture expert, and Zappos Insights co-founder Robert Richman will share how a small website became a multi-million-dollar business and game-changing playbook for delivering excellent employee experiences in service of customers and the bottom line.
• We’ll also host a moderated conversation with an iconic celebrity guest (big reveal coming soon).

Click here for the full three-day schedule, where you can personalize your agenda by product spotlight, pillars, and audience.





To seize the day—and stay ahead of the curve—CX leaders must get adept at understanding and navigating both the challenges and opportunities in this brave new world of intelligent CX.

If you can’t join in person, our digital event will unite our global community, with five broadcasts across 24 hours. We’ll broadcast the opening product keynote to your screen, in your timezone. Plus, you’ll get on-demand recordings of the keynote and select sessions from the Las Vegas conference.

The post The AI-powered future of CX and EX is here—let us be your guide appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/customer-persona-template/ Fri, 23 Feb 2024 17:58:37 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=643473 What is a customer persona template? A customer persona template is a tool businesses use to create a detailed description of their ideal customer based on market research and customer data. While customer or buyer persona templates can vary depending on your business needs, they generally include demographic information, interests, motivations, frustrations, and more. Picture […]

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What is a customer persona template?

A customer persona template is a tool businesses use to create a detailed description of their ideal customer based on market research and customer data. While customer or buyer persona templates can vary depending on your business needs, they generally include demographic information, interests, motivations, frustrations, and more.

Picture yourself on a guided fishing trip, armed with your fishing rod, bait, and guidance from a professional angler. Just like having the right bait, gear, and knowledge can help you attract a school of fish, the right customer information can help you attract your desired group of customers.

Think of a customer persona as the ultimate fishing guide. It can help you visualize where your customers are, how they behave, and what they like. However, crafting a customer or buyer persona from scratch can be intimidating, and you might need clarification on what information to include. To help you successfully cast into the seas of business, we’ve crafted a universal customer persona template and five editable examples that can help you reel in new and existing customers.

Follow along to learn more about customer personas, their importance, and how you can create one before download the customizable template.

More in this guide:

• Why are customer personas important?
• 5 types of customer persona templates
• How to create a customer persona
• Frequently asked questions
• Improve your CX for all customer personas

Why are customer personas important?

Customer personas are important because they help your business better understand your customers by segmenting them into specific groups. When creating personas, your business will take a deep dive into your customers’ interests, goals, pain points, and more. And putting the needs of your customer first can help your business build a customer-focused culture.

In doing so, you can identify what makes your customers tick and gain valuable insights into how to tailor aspects of your business to strengthen your connection with them and improve their experience. This might look like using personas to help create a new marketing campaign or inform your customer service training.

5 types of customer persona templates

Depending on your business and goals, you can create different types of customer personas. Some businesses may care more about demographics and technological preferences, while others might want to create a persona that focuses solely on customers’ behaviors and values. Read along to learn more about five common types of customer personas and template examples to help get you started.

1. Demographic-based persona templates
2. Customer journey-based persona templates
3. Role-based persona templates
4. Psychographic persona templates
5. Technographic persona templates

Demographic-based persona templates

Download the customizable template

Demographics are traits that help describe a population. With a demographic-based persona template, businesses can easily build a customer profile that focuses on a customer group’s demographic factors, such as:

• Name
• Age
• Gender identity
• Location
• Marital status

• Children
• Level of education
• Job title
• Industry
• Annual income

Understanding the demographics of your target customers can help your business offer products and services that make the most sense for your audience. For example, if your customer persona identifies as a male over the age of 60 who lives in the Midwest, you most likely won’t be successful selling, say, women’s surfing gear.

Customer journey-based persona templates

Download the customizable template

You can also use a persona template to help map the customer journey for different personas. A customer journey map visually represents the various stages and customer touchpoints a buyer experiences when interacting with your business. While stages and touchpoints can vary across businesses, common examples include:

• Awareness: In this stage, your customer is discovering your business for the first time. A touchpoint in this stage might be seeing an ad for your business while browsing social media
• Consideration: After your customer is aware of your business, the next stage is the consideration of your products and services. A touchpoint in this stage might be a customer visiting your website to learn more about your products.
• Decision: Congratulations! Your customer has decided to make a purchase. Common touchpoints in the decision stage include using a coupon or promo code, or buying an item online or in-store.
• Adoption: In the adoption stage, your customer adopts your product or service and engages further with your business, often with your customer service team. An example of a touchpoint in this stage is a customer seeking an answer to a common question using an FAQ page.
• Advocacy: Lastly, the advocacy stage is when a customer becomes loyal to your company and begins recommending it to acquaintances. A touchpoint in this stage might be a customer leaving a positive review or renewing a subscription to your service.

A customer journey-based persona template can help your business tailor your customer experience design to different audience segments. For example, the journey of your young female customers may look different than that of older female customers. This can provide your business with valuable insights you can use to better meet your customers’ needs.

Role-based persona templates

Download the customizable template

In a role-based persona, segment customers based on their specific role. For example, if you are a business specializing in sports equipment, you might create one persona representing coaches and another representing athletes.

This can help you tailor your business operations and provide customer-oriented support to better fit the needs of each group. For instance, a coach may be more receptive to marketing messaging about practice equipment, whereas an athlete may be more interested in athletic wear or running shoes.

Psychographic persona templates

Download the customizable template

Psychographic personas focus on the psychological characteristics of your target users or customers. These may include:

• Attitude
• Lifestyle
• Values
• Interests
• Behavior

Insight into these characteristics can help you understand what’s important to your customers. For example, let’s say you run a business in the food industry. If you discover your customers value health and exercise and are interested in weightlifting, protein bars might be a product worth pursuing versus soda or candy.

Technographic persona templates

Download the customizable template

Technographic personas help represent the technological preferences and habits of your customers. This may include your customers’ preferred:

• Devices
• Operating systems
• Communication channels

This type of information can help your business determine the best customer communication methods. For example, if your customer base prefers to use their mobile devices, you might consider implementing live chat support using mobile channels like WhatsApp.

A technographic persona may also help you create products that match your customers’ technological preferences. An example is if a business-to-business (B2B) software company rolls out a mobile version of their desktop software after discovering their customers have a strong habit of using their mobile devices.

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How to create a customer persona

Now that you know the importance of customer personas and the different types you can create, let’s walk through how to make one.

• Research and gather customer data: Begin by assessing your existing data. This may include customer analytics, survey results, or quotes from customer conversations. To gather more information, you can interview your customers through focus groups.
• Choose a name and visual identity: A name and visual image can bring your customer persona to life and help you easily reference different personas internally when speaking about different groups of customers.
• Write a short bio: A short biography can help team members learn about your specific persona with a glance.
• Add a quote: Including a catchy quote that encapsulates your persona’s personality can help you effectively express the hypothetical customer’s attitude.
• Include demographics: Adding demographic information, such as age, gender identity, location, and job title, can help you quickly visualize your persona.
• Add personality traits: From creative to adventurous to shy, adding personality traits can help you better understand how customers operate and what is important to them.
• Determine their goals: Knowing your customers’ goals is critical. If you know what your customer wants to achieve, you can use that information to help meet their needs and provide good customer service along the way.
• Define their motivations and frustrations: Understanding what motivates and frustrates your persona can help you align your products and services to speak to your target market.
• Add what channels they use the most: Whether it’s social media, email, or live chat, figuring out what communication channels your audience uses can help you meet your customers where they are.

With the help of these tips and our handy customer persona templates, you can go from guessing what your customers want to giving them what they need in no time.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a user and a customer persona?

The difference between a customer and a user persona is that the user is the person who already uses your product or service, whereas the customer represents the person who purchases it. Sometimes, a customer and user persona may represent the same person. But in other instances, your customer may purchase your product or service for someone else, requiring two different personas.

What is a customer persona generator?

A customer persona generator is a tool that allows you to generate a customer persona by inputting customer information. Similarly, you can create a customer persona by filling out a customer persona template.

When should you use a customer persona?

Generally speaking, you can use a customer or user persona when making a business decision related to your customer. This may include brainstorming new products and services, creating a marketing strategy, or rolling out new customer support channels.

What are the 5 types of buyer personas?

While there are multiple types of buyer personas, five common types of buyer personas include:

• Demographic-based personas
• Customer journey-based personas
• Role-based personas
• Psychographic personas
• Technographic personas

How do you write a customer persona?

You can write a customer persona by gathering data for a specific group of customers and recording it. When doing so, you’ll also want to include customer information such as demographics, motivations, frustrations, and more. To make the process even easier, consider using a customer persona template.

Improve your CX for all customer personas

When working to provide a positive customer experience, leveraging customer persona templates is the tip of the iceberg. With a complete customer service solution like Zendesk, your business can gain valuable insights into customer sentiment, common customer pain points, recurring issues, and more.

Zendesk also empowers your business with robust customer profiles that can highlight key customer details for your support team. This data empowers your business to create detailed customer personas that can help reel in new customers.

The post Free customer persona templates and examples appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/chatbot-template/ Thu, 15 Feb 2024 15:40:06 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=643129 From answering customer questions to collecting contact information, chatbots wear many hats. Think of hats, in this instance, as chatbot templates. The more hats your bot wears, the more it can do. And just as there are different hats worn for different occasions, there are many different chatbot templates used for different situations. To help […]

The post 20 chatbot templates to improve your CX in 2024 appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> From answering customer questions to collecting contact information, chatbots wear many hats. Think of hats, in this instance, as chatbot templates. The more hats your bot wears, the more it can do. And just as there are different hats worn for different occasions, there are many different chatbot templates used for different situations.

To help you elevate your bot’s wardrobe, we’ve gathered 20 popular bot templates to inspire you on your chatbot journey. Follow along to learn more about chatbot templates, their benefits, and how to use them to improve agent productivity.

• What is a chatbot template?
• 20 popular chatbot templates
• Benefits of using chatbot templates
• How to use chatbot templates
• Frequently asked questions
• Use chatbot templates to boost agent productivity

What is a chatbot template?

A chatbot template is a pre-built bot flow designed to take customers through specific actions using artificial intelligence (AI), alleviating the need to build a bot from scratch. Chatbot templates are also customizable, so you can easily adjust your template to create AI-powered chatbots that match your company’s specific needs and tone of voice.

While chatbot templates can vary depending on the business, they are often used for:

• Customer support: Chatbot templates can aid your support team by handling certain customer inquiries without human intervention. Additionally, customer service chatbot templates can collect key details upfront, so agents can resolve complex issues without asking the customer repeat questions.
• Lead generation: You may also use templates for lead generation by automatically collecting valuable customer information, such as their name, email address, and phone number.
• Employee support: Chatbot templates can help support your internal team members, assisting them with processes like handling time off requests or answering new hire onboarding questions.
• E-commerce: For e-commerce businesses, chatbot templates can be valuable for many tasks, from offering personalized product recommendations to encouraging shoppers to return to their abandoned carts.

Whether you want to generate leads, improve your e-commerce experience, or provide better customer and employee support, there are plenty of chatbot templates to choose from.

20 popular chatbot templates

• Pricing options template
• Chatbot-to-live-agent transfer template
• Customer satisfaction template
• Restaurant reservation template
• Travel feedback template
• Cancel a reservation template
• Post-purchase survey template
• Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey template
• News and updates template
• Offline form template

• Restaurant order template
• Leave policy question template
• Employee onboarding template
• Product recommendation template
• Order status template
• Discount code template
• Package tracking template
• Online order template
• Basic lead generation template
• Subscription form template

To help you understand how chatbot templates work, let’s look at some popular templates your business can use with Zendesk to improve your conversational chatbot experiences.

Template	Best for	Use case
Pricing options template	Quickly sharing pricing options with customers	Customer support
Chatbot-to-live-agent transfer template	Directing a customer to a live agent	Customer support
Customer satisfaction template	Gauging customer satisfaction	Customer support
Restaurant reservation template	Booking and confirming dining reservations	Customer support
Travel feedback template	Soliciting valuable travel feedback	Customer support
Cancel a reservation template	Canceling existing reservations	Customer support
Post-purchase survey template	Requesting post-purchase customer feedback	Customer support
Net Promoter Score® (NPS) survey template	Seeking feedback for an NPS survey	Customer support
News and updates template	Updating customers on your latest news	Customer support
Offline form template	Helping customers after hours	Customer support
Restaurant order template	Taking online food orders	Customer support
Leave policy question template	Managing employee time-off requests	Employee support
Employee onboarding template	Answering new hire questions	Employee support
Product recommendation template	Delivering product recommendations based on chat interactions	E-commerce
Order status template	Updating customers on the status of their order	E-commerce
Discount code template	Sharing promotional offers with customers	E-commerce
Package tracking template	Updating customers on the location of their order	E-commerce
Online order template	Assisting customers in the online order process	E-commerce
Basic lead generation template	Collecting customer contact information	Lead generation
Subscription form template	Adding customers to subscriber lists	Lead generation

1. Pricing options template

Use case: Customer support

Adding a pricing options template to your chatbot can help your customers quickly access important pricing information whenever they please and without wasting time clicking through your website.

2. Chatbot-to-live-agent transfer template

Use case: Customer support

Whether there’s a delicate situation requiring a human touch or someone simply prefers to speak to live agents, you can give customers the option to chat with a human using a chatbot-to-live-agent template. This template allows customers to connect directly with a support representative without leaving their chat window.

3. Customer satisfaction template

Use case: Customer support

Not only can chatbot templates help expedite the support process, but they’re also a valuable resource for soliciting customer feedback. Using a customer satisfaction bot template, you can automatically reach out to customers with a satisfaction survey following their support interactions. Surveys can make customers feel like their opinions are valued and provide your business with valuable insights you can use to improve your customer experience.

4. Restaurant reservation template

Use case: Customer support

Restaurant reservation templates are a quick and easy way to take the reservation process off of staff members’ hands. Using a template can also reduce the number of incoming phone calls, freeing up your staff to take on higher-priority tasks. On top of that, it gives customers the flexibility to book a reservation at their convenience.

5. Travel feedback template

Use case: Customer support

For businesses in the travel industry, travel chatbots are a valuable asset for providing quick, personalized support to travelers. Implementing a travel feedback template can help you automatically surface customer feedback you can use to improve the experience of your travelers.

6. Cancel a reservation template

Use case: Customer support

Just like bots can help diners make a reservation, chatbot templates can also help them cancel one. A cancel-a-reservation template allows people to cancel their reservations whenever it’s convenient, without pulling one of your employees away from more important tasks.

7. Post-purchase survey template

Use case: Customer support

If you’re running an e-commerce business, you’ll want your online order experience to be as easy as possible for customers. Soliciting customer feedback is a great way to discover where your business needs to improve. However, relying on agents to collect feedback takes time and may hinder their ability to help other customers.

With a post-purchase survey template, your chatbot can automatically message your customers as soon as they complete their transaction, gathering insightful feedback that can help improve your customer experience.

8. Net Promoter Score (NPS) survey template

Use case: Customer support

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a popular customer service metric that helps measure customer loyalty. Leverage an NPS survey chatbot template to automate the survey process and free your agents to handle more urgent situations.

9. News and updates template

Use case: Customer support

If your business just rolled out a new product or feature, consider using this chatbot template to help spread the news to site visitors.

10. Offline form template

Use case: Customer support

Even though chatbots can provide 24/7 support, there may be times when a customer prefers to speak with a human during off hours. An offline form template can help your business handle after-hours support inquiries, collecting information so your support agents can pick up the conversation once they return.

11. Restaurant order template

Use case: Customer support

For many restaurants, takeout orders bring in a lot of business. But not everyone wants to make a phone call and wait on hold until your next available staff member can take their order. Make the takeout process even easier for diners by enabling them to start a food order via your website chatbot.

12. Leave policy question template

Use case: Employee support

While most people might think of customer support when they think of AI chatbots, a bot can also assist your human resources (HR) team and handle internal inquiries like answering questions about your leave policy. This frees up your HR team to handle more delicate issues and gives your employees the chance to seek help at any time.

13. Employee onboarding template

Use case: Employee support

In addition to helping customers, chatbots can be a valuable asset for answering employee questions. With an employee onboarding template, you can set up your chatbot to proactively engage new hires and ask if they need assistance.

This kind of bot can streamline your employee experience, helping to surface important information—from onboarding documents to answers to common questions.

14. Product recommendation template

Use case: E-commerce

With a product recommendation chatbot template, your bot can act as an extension of your sales team, automatically offering personalized product recommendations to customers on your site.

This encourages purchases and can create a positive customer experience. In fact, 62 percent of consumers agree that personalized recommendations are better than general ones, according to the Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report.

15. Order status template

Use case: E-commerce

After a customer makes a purchase, they’ll likely want to keep tabs on it. When you use an order status chatbot template, your customers can quickly find their order status without waiting to connect with an available agent.

16. Discount code template

Use case: E-commerce

If there is one thing all shoppers love it’s a discount code. With a discount code chatbot template, your chatbot can proactively message customers, enticing them to make a purchase and save some dough. After all, a discount code could be the difference between a customer following through with a purchase or leaving your site.

17. Package tracking template

Use case: E-commerce

Another useful template you can add to your chatbot is a package tracking template. Great for e-commerce businesses, this template lets customers quickly find out where their package is and when they can expect to receive it, without waiting for a live agent response.

18. Online order template

Use case: E-commerce

For businesses that sell their products and services online, chatbots can direct interested customers to your online store to make a purchase. This can increase customer engagement and drive new business by automatically sending customers to the correct webpage to place an order.

19. Basic lead generation template

Use case: Lead generation

A lead generation template is a great way to help your business generate sales leads without taking time away from your sales team. For example, you can customize your lead generation chatbot template to ask visitors to share their name and email address when engaging with your bot.

20. Subscription form template

Use case: Lead generation

Similar to a lead generation template, a subscription form chatbot template can help your business automatically collect customer contact information. This enables you to grow your SMS or email list without additional effort from your sales or support team.

Benefits of using chatbot templates

Now that you’ve seen examples of chatbot templates in action, it’s time to break down how using them can positively impact your business. Chatbot templates can enhance your support experience by offering the following chatbot benefits:

• Quick to get started: Chatbot templates empower your support team to quickly introduce new conversational AI experiences to your customers and employees without having to build a conversation flow from scratch. A conversation flow includes each step of the conversation and how it can change based on a user’s response.
• No developer support required: Businesses of any size can get their chatbot and desired templates up and running without any help from developers.
• Highly customizable: Chatbot templates are easily customizable, ensuring every interaction meets your company’s unique needs and tone of voice. You can tailor them for many tasks, from recommending specific knowledge base articles to soliciting customer feedback using preset questions.
• Easy to scale: Using chatbots and customizable templates enables you to scale your support capacity and handle multiple support inquiries simultaneously, without increasing headcount.

No matter what you use your chatbot templates for, every support inquiry handled by your chatbot is a task taken off your support team’s plate. This increases their bandwidth to tackle more complex issues and deliver better support with ease.

How to use chatbot templates

If you’re ready to take advantage of these pre-built chatbot templates, follow these steps to take your chatbot experience to the next level:

1. Determine your needs: First, you need to decide what you want your chatbot to do. For example, if you run an online clothing store, you might implement an abandoned cart template to help boost purchases on your site.
2. Select a template: After determining your needs, use your chatbot builder to choose the chatbot template that’s the best fit.
3. Customize the conversation: Next, customize the conversation flow in your chosen chatbot template to better match your brand. For example, you might want your chatbot to speak in a friendly tone and introduce itself as your company’s “virtual shopping assistant.”
4. Set up triggers: During the template customization process, set up specific triggers that cause your chatbot to spring into action. For example, you may set up your post-purchase survey template to engage customers as soon as they reach your order confirmation landing page.
5. Test the chatbot: Before unleashing your chatbot to the masses, test it out to ensure it’s working properly.
6. Save and deploy the chatbot template: Once finalized, save the template to your template library and roll it out to your audience.

By following these simple steps, you’ll have your chatbot handling tasks in no time—all without having to build a chatbot from scratch.

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Frequently asked questions

Are pre-built chatbot templates customizable?

With Zendesk, pre-built chatbot templates are customizable. For example, Zendesk enables you to easily modify any of the steps within the template and change the tone of your automatic responses to meet your unique business needs.

How do I choose the right chatbot template to use?

You can choose the right chatbot template by considering your specific needs. For instance, if a business is looking to spend less time scheduling appointments on the phone, an appointment booking template might be the best option.

Can I target specific groups of customers using lead generation templates?

With Zendesk, you can create conditions within your chatbot that differ between signed-in and non-signed-in users. This allows you to create different chatbot experiences for prospective and existing customers. For example, you wouldn’t want your chatbot to ask one of your existing, signed-in customers for their name.

Use chatbot templates to boost agent productivity

When you outfit a chatbot with the right hats, you can boost agent productivity and offer a chatbot experience that meets your needs and delights your customers. With a complete customer service solution like Zendesk, you can deploy a chatbot in seconds using customizable chatbot templates based on common customer service use cases. Our AI is built on billions of real-life customer interactions, powering generative AI chatbots that sound like humans and provide excellent support from day one.

Net Promoter, Net Promoter Score, and NPS are trademarks of NICE Satmetrix, Inc., Bain & Company, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.

The post 20 chatbot templates to improve your CX in 2024 appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/burning-ai-questions-answered-podcast/ Wed, 14 Feb 2024 18:18:18 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=643127 Excited about AI, but not sure where to get started? You’re not alone. According to our 2024 CX Trends report, 65 percent of CX leaders see AI as a strategic necessity and reality—one that has rendered previous operations outdated and obsolete. But recognizing this need for change and knowing how exactly to enact it is […]

The post Burning AI questions answered—with Zendesk’s Peter Neels appeared first on Zendesk.

]]>

Excited about AI, but not sure where to get started? You’re not alone.

According to our 2024 CX Trends report, 65 percent of CX leaders see AI as a strategic necessity and reality—one that has rendered previous operations outdated and obsolete. But recognizing this need for change and knowing how exactly to enact it is a different story entirely.

Concerns about changing team roles, potential negative impacts to the customer experience, and a perceived lack of transparency around the rollout of AI tools and strategy have proved to be powerful obstacles to implementation. But as Neels explains, they’re often the result of moving too quickly without an understanding of where AI can make a positive impact.

“What we’re seeing is customers are doing it all and then going ‘oh, whoa, whoa wait, this is too much’,” he said. Instead of trying to get AI to solve every problem, he recommends a “go slow to go fast” approach. “You’ll go incrementally faster than if you go all in to start,” he said.

Tune in for more expert advice from Neels, including the best ways to get AI buy-in from agents, why your voice of the customer insights aren’t enough, and what makes his top list of priorities for anyone starting on their AI implementation journey.

Have a question for a Zendesk expert or want to suggest a topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at cwzpodcast@zendesk.com—we’d love to hear from you.

The post Burning AI questions answered—with Zendesk’s Peter Neels appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/customer-apology-letter-template/ Tue, 13 Feb 2024 16:38:12 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=643030 So, you messed up. Whether you had an off day and delivered a subpar customer experience (CX), the product didn’t ship on time, or a billing error occurred, a sincere apology can be the olive branch that jump-starts customer loyalty. You don’t need to overthink it—we’ve got you covered with 25 customer apology letter templates […]

The post How to write a customer apology letter: 25 templates + examples appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> So, you messed up. Whether you had an off day and delivered a subpar customer experience (CX), the product didn’t ship on time, or a billing error occurred, a sincere apology can be the olive branch that jump-starts customer loyalty. You don’t need to overthink it—we’ve got you covered with 25 customer apology letter templates so you can swiftly say “I’m sorry” and start delivering a solution.

More in this guide:

• How to write a customer apology letter
• 25 customer apology letter templates and examples
• Frequently asked questions
• Simplify saying you’re sorry

How to write a customer apology letter

Writing an effective apology letter involves a balance of customer empathy, timeliness, accountability, and actionable solutions. Each situation is unique, so it’s important to tailor your apology to the specific circumstances and customer needs. Here are some dos and don’ts to consider while creating a customer apology letter.

What to do in a customer apology letter

Follow these tips to craft the right messaging for your customer apology letter.

Respond quickly

Timely responses demonstrate your commitment to resolving problems and show customers their concerns are a priority. Aim to acknowledge the problem and initiate communication within 24 to 48 hours. Ignoring the issue or procrastinating on addressing it can increase customer dissatisfaction.

Personalize the letter

Put yourself in the customer’s shoes and tailor the letter to the particular situation instead of writing a generic reply. Use a conversational tone that reflects your brand voice.

Acknowledge the issue

Demonstrate your understanding of the customer’s complaint or issue and the way it affected them.

Be sincere

Offer a genuine and heartfelt apology, and express regret and empathy for any inconvenience or distress caused to the customer. Use language that conveys sincerity and remorse.

Explain what happened

Provide customers with a brief and clear explanation of what led to the issue. Customer transparency can help them understand the situation better and alleviate any confusion.

Take responsibility

Accept responsibility for the mistake or issue. Demonstrate accountability by taking ownership of the situation and reassuring customers that you take their concerns seriously.

Offer solutions

Propose viable solutions or options, and communicate the actions you will take to resolve the issue promptly. Offer refunds, replacements, discounts, or any suitable compensation.

Discuss preventive actions

Explain your plan to prevent the issue from happening again. Assure the customer that you’re implementing changes to improve processes and prevent recurrence. This fosters reliability that you’ll meet customer expectations in the future.

Encourage feedback

Invite the customer to share additional insights or suggestions. Express openness to understanding their perspective and improving your services or products based on customer feedback.

Follow up

Follow up with the customer after the resolution. Confirm that you thoroughly addressed their issue and ask if they need further assistance or have additional questions. This demonstrates ongoing care and commitment.

What not to do in a customer apology letter

Knowing what to do in a customer apology letter is only half the battle—it’s just as important to understand what you shouldn’t do. Here are key elements to avoid in your customer apology letter so you can continue building customer relations.

Don’t blame the customer

Refrain from suggesting or implying that the customer might be at fault. It’s crucial not to accuse or insinuate that the customer’s actions contributed to the problem. Instead, focus on acknowledging the issue from the customer’s perspective.

Don’t make excuses

Steer clear of providing excuses or justifications for the mistake. While it might be tempting, overexplaining or making excuses can minimize the impact of your apology and come across as insincere.

Don’t provide generic responses

Personalization is key in customer apology letters. Avoid using generic responses that don’t address the customer’s specific concerns.

Don’t over-promise

Avoid making commitments or promises that you cannot fulfill. Promising unrealistic solutions or compensation that you can’t deliver can lead to disappointment and further dissatisfaction.

Don’t offer technical explanations

While it’s essential to explain what happened, avoid delving into overly detailed explanations or using technical jargon that might confuse or overwhelm the customer. Keep the explanation concise and easy to understand.

Don’t extend a half-hearted or insincere apology

Flippant language or seemingly feigned apologies can make the customer feel like you’re just going through the motions of saying you’re sorry. It often worsens the situation and damages the customer relationship.

Don’t overlook discussing preventive measures

Neglecting to address how you plan to prevent similar issues in the future might leave customers feeling uncertain about the reliability of your service or products.

Don’t disregard the opportunity for feedback

Failing to encourage customers to share their thoughts may prevent valuable insights that could help enhance your offerings or prevent future customer issues from occurring.

Don’t forget to follow up after the apology

Failure to check in with the customer might leave them feeling undervalued or ignored, potentially impacting the customer’s perception of your brand.

By avoiding these pitfalls and following a sincere, customer-centric approach in your apology letter, you can effectively address the issue and work toward restoring customer trust and satisfaction.

25 customer apology letter templates and examples

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Finding the right words to apologize doesn’t need to be difficult—let us help. Download all 25 free customer apology email templates to remedy any situation and satisfy your customers.

• Personal apology letter
• Mass apology letter
• Angry or dissatisfied customer apology letter
• Apology letter for poor customer service
• Apology letter for communication errors
• Apology letter for billing or pricing errors
• Apology letter for defective products
• Apology letter from manager for escalated issue
• Late or delayed delivery apology letter
• Apology letter for ineffectively handling complaints
• Apology letter for service outages or downtime

• Apology letter for issues with refunds or returns
• Apology letter for out-of-stock items
• Apology letter for negative interactions with employees
• Apology letter for canceled service or appointment
• Apology letter for customer inconvenience
• Apology letter to address mistakes
• Apology letter for unresolved issues
• Apology letter for recurring issues
• Apology letter for security issues
• Apology letter for unmet product or service expectations
• Apology letter for providing incorrect information
• Apology letter from the CEO or ownership
• Apology letter for undelivered email
• Apology letter follow-up

1. Personal apology letter

Writing a personal apology letter to a customer is an opportunity to connect one-on-one. A tailored apology that demonstrates genuine concern and accountability will foster a sense of empathy and understanding.

Subject: My sincere apology

Dear [Customer‘s Name],

I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing to offer my deepest apologies for [briefly describe the issue or reason why an apology is needed].

I deeply regret [describe what you did] and understand the impact it has had on you. I value our [relationship/connection] and am committed to making things right.

Here’s what I’m doing to ensure [scenario] doesn’t happen again:

• [Add what you’re doing to ensure the negative scenario doesn’t happen again.]
• [Add what you’re doing to ensure the negative scenario doesn’t happen again.]
• [Add what you’re doing to ensure the negative scenario doesn’t happen again.]

Thank you for your understanding and for allowing me to make things right.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]

2. Mass apology letter

Crafting a mass apology letter is vital to address widespread issues affecting multiple customers. It shows a business’s transparency, accountability, and dedication to resolving concerns on a larger scale.

Subject: We’re sorry for [briefly describe the incident or issue]

Dear [Customer group or Organization Name],

I hope this message finds you well. We at [Company Name] apologize for any inconvenience or disappointment caused by [briefly describe the incident or issue that affected a large group of customers or individuals].

We deeply value our [customers or stakeholders] and aim to provide the highest standards of [service/product/quality]. Unfortunately, we recently encountered a situation that did not align with our commitment to excellence.

We understand the impact this incident may have had on you and assure you that resolving this matter and regaining your trust are our top priorities. We are actively taking these steps to prevent similar occurrences in the future:

• [Add what you’re doing to ensure the negative scenario doesn’t happen again.]
• [Add what you’re doing to ensure the negative scenario doesn’t happen again.]
• [Add what you’re doing to ensure the negative scenario doesn’t happen again.]

To help make things right, we are offering [coupon/discount code/etc]. Additionally, our team is available to address any questions or concerns you may have regarding this matter. Please reach out to us at [your contact information].

Thank you for your patience and for allowing us to improve and serve you better in the future.

Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Position]
[Company Name]
[Contact information]

3. Angry or dissatisfied customer apology letter

When dealing with an angry customer, it’s important to draft an apology letter quickly. It provides an opportunity to defuse tensions, rebuild trust, and showcase a commitment to rectifying the situation. It can even convert an unhappy customer into a joyful one, preserving the relationship.

Subject: A sincere apology from [Company Name]

Dear [Customer’s Name],

We’re writing to express our deepest apologies for the dissatisfaction and frustration you experienced during your recent interaction.

Your satisfaction means everything to us, and we’re sorry your experience did not meet your expectations. We would love the opportunity to make things right, so we are offering [what you’re offering].

We value your feedback, as it helps us identify areas for improvement. We invite you to contact us directly at [your contact information] to discuss your concerns or offer additional insights to help us rectify the situation.

Thank you for your continued support and trust in [Company Name]. We hope to have the opportunity to address your concerns and provide you with a better experience in the future.

Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Position]
[Company Name]
[Contact information]

4. Apology letter for poor customer service

Addressing bad customer service through an apology letter is crucial, as it acknowledges the customer’s dissatisfaction, demonstrates accountability, and signifies the company’s commitment to delivering exceptional customer service experiences consistently. This type of apology letter aims to regain the customer’s trust and loyalty.

Subject: We’re sorry your recent service experience fell short

Dear [Customer’s Name],

We’re disappointed to hear you recently had a poor customer service experience, and we would like to offer our deepest apologies. Your satisfaction and patronage are important to us, and we regret failing to deliver our best. We’re taking immediate steps to address this issue, including [briefly mention steps being taken].

As a gesture of our commitment to your satisfaction, we’d like to offer [compensation or discount]. Please reach out to our customer service team at [contact information] if you need further assistance.

We value your feedback and seek to improve our service standards so we can provide you with better experiences in the future.

Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Position]
[Company Name]
[Contact information]

5. Apology letter for communication errors

When there’s a communication error, apologizing quickly can re-establish customer trust. Whether it was a human error or a glitch with the communication channel, identifying the issue and being transparent with customers can get you back into their good graces.

Subject: We’re sorry about our communication error

Dear [Customer’s Name],

I want to offer my apologies for the communication issue that happened on [date] regarding [issue]. We’re actively working to resolve this issue and will update you ASAP about the measures we’re implementing to prevent it from happening again. As a gesture of goodwill, we’re offering [a resolution/a discount/etc.].

If you have further questions or comments, please contact our customer service team at [contact information] for assistance. Your understanding and support are appreciated as we improve our communication standards.

Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Position]
[Company Name]
[Contact information]

6. Apology letter for billing or pricing errors

Addressing billing or pricing errors via an apology letter allows you to acknowledge the mistake, assure rectification, and maintain transparency. It also underscores the company’s commitment to fair and accurate billing, helping to retain customer confidence.

Subject: Apology for [billing or pricing] error

Dear [Customer’s Name],

I apologize for the recent [billing or pricing] error in your transaction at [Company Name]. Ensuring accuracy and transparency is our priority, and I am sorry for any inconvenience caused.

We’re actively addressing this issue and [offer resolution/a refund/etc.]. For assistance, contact me directly at [contact information].

Thank you for your understanding and continued support as we improve our processes.

Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Position]
[Company Name]
[Contact information]

7. Apology letter for defective products

An apology for defective products demonstrates responsibility, empathy, and a commitment to product quality. It also shows the company’s ability to address issues promptly, which can help regain customer satisfaction and trust.

Subject: We’re sorry

Dear [Customer’s Name],

I am writing to extend my apologies for the inconvenience caused by the defective product you received from [Company Name]. We take pride in delivering high-quality products, and it is disheartening to learn that the product you received did not meet our gold standard of excellence.

Your satisfaction is our top priority, and we are committed to rectifying this issue promptly. To make amends for the inconvenience caused, we are [offering a replacement for the defective product/providing a full refund/including a gift card for your next purchase, etc.]. Additionally, we assure you that we have taken immediate steps to investigate the issue and prevent similar occurrences in the future.

Your patience and understanding are highly appreciated as we work diligently to resolve this matter for you. Thank you for your continued support, and we look forward to serving you better in the future.

Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Position]
[Company Name]
[Contact information]

8. Apology letter from manager for escalated issue

A manager’s apology for an escalated issue shows ownership of the issue and conveys customer care. It aims to restore confidence in the company’s management and demonstrates reliability, personalized support, and accountability.

Subject: Let us make it up to you

Dear [Customer’s Name],

I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing to offer my sincerest apologies for the unsatisfactory experience you encountered with [Company Name].

As the [Position/Managerial Title] at [Company Name], I take full responsibility for ensuring a positive and seamless experience for every customer. It is distressing to learn that your recent interaction with us resulted in dissatisfaction and frustration.

Your experience does not align with our high service standards. To help make it up to you, we are [offering compensation/a discount on your next purchase/free shipping on your next order].

If you want to discuss this matter further or provide additional feedback, please contact me directly at [contact information]. We’d love to hear from you. Thank you for your patience and for allowing us the chance to rectify this situation. We are committed to serving you better in the future.

Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Position]
[Company Name]
[Contact information]

9. Late or delayed delivery apology letter

Addressing a late or delayed delivery via a professional apology letter shows accountability and empathy for the inconvenience caused. Businesses can also emphasize their efforts to improve delivery processes and timelines to regain customer satisfaction.

Subject: We’re sorry your delivery was late

Dear [Customer’s Name],

I hope this message finds you well. I am reaching out to apologize for the delay in the delivery of your recent order from [Company Name].

At [Company Name], we understand the importance of timely and dependable deliveries. That’s why I am disappointed to say that [circumstances that led to the delay, such as logistical issues, high demand, etc.] have led to the unexpected delay.

Please accept our heartfelt apologies for any inconvenience or disappointment this delay may have caused. We understand the impact of this delay on your plans and assure you that we are taking immediate steps to expedite the delivery process and prevent similar occurrences in the future.

To express our commitment to your satisfaction, we are [offering compensation/a discount on your next purchase/free shipping on your next order, etc.]. Additionally, we are closely monitoring your order status and will provide regular updates until it reaches you.

If you want to discuss this matter further or provide additional feedback, please contact me directly at [contact information]. We’d love to hear from you. Thank you for your patience and for giving us the chance to rectify this situation. We are committed to serving you better in the future.

Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Position]
[Company Name]
[Contact information]

10. Apology letter for ineffectively handling complaints

A formal apology for mishandling complaints acknowledges the oversight and demonstrates a willingness to learn from mistakes. As a result, it helps to rebuild customer trust. Businesses can also use customer complaint software to process negative feedback and improve resolution procedures in the future.

Subject: We’ll do better

Dear [Customer’s Name],

We’d like to apologize for how we handled [recent interaction/complaint]. At [Company Name], we value each customer interaction and regret your recent complaint did not receive the attention and resolution it deserved.

We are very sorry for any frustration or inconvenience caused by our team. Your concerns are important to us and we want to address them promptly and effectively. We are taking immediate steps to fix this situation to ensure that we do better in the future.

To make it up to you, we are offering [a personalized resolution/compensation/gift card/discount, etc.]. Additionally, we are implementing further training and protocols to improve how we handle complaints.

Thank you for your understanding and for allowing us to address this matter. We genuinely appreciate your continued support and hope to regain your confidence in our services.

Sincerely,
[Your name]
[Your position]
[Company name]
[Contact information]

11. Apology letter for service outages or downtime

Addressing service outages or downtime through an apology letter demonstrates accountability, expresses regret for the inconvenience caused, and reassures customers of efforts to prevent future disruptions. It can help to restore confidence in the reliability of services.

Subject: We’re sorry for the recent [outage/downtime]

Dear [Customer’s Name],

I am writing to extend my apologies for the recent service outage/downtime that affected your [service/product].

At [Company Name], we understand the importance of reliable and uninterrupted service and deeply regret any inconvenience the disruption may have caused you. We recognize the frustration and impact of service downtime on your operations or experience.

Unfortunately, due to [briefly explain the cause of the outage, if known, such as technical issues, maintenance, etc.], our services experienced an unexpected interruption. We are taking immediate steps to prevent such occurrences in the future.

As a gesture of our commitment to your satisfaction, we are [offering compensation/an extension of services/a discount on your next subscription, etc.]. Additionally, our technical team is diligently working to restore full functionality and enhance the reliability of our services.

Your patience and understanding are greatly appreciated. Should you have any further concerns or questions, please contact our support team at [contact information].

Thank you, and we look forward to serving you better in the future.

Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Position]
[Company Name]
[Contact information]

12. Apology letter for issues with refunds or returns

Sending an apology for issues with refunds or returns allows teams to acknowledge customer frustration, reassure the customer of a prompt resolution, and communicate improvements to the refund and return processes. The goal is to regain customer trust in the company.

Subject: We’re sorry for the [delay/issues] with your [refund/return]

Dear [Customer’s Name],

I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing to apologize for the inconvenience and frustration you have experienced regarding the [delay/issues] with your [refund/return] process at [Company Name].

Your satisfaction is our top priority, and we are actively working to resolve the situation. We have taken immediate steps to expedite the processing of your [refund/return] and ensure that we rectify such [delay/issue] promptly.

To make up for the inconvenience, we are offering [add the offer, such as a gift card or discount on your next purchase, etc.].

Should you have any further questions, require updates, or need assistance, please contact our dedicated customer service team at [contact information]. We highly value your feedback and appreciate your patience as we work to resolve this matter.

Sincerely,
[Your name]
[Your position]
[Company name]
[Contact information]

13. Apology letter for out-of-stock items

Apologizing for out-of-stock items provides an opportunity to show an understanding of customer inconvenience, offer alternative solutions or compensation, and emphasize measures to minimize stock issues in the future. It can help businesses retain customer satisfaction despite stock shortages.

Subject: We’re sorry your item is out of stock

Dear [Customer’s Name],

I am writing to extend my sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused due to the unavailability of the [specific item(s)] that you recently attempted to purchase from [Company Name].

We understand the frustration and disappointment that can arise when an item is unexpectedly out of stock. At [Company Name], we strive to keep inventory on hand to fulfill every customer’s order on time. However, due to circumstances out of our control, the [item(s)] is temporarily out of stock.

To express our commitment to your satisfaction, we are offering [an alternative or similar product/ a rain check, etc.]. Additionally, we assure you that we are taking proactive measures to prevent similar occurrences in the future. Should you have any further questions or concerns, please contact our customer success team at [contact information].

Thank you for your continued support. We look forward to serving you better in the future.

Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Position]
[Company Name]
[Contact information]

14. Apology letter for negative interactions with employees

An apology for a negative interaction with an employee conveys genuine regret, assures action to address concerns, and underscores the company’s commitment to courteous and respectful customer interactions. It is critical to rebuilding customer trust and loyalty.

Subject: We’re sorry about your recent experience

Dear [Customer’s Name],

I am writing to express my deepest apologies for the unfortunate negative interaction you experienced with one of our employees on [date] via [communication channel].

At [Company Name], we prioritize providing exceptional service and creating positive experiences for our valued customers. It deeply concerns us to learn that your interaction with our employee did not meet the standards of courtesy and professionalism we strive to maintain.

We assure you that your experience does not align with our expectations or reflect our commitment to providing excellent service. We have taken immediate steps to investigate the incident and have initiated additional training and coaching for our team members to prevent such occurrences in the future.

To regain your trust and ensure your continued satisfaction, we would like to offer [a discount on your next purchase/free service/a gesture of goodwill, etc.]. Should you wish to discuss this matter further or provide any additional feedback, please do not hesitate to contact us directly at [contact information].

Thank you for your understanding and continued support.

Sincerely,
[Your name]
[Your position]
[Company name]
[Contact information]

15. Apology letter for canceled service or appointment

Addressing a canceled service or appointment in an apology letter allows businesses to acknowledge the inconvenience caused, provide alternative solutions, and emphasize efforts to minimize cancellations in the future. It aims to preserve customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Subject: Sorry we had to cancel your [service/appointment] on [date]

Dear [Customer’s Name],

I am writing to extend my deepest apologies for the unexpected cancellation of your [service/appointment] scheduled for [date].

We understand the value of your time and regret any inconvenience this cancellation may have caused you. .

[Optional: Briefly explain the reason for the cancellation, but avoid going into excessive detail unless necessary. For instance, you might mention unforeseen circumstances, logistical challenges, or other relevant reasons.]

Our commitment to delivering exceptional service remains unwavering. We are taking immediate steps to address this situation, including [provide details of the proposed solution or action you’re taking to make amends.]

If you have any concerns or require assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us at [contact information].

We appreciate your understanding and support and look forward to serving you better in the future.

Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your Position]
[Company Name]
[Contact information]

16. Apology letter for customer inconvenience

This apology letter allows businesses to address a situation where customers experienced an inconvenience regarding products, services, or interactions with the support team. To maintain customer satisfaction, you should reiterate your commitment to delivering seamless experiences and extend an offer or discount to make up for the inconvenience.

Download template

17. Apology letter to address mistakes

This letter acknowledges errors made by the company and outlines corrective actions. It’s all about transparency, accepting responsibility, and reassuring customers that changes are being made to prevent similar mistakes in the future.

Download template

18. Apology letter for unresolved issues

In cases where customer issues remain unresolved, this letter conveys sincere regret and details immediate actions the company is taking to address and resolve the outstanding concerns. This is crucial for repairing the relationship and retaining customers.

Download template

19. Apology letter for recurring issues

Addressing situations where problems persist, this letter gives teams the opportunity to apologize for the recurring issues and outline strategic measures to prevent them from continuing. It can go a long way toward preventing customer churn.

Download template

20. Apology letter for security issues

In instances involving security concerns, this letter communicates sincere remorse for any potential risk or inconvenience caused. It outlines the immediate steps being taken to enhance security measures and reassures customers of the company’s commitment to keeping their information safe. This can help restore customer trust.

Download template

21. Apology letter for unmet product or service expectations

This letter acknowledges shortcomings in delivering the expected product or service and expresses genuine regret. It also outlines measures the business will take to enhance quality. It focuses on re-establishing customer confidence and satisfaction.

Download template

22. Apology letter for providing incorrect information

This letter acknowledges the company’s mistake and offers an apology for any confusion or inconvenience resulting from the inaccurate information provided. It conveys the importance of accurate communication, accepts responsibility for the error, and outlines preventative measures.

Download template

23. Apology letter from the CEO or ownership

This letter allows the company CEO or owner to express their sincere apologies for an incident, conveying a personal commitment to resolving the issue. It aims to reassure customers of the company’s dedication to customer satisfaction and continuous improvement.

Download template

24. Apology letter for undelivered email

Write this type of letter to apologize for any inconvenience caused by the non-delivery of an important email. It expresses regret for the communication lapse, assures immediate attention to the issue, and outlines steps taken to ensure the timely and reliable delivery of future communications. It can help restore trust with the valued recipient.

Download template

25. Apology letter follow-up

Sending a follow-up email after an apology demonstrates continued concern, communicates resolution progress, and invites further feedback or assistance. The goal is to reaffirm the company’s commitment to rectifying the issue and maintaining an open line of communication.

Download template

Frequently asked questions

What should I write in a customer apology letter?

In a customer apology letter, it’s crucial to express genuine remorse, acknowledge the issue or mistake, take responsibility, offer a solution, communicate the actions being taken to prevent a similar incident, and convey a commitment to regain the customer’s trust and satisfaction.

How do I apologize professionally to a customer?

To deliver a professional apology to a customer, be genuine and empathetic, use the right customer service voice and tone, and acknowledge the customer’s concerns.

Personalize the apology by addressing the customer by name and referring to the specific issue. Assure the customer you’re taking action to remedy the situation and clearly outline the next steps. Providing a professional customer apology helps rebuild trust and ensures the customer feels heard and valued—it can also help you win back the customer.

How do I write the subject line for a customer apology letter?

Aim for clarity and conciseness when crafting the subject line for a customer apology email. Use a brief and descriptive phrase summarizing the reason for the apology, such as “We’re sorry about [the incident]” or “We’ll provide better service next time.” The subject should directly address the reason for the apology to ensure the recipient understands the purpose of the email.

When should I send a customer apology letter?

You should send a customer apology letter quickly after identifying an issue or incident that warrants an apology. Timeliness is crucial to address the concern while it’s fresh and demonstrate a proactive approach to resolving the situation.

Simplify saying you’re sorry

These customer apology letters are just a few examples of effective responses to customer complaints that can help flip the situation from bad to good. Use our templates (or any of our other customer service email templates) for fast, sincere replies to make things right and improve the customer experience. The templates will also save your support team time so they can focus on assisting customers and providing timely resolutions, resulting in increased customer satisfaction scores (CSAT) instead of more apologies.

The post How to write a customer apology letter: 25 templates + examples appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/zendesk-acquisition-klaus/ Mon, 12 Feb 2024 19:29:29 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=643087 Zendesk today announced it completed its acquisition of Klaus, the industry leading AI-powered quality management platform. The acquisition of Klaus is the latest addition to the company’s existing WEM solutions which includes Tymeshift, a modern workforce management tool built exclusively for Zendesk. “Workforce engagement management is key to not only meeting, but exceeding customer expectations. […]

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]]> Zendesk today announced it completed its acquisition of Klaus, the industry leading AI-powered quality management platform. The acquisition of Klaus is the latest addition to the company’s existing WEM solutions which includes Tymeshift, a modern workforce management tool built exclusively for Zendesk.

“Workforce engagement management is key to not only meeting, but exceeding customer expectations. A traditional satisfaction score won’t tell you everything you need to know. It won’t tell you where there are gaps in your service, or where there are opportunities for coaching and additional training for your support teams,” said Adrian McDermott, chief technology officer, Zendesk. “With Klaus as part of our WEM portfolio, we can empower businesses with the best AI-powered automated quality assurance in the market. By automatically assessing support using AI to pinpoint and fix gaps, AutoQA gives businesses 100 percent coverage of their customer conversations and a clear view of opportunities to improve, while removing the burden of manual review.”

“With Klaus as part of our WEM portfolio, we can empower businesses with the best AI-powered automated quality assurance in the market.”
Adrian McDermott, Chief Technology Officer, Zendesk

“As AI drives up the speed and frequency of customer engagement, only AI-powered QA can help companies keep up with rising customer expectations,” said Kair Käsper, co-founder of Klaus. “While most QA software can only score up to 5 percent of CX interactions, Klaus automates QA across 100 percent of customer support interactions. It uses AI to identify patterns, predict issues and suggest solutions making it a vital tool that improves service quality, enriches the customer experience, and ultimately enhances the reputation and success of the organization.”

With digital agents resolving more service inquiries without human interaction, having a QA solution that analyzes both human and digital agent performance is crucial to maintaining quality control and providing best-in-class customer service. Klaus pinpoints conversations with positive or negative sentiment, identifies outliers, churn risk, escalations and follow-ups across all conversations – even those done by outsourced teams. It spots knowledge gaps and coaching opportunities that can be used to improve agent performance and productivity, all of which results in higher customer satisfaction.

“We’ve been working with Zendesk for over eight years and Klaus for almost two years, so this acquisition is an exciting step towards creating an evermore streamlined process for our internal quality assessment,” said Sophie Elgar, training and quality manager, Liberty London. “As a luxury brand, we aim to provide exceptional service and our partnership with Zendesk helps us achieve that.”

“Zendesk with Klaus demonstrates a unique ability to automatically provide quality assurance at all times,” said Daniel Newman, CEO, The Futurum Group. “Used this way, companies can identify not only the areas where CX teams should improve, but also areas where a business is lacking structured processes. This brings huge opportunities to customers of all sizes.”

To learn more about Zendesk’s vision for AI-powered WEM, join us at Relate in Las Vegas, April 16-18.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/top-customer-service-podcasts/ Mon, 12 Feb 2024 15:58:34 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=643034 In today’s fast-paced and competitive business environment, staying ahead in customer service means continually educating yourself and your team. Customer service podcasts provide an excellent avenue for gaining knowledge and insights without disrupting your busy schedule. These digital platforms bring together a diverse range of perspectives from industry experts, CEOs, consultants, and front-line service providers, […]

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]]> In today’s fast-paced and competitive business environment, staying ahead in customer service means continually educating yourself and your team. Customer service podcasts provide an excellent avenue for gaining knowledge and insights without disrupting your busy schedule. These digital platforms bring together a diverse range of perspectives from industry experts, CEOs, consultants, and front-line service providers, who discuss emerging trends, challenges, and effective solutions in customer service and support.

Top 35 customer service and customer support podcasts

• Conversations with Zendesk
• The Modern Customer Podcast
• CX Pulse Podcast
• CXChronicles Podcast
• Customer Service Academy
• Customer Service Revolution
• Customer Experience Superheroes
• Amazing Business Radio
• Future of Customer Service
• Crack the Customer Code
• Experience This!
• Radically Personal
• Press 1 for Nick
• The Customer Experience Podcast
• Customer Experience University
• Beyond the Queue: Inside Customer Support
• The CX Leader Podcast
• The Intuitive Customer

• Support Insights Podcast
• Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast
• Delighted Customers Podcast
• Customerland
• Unchurned
• Creating Disney Magic
• Talking Customer Success
• REALLY Know Your Customer
• Customer Experience Leaders Chat
• Elevate Podcast
• Practical AI: The Capacity for Good
• The Support Automation Show
• CCW Digital: A Customer Service Online Platform
• CX Conversations
• Customer Experience Insights
• CX Decoded By CMSWire
• Doing CX Right‬ with Stacy Sherman

Top-rated customer service podcasts to follow

1. Conversations with Zendesk

Listen here

Overall best for: Comprehensive customer service and experience knowledge
Conversations with Zendesk stands out as the best podcast for those seeking a holistic perspective on customer service and customer experience (CX). This podcast is hosted by Zendesk—a leader in customer service software solutions—and brings you interviews with industry experts, case studies, and actionable insights. It covers everything from customer service best practices to the latest technology and tactics for enhancing customer interactions. The podcast serves as a comprehensive guide for businesses of all sizes and stages aiming to elevate their customer service and overall customer experience.

2. The Modern Customer Podcast

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Best for: Understanding modern customer behavior
The Modern Customer Podcast offers a deep dive into the evolving behaviors, needs, and expectations of today’s customers. With interviews featuring CEOs, CMOs, and other senior leaders, this podcast provides valuable insights into leveraging data, personalization, and innovative approaches to enhance customer experiences.

3. CX Pulse Podcast

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Best for: Real-time customer service insights
CX Pulse Podcast is apt for businesses interested in keeping their finger on the pulse of customer service trends. The podcast covers real-time insights and news, making it a great resource for companies that want to stay updated and agile in their customer service practices.

4. CXChronicles Podcast

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Best for: Building a customer-centric business culture
The CXChronicles Podcast focuses on how businesses can improve customer experiences by building a customer-centric culture. It shares actionable strategies from seasoned CX professionals, so it’s an excellent resource for businesses looking to prioritize customer service as a cornerstone of their operations.

5. Customer Service Academy

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Best for: Employee training and skill development
Customer Service Academy is an excellent resource for team leaders tasked with training customer service agents. The podcast offers practical advice on soft skills, problem-solving, and optimizing customer interactions, making it ideal for team training initiatives.

6. Customer Service Revolution

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Best for: Disruptive ideas in customer service
The Customer Service Revolution podcast is all about turning traditional customer service norms on their head. By featuring revolutionary ideas and disruptive strategies, this podcast aims to guide businesses toward unprecedented levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty.

7. Customer Experience Superheroes

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Best for: Innovative customer experience strategies
Customer Experience Superheroes is geared toward those who are looking to inject innovation into their CX strategies. It features discussions with customer experience professionals who share novel approaches and cutting-edge techniques to delight customers and keep them coming back.

8. Amazing Business Radio

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Best for: Tactical approaches to customer service excellence
Amazing Business Radio offers an array of tactical advice aimed at achieving customer service excellence. Featuring interviews with experts and business leaders, this podcast delves into actionable strategies that companies can implement immediately to strengthen their customer relations.

9. Future of Customer Service

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Best for: Anticipating and adapting to future trends
The Future of Customer Service podcast is geared toward forward-thinking executives who are keen on staying ahead of the curve in customer service. It focuses on upcoming trends and technologies, making it essential for any business planning for the future.

10. Crack the Customer Code

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Best for: Understanding customer psychology
Crack the Customer Code provides a unique perspective on customer service by delving into customer psychology. The hosts discuss strategies for truly understanding what customers want, helping businesses tailor their service approaches more effectively.

11. Experience This!

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Best for: Enhancing the overall customer journey
The Experience This! podcast is designed for businesses striving to enhance the entire customer journey, from the initial interaction to post-purchase engagement. It shares ways to create memorable experiences that not only satisfy customers but also turn them into brand advocates.

12. Radically Personal

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Best for: Personalization in customer service
The Radically Personal podcast showcases the power of personalization in customer service. By sharing expert opinions and case studies, it offers a comprehensive guide to making each customer interaction uniquely tailored, so businesses can increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.

13. Press 1 for Nick

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Best for: Unveiling the human side of customer service
Press 1 for Nick focuses on humanizing customer service. The podcast highlights the importance of empathy, communication, and genuine connections, providing insights that are key for businesses striving to make their customer service more relatable and effective.

14. The Customer Experience Podcast

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Best for: Leveraging video and visual communication
The Customer Experience Podcast by BombBomb emphasizes the significance of visual communication in customer service. Specializing in how video can personalize and enhance customer interactions, this podcast is particularly useful for businesses interested in modern communication strategies.

15. Customer Experience University – Winning Loyalty and Engagement One Customer at a Time

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Best for: In-depth study of customer engagement
Customer Experience University is a go-to resource for those looking to deepen their understanding of customer engagement and loyalty. The podcast offers a mix of academic and practical perspectives, so it’s an excellent tool for serious students of customer service.

16. Beyond the Queue: Inside Customer Support

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Best for: Support team dynamics and workflow
Beyond the Queue delves into the operational aspects of customer support, including team dynamics, workflows, and toolsets. This podcast is great for managers and executives aiming to streamline their customer support processes and enhance team productivity.

17. The CX Leader Podcast with Steve Walker – A Resource for Customer Experience Leaders

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Best for: Leadership in customer experience
The CX Leader Podcast with Steve Walker focuses on leadership skills that are essential for excelling in customer experience management. It covers strategic planning, team motivation, and driving cultural change, making it a valuable resource for senior executives in the field.

18. The Intuitive Customer – Improve Your Customer Experience To Gain Growth

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Best for: Behavioral economics in customer service
The Intuitive Customer podcast takes a deep dive into the psychological and behavioral aspects of customer service, employing principles of behavioral economics. It is ideal for those wanting to understand the motivations of customer behavior to drive growth.

19. Support Insights Podcast – CX and Customer Support Podcast by SentiSum

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Best for: Data-driven customer support
The Support Insights Podcast provides a data-driven approach to customer support and experience. This is an essential resource for businesses interested in leveraging analytics and metrics to improve their customer service operations.

20. Retain: The Customer Retention Podcast

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Best for: Customer retention strategies
As the name suggests, Retain focuses solely on customer retention strategies. This podcast is especially useful for businesses interested in reducing churn and maximizing lifetime customer value.

21. Delighted Customers Podcast

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Best for: Customer delight and loyalty
The Delighted Customers Podcast covers strategies for not just satisfying but delighting customers. Businesses aiming to convert satisfied customers into loyal advocates will find this podcast particularly helpful.

22. Customerland

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Best for: Customer service in retail and ecommerce
Customerland specifically focuses on customer service challenges in the retail and ecommerce sectors. It’s an invaluable resource for professionals dealing with customer-facing roles in these industries.

23. Unchurned

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Best for: Churn prevention and recovery
Unchurned is dedicated to strategies for preventing customer churn and recovering lost customers. The podcast is perfect for businesses that are facing high churn rates and looking for effective recovery solutions.

24. Creating Disney Magic

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Best for: Learning from industry leaders
Creating Disney Magic offers insights into the customer service principles that make Disney a leader in the field. It’s a must-listen for anyone interested in learning from industry titans to improve their own customer service standards.

25. Talking Customer Success

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Best for: Comprehensive customer success management
Talking Customer Success provides a broad perspective on customer success management. Hosted by Tom Connery, this podcast explores the different facets of customer success, making it a comprehensive resource for customer success professionals.

26. REALLY Know Your Customer

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Best for: Deep dives into customer understanding
Hosted by Betsy Westhafer and Tony Bodoh, this podcast focuses on the necessity of deeply understanding your customers to deliver excellent service. It provides actionable insights and is especially useful for businesses looking to improve their customer personas and segmentation.

27. Customer Experience Leaders Chat

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Best for: Strategic conversations on CX
Customer Experience Leaders Chat offers strategic perspectives on improving customer experience. The podcast features interviews with industry experts and is well-suited for professionals seeking to strengthen their understanding of CX strategies.

28. Elevate Podcast

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Best for: Fostering leadership and employee engagement
The Elevate Podcast hones in on the internal aspects of delivering exceptional customer service, such as effective leadership and employee engagement. It’s an essential resource for executives and managers who believe that company culture impacts customer satisfaction.

29. Practical AI: The Capacity for Good

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Best for: AI integration in customer service
This podcast explores the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in customer service. From chatbots to data analysis, it offers a practical guide to integrating AI into your customer service operations for enhanced efficiency and personalization.

30. The Support Automation Show

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Best for: Automating customer support processes
As its name implies, The Support Automation Show is dedicated to the automation of customer support processes. It provides insights and advice for businesses looking to improve efficiency and effectiveness through automation technologies.

31. CCW Digital: A Customer Service Online Platform

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Best for: Multichannel customer service strategies
CCW Digital focuses on multichannel customer service strategies, from social media to email and beyond. This podcast is particularly beneficial for companies wanting to create a seamless, integrated customer service experience across various platforms.

32. CX Conversations

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Best for: Pan-industry customer experience insights
CX Conversations delivers insights into the customer experience across different industries. Featuring interviews with experts and thought leaders, the show is a comprehensive resource for anyone interested in improving CX.

33. Customer Experience Insights

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Best for: Data-driven customer experience strategies
Customer Experience Insights is a research-based podcast that delves into data and studies related to CX. This podcast is especially valuable for professionals needing to make informed, research-backed decisions in customer experience.

34. CX Decoded By CMSWire

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Best for: Technological advances in customer experience
CX Decoded discusses how technology is changing the landscape of customer experience. It provides insights into the latest tools and technologies that can be leveraged to enhance customer service and experience.

35. Doing CX Right with Stacy Sherman

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Best for: Practical customer experience implementation
Hosted by Stacy Sherman, Doing CX Right centers around practical ways to implement good customer experience strategies in everyday business. It’s a can’t-miss podcast for businesses seeking actionable tips and methodologies to improve their customer interactions.

Why you should listen to customer service podcasts as a B2B executive

Build a strong customer service team

For any business, the backbone of customer satisfaction lies in having a competent and dedicated customer service team. Podcasts led by industry leaders offer actionable strategies for recruiting the right talent, training them to excel in customer-centric roles, and managing them in a way that maximizes both employee and customer satisfaction. Customer service podcasts often include interviews with human resources professionals who have a proven track record in creating stellar service teams, so you can learn different approaches to team building.

Enhance customer retention strategies

Customer retention is not just a cost-saving strategy but also a revenue-driving one. Through podcasts, B2B executives can access a wealth of insights into customer psychology, loyalty programs, and personalized service. Episodes often feature case studies showing how different retention strategies have worked in various industries, allowing you to adapt successful tactics to your business model. This curated information helps executives find new ways to increase customer lifetime value and reduce churn.

Boost business reputation

In the era of social media and online reviews, maintaining a strong business reputation is more crucial than ever. Listening to podcasts can help executives understand how to manage and respond to customer feedback, both positive and negative. You’ll learn how to convert critics into brand advocates and how to leverage positive feedback to build trust. A robust reputation management strategy will not only help you retain customers but also attract new ones, ultimately benefiting your bottom line.

How to implement lessons from customer service podcasts

Start to improve your customer service

Effective implementation is the bridge between knowledge and results. Podcasts can provide you with a plethora of ideas, but those ideas are futile unless applied. Whether it’s automating certain customer service functions for efficiency, improving communication channels for better customer interaction, or developing data-driven service models, the key is to take action. Some podcasts even provide step-by-step guides or action items at the end of episodes, so you can implement what you’ve learned quickly.

Effectively train your service team

In a field that evolves as rapidly as customer service, the concept of “set it and forget it” does not apply. Your team must continually be up to date on the latest trends, tools, and techniques to provide top-notch service. Podcasts are an excellent tool for ongoing education, often featuring episodes that focus on effective training programs, e-learning platforms, and skills assessment metrics that you can integrate into your own training methodologies.

Maintain high customer service standards

Consistency is the cornerstone of excellent customer service. To maintain high standards, you need to measure performance against key metrics regularly. Podcasts often delve into the KPIs that matter in customer service, discuss the intricacies of service audits, and explore strategies for improving team morale. By keeping a pulse on industry standards through regular podcast engagement, your organization can sustain its commitment to exceptional customer service.

Tune in and level up

In a business landscape where great CX is increasingly becoming a competitive advantage, it’s critical for executives and customer service professionals to continuously develop their skills and knowledge.

These podcasts serve as invaluable resources for anyone committed to customer service excellence. They provide a wide range of insights and strategies that can be readily implemented to positively impact your business. Whether you’re building a customer service team from the ground up or looking to fine-tune your tactics, the podcasts listed above offer a wealth of information that can help you succeed in your mission.

By making these podcasts a part of your regular learning routine, you’re taking a proactive step toward boosting not just your customer service performance, but also the overall success of your business.

The post Top 35 customer service and support podcasts for 2024 appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/customer-win-back-campaign/ Wed, 07 Feb 2024 22:15:50 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=642987 What are customer win-back campaigns? Customer win-back campaigns are marketing efforts designed to reengage inactive or churned customers. Businesses typically execute these campaigns through email, although they can also use other channels like messaging and direct mail. The goal is to win back the loyalty of these individuals through targeted messages, special offers, personalized discounts, […]

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]]>

What are customer win-back campaigns?

Customer win-back campaigns are marketing efforts designed to reengage inactive or churned customers. Businesses typically execute these campaigns through email, although they can also use other channels like messaging and direct mail. The goal is to win back the loyalty of these individuals through targeted messages, special offers, personalized discounts, and more.

The business-consumer relationship can be unpredictable. Some individuals are evergreen—remaining loyal to your business throughout the highs and lows of the relationship—while others follow a more cyclical pattern, shopping elsewhere when their preferences change. For the latter, you need a system to recapture those customers.

Customer win-back campaigns help businesses regrow customer loyalty through strategic, personalized messages. In this guide, we detail the basics of win-back campaigns, explain how they can contribute to an enhanced customer experience (CX), and share several win-back email campaign templates you can use to jump-start your efforts.

More in this guide:

• When should you start a win-back campaign?
• How to create a win-back campaign
• Win-back campaign templates
• How to segment your customer win-back campaign email list
• How to measure the success of your win-back campaign
• Frequently asked questions
• Win back customers with the right CX partner

When should you start a win-back campaign?

The right time to start a win-back campaign depends on your industry and the nature of your business. As a general rule, consider re-engaging customers after a few months of inactivity—but there’s no set time frame. It can be difficult to find the sweet spot between contacting them too soon or too late, but it’s important to develop the right timeline for your organization.

One thing’s for sure: Win-back campaigns are a proven strategy to reactivate a customer relationship. According to Validity, nearly 50 percent of recipients go on to read subsequent company emails after a win-back campaign. While businesses should prioritize customer retention to catch disengaged customers before they churn, successful win-back campaigns can be an essential safety net to recapture some lost revenue.

How to create a win-back campaign

A well-crafted win-back strategy can drive previously untapped revenue to your business. Here are some steps to create and manage a successful campaign and foster ongoing loyalty.

1. Identify inactive customers

One of the most crucial steps in developing a win-back campaign is to define what qualifies as an inactive customer. If you start a campaign to target them too late, the customer may have already moved on to another business. If it’s too early, they could become annoyed with your efforts.

Here are a few ways you can identify inactive customers:

• Regularly monitor customer engagement metrics.
• Leverage data analytics and customer relationship management (CRM) systems to identify individuals who haven’t engaged with your brand for some time.
• Assess the inactive subscribers on your email list.
• Establish clear criteria for inactivity based on your organizational data and industry trends.

With these steps, you can pinpoint a disengaged customer and target them accordingly.

2. Understand their reasons for churning

Next, you must understand why the customer left and your customer churn rate. Lean on your data to identify patterns in customer behavior, browse negative reviews, and conduct customer surveys or request feedback to gain insights into their experiences. Whether it’s product dissatisfaction or bad customer service, understanding why customers left can help with future messaging.

3. Personalize your messaging

Personalization is vital for all aspects of business, and even more so when conducting win-back campaigns. With this approach, segment your customers based on shared attributes—for example, create a campaign for midsize businesses that churned due to poor product features.

From here, generate thoughtful messages acknowledging past interactions, highlighting product or process improvements, or suggesting a new product based on past purchase history. This personalized messaging can remind the customer of their experience with your brand and show that you value the relationship.

4. Create a compelling offer

It’s not enough to send a message to your past customers—it needs to motivate them to return. Create a compelling offer that speaks to their specific motivations. This can be exclusive discounts, loyalty rewards, coupons, discount codes, and more.

5. Choose the right medium at the right time

Consumers are gravitating toward an omnichannel experience—an integrated form of communication that exists across multiple channels like email, an app, and social media. With an omnichannel approach, customers can stop a conversation on one channel and pick it up on a different medium without losing context. When sending win-back campaigns, accommodate your customers on the medium they prefer.

Additionally, consider the timing of your outreach, including when the customer will be working or when they are most active online. A well-timed message can increase open rates and the chances of success, while a message sent at the wrong time could languish unread or get sent straight to the trash bin.

Win-back campaign templates

Now that we’ve covered how to start a win-back campaign, we’ll dive into a few win-back email examples and templates.

• Company update win-back template
• Reminder win-back template
• Offer win-back template
• Feedback win-back template
• Final chance win-back template

1. Company update win-back template

The company update win-back campaign template helps you reconnect with past customers by highlighting exciting product updates and improvements. It aims to pique their interest and encourage them to reengage with your products or services.

It’s important to note that personalization is key to the success of these campaigns. In your message, acknowledge the reason the customer churned, and outline the steps you’ve taken to address the issue. For example, if a customer left due to a lack of convenient support channels, highlight the improvements you’ve made, such as adding instant messaging and AI chatbots to streamline the support experience.

Subject line: We miss you! Exciting updates inside!

Dear [Customer Name],

We’ve been hard at work behind the scenes and are thrilled to share some exciting updates and improvements to enhance your experience with [Company Name].

[Company Name] has undergone significant transformations, and we’re eager to show you what’s new:

1. [New feature or process, such as a revamped user experience, enhanced features, exclusive offers, etc.]
2. [New feature or process, such as a revamped user experience, enhanced features, exclusive offers, etc.]
3. [New feature or process, such as a revamped user experience, enhanced features, exclusive offers, etc.]

We can’t wait to welcome you back!

[CTA button]

Example:

Below is an example of a company update win-back email from Lowe’s. The company highlights the improvements made since the recipient’s last purchase—most notably forgoing receipts in favor of a more convenient way to track previous purchases online.

2. Reminder win-back template

The reminder win-back campaign template gently nudges customers who may have churned or drifted away from your brand over time. It serves as an invitation to revisit the positive experiences associated with your company.

Subject line: Don’t forget about us: A gentle reminder from [Company Name]

Dear [Customer Name],

We know life gets busy, so we understand how easy it is for wonderful memories to fade away. That’s why we’re here, extending a warm invitation to return to the world of [Company Name].

Remember [mention a personalized experience like purchase history or past interactions]?

Stroll down memory lane with us and rediscover the inspiration and innovation that [Company Name] has always been about. We’ve been up to some exciting things lately, and we can’t wait for you to join us on this journey.

[CTA button]

Example:

Here is a reminder win-back email from Suntegrity. In the email, the company includes a warm message that details how much it values the customer and invites them to make another purchase.

3. Offer win-back template

The offer win-back campaign template entices customers back to your brand by offering them an exclusive and personalized incentive. The call to action creates a sense of urgency and provides a reason for the customer to reengage with your products or services.

Subject line: We miss you! Here’s a special offer to welcome you back!

Dear [Customer Name],

We haven’t heard from you recently and miss having you as part of the [Company Name] family. We’re extending a special offer designed just for you to show our appreciation for your past support.

[Offer details]

This is our way of saying thank you and inviting you to rediscover the experiences that await you at [Company Name].

Redeem your exclusive offer below:

[CTA button]

Example:

This offer win-back email from Uber Eats entices the customer to reengage by offering them a 40 percent discount on their next three orders. The email also includes clear CTA buttons to redeem the offer.

4. Feedback win-back template

The feedback win-back campaign template invites customers to share their thoughts and experiences. This message shows the recipient that you care and value their point of view even if they aren’t going to remain a customer.

Subject line: Your voice matters! Share your thoughts with [Company Name]

Dear [Customer Name],

It’s been some time since we had the pleasure of serving you at [Company Name], and we’d love to hear about your past experiences. Your insights are invaluable to us, and your feedback can help shape the future of our brand.

Share your thoughts: [CTA button to website or feedback form]

We look forward to hearing from you.

Example:

This feedback win-back email from Seeso is a good example of how to ask churned customers for their opinions. The company includes a clear CTA button for consumers to complete the survey and also indicates it will be short, so they are incentivized to follow through.

5. Final chance win-back template

While win-back campaigns are primarily designed to retain customers, some individuals will inevitably leave. If this happens, a final chance email can help streamline your mailing list so you know your messages reach an audience genuinely interested in your brand.

Subject line: Last chance! We don’t want you to miss out.

Dear [Customer Name],

This is your final chance to stay in the loop! After this message, you won’t receive any more updates from us. We value your presence in our community and want to ensure you know all about the incredible experiences we’re crafting.

If you’d like to continue receiving updates and being a part of the [Company Name] journey, now’s the time to take action.

[CTA button: “Keep me on the list”]

Example:

In the final chance win-back email below, the company Rue emphasizes this will be the last email to the consumer, unless they choose to continue receiving messages. The email features a clear CTA for staying on the mailing list.

[gated-cta-in-post]

How to segment your customer win-back campaign email list

Customer segmentation is crucial for a win-back campaign. Segmenting your email lists ensures individuals receive personalized messages that resonate with them, thereby increasing open, click-through, and conversion rates.

Start segmentation based on shared attributes. For business-to-consumer (B2C) customers, these could be things like age, demographics, and purchasing habits. For business-to-business (B2B) customers, budget, company size, and business needs are logical segments. Grouping similar individuals or businesses together makes it easier to send personalized messages at scale.

Another popular segmentation method is the recency, frequency, and monetary value (RFM) analysis. This method segments customers based on:

• Recency: the period since a customer’s last order or last communication with your brand
• Frequency: the number of orders the customer placed
• Monetary value: the price or average order value from when they were a customer

You can assign customers a score based on each of these three factors and use this information to target your most profitable customers.

How to measure the success of your win-back campaign

Now that we’ve covered how to create a win-back campaign and offered some templates you can use, let’s go over how to measure success. Consider following these steps to ensure your campaigns are performing effectively.

1. Adopt a customer-first mindset

Being a customer-first business means putting the customer at the center of organizational decision-making. Businesses that adopt this mindset make decisions based on what’s good for the customer rather than only focusing on profitability.

A successful win-back campaign can rebuild trust and loyalty, laying the foundation for sustained customer engagement. Organizations that adopt a customer-first mindset often see success with their reengagement campaigns and newfound, long-term loyalty.

2. Be proactive

Before engaging in a win-back campaign, define what success looks like for your business. When you have predetermined goals, you can proactively shift course to ensure success. For example, if your current campaigns are underperforming, try adopting a different segmentation or messaging approach.

3. Regularly ask for feedback

No one knows how effective your win-back campaigns are better than your customers. Actively seek input from successfully reactivated customers to understand their experience with the win-back process.

Use surveys like customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores, feedback forms, personalized follow-up emails, and other methods to gather insight into customer sentiment. Capturing feedback enables you to pinpoint where you’re succeeding and where there’s room for improvement in your future outreach efforts.

4. Collect and monitor data

As with any marketing campaign, measuring performance is crucial for assessing success and identifying areas of improvement. Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with your win-back campaign goals, like reactivation rates and email opens. From there, you can adjust your methods to improve your success rate.

Additionally, you should segment this data based on different customer groups and campaign elements. This can give you insights that can be applied to other emails.

Frequently asked questions

How many emails should you send in a customer win-back campaign?

There’s no hard rule for how many emails you should send in a win-back campaign—it all depends on your industry and the nature of your campaign. But a good rule of thumb is to send two to five emails in a win-back campaign.

What should you include in a customer win-back email?

The most important things to include in win-back emails are a personalized message and an enticing offer—if those are relevant to your campaign.

How effective are win-back campaigns?

According to a report from Validity, nearly half of consumers who open win-back campaign emails go on to read subsequent company emails. Therefore, this process benefits all types of businesses, especially those in the e-commerce and subscription-based industries.

Win back customers with the right CX partner

While customer win-back campaigns play a critical role in reengaging churned consumers, businesses prioritizing CX can build long-term customer relationships that don’t need to be saved by last-minute campaigns.

At Zendesk, we’re experts in helping businesses create environments that encourage their customers to stick around for the long haul. With our CX software, you can forge meaningful connections with your customers and battle churn with features like chat and messaging, knowledge base capabilities, and advanced agent workspaces. Start a free trial of Zendesk today.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/agent-experience-tymeshift-features/ Tue, 06 Feb 2024 21:52:52 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=642932 Artificial intelligence has the potential to not only improve the customer experience but also drastically improve the admin and service operations experience. We believe AI can make service operations much faster and more efficient, allowing service teams to focus on delivering better CX instead of being bogged down by time-consuming admin work. As such, we […]

The post Enhancing the agent experience with Tymeshift’s newest features appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> Artificial intelligence has the potential to not only improve the customer experience but also drastically improve the admin and service operations experience. We believe AI can make service operations much faster and more efficient, allowing service teams to focus on delivering better CX instead of being bogged down by time-consuming admin work. As such, we acquired Tymeshift in June 2023 to give organizations using Zendesk an easier way to manage their teams.

Tymeshift is the ideal workforce management solution, as it automatically schedules agents to meet AI-forecasted needs based on historical and real-time data. It also provides a comprehensive overview of team performance and capacity, allowing managers to optimize staffing and manage costs. In turn, the workforce management solution can boost agent productivity and happiness, helping to reduce employee churn.

As of February 1, we’re launching exciting new updates to Tymeshift—all aimed at helping organizations manage their teams more effectively and lower costs. Here’s what you can expect from our latest releases.

Faster schedule generation and editing

Leveraging ticket data and agent activities, Tymeshift automatically generates schedules, eliminating the need for manual and cumbersome tools (like spreadsheets) to manage agent scheduling. This decreases the amount of time spent on managerial tasks.

Our latest improvements have expanded the usability of this feature to larger businesses, which often have more complex workflows. With the bulk editing feature, managers can adjust, delete, or generate schedules. Managers can also prioritize workstreams to ensure the right work is addressed in cases of over or understaffing.

For more details on our improved schedule generation and editing and other EAPs, click here.

Back-office activity tracking with a Chrome extension

For teams using Zendesk, Tymeshift provides the most comprehensive and accurate agent activity and performance reporting compared to other workforce management solutions in the market. However, managers could not previously track their agents’ activities while working on tasks outside of Zendesk.

With the new Chrome extension, organizations will now be able to link URLs to general tasks, so their agents can be accurately tracked when working on tasks outside of Zendesk. This allows managers to be fully informed when evaluating their teams and enables them to identify areas for training and coaching. As a result, the new feature gives managers a better understanding of how agents spend their time and helps agents receive recognition for the work they perform outside of the Zendesk platform.

Augment business intelligence (BI) data with WFM APIs

With our enhanced public APIs, organizations can now integrate workforce management analytics with CRM, HR, and finance systems, resulting in improved operational efficiency, enhanced performance, and higher team engagement.

For example, HR teams in larger organizations can benefit from these APIs by connecting agent activity and performance data with their central employee system. This, in turn, can help HR teams track the number of hours their employees work, allowing them to understand their labor costs better.

Greater forecasting flexibility

Businesses using Zendesk can now benefit from nine different algorithms (instead of one general algorithm), each tailored to specific business needs.

The best forecasting algorithm for each workstream is automatically selected by analyzing customers’ historical data. It tests all algorithms to determine which one will perform best for a given workstream. However, customers can also overwrite the automatic algorithm selection and choose any algorithm Tymeshift offers. Each algorithm option has different logic for forecasting, and thus has different strengths for different types of support activity and work streams.

To learn more about Tymeshift’s latest algorithms, click here.

Greater language support

Tymeshift now supports over 30 languages, providing teams around the globe with more language options.

To learn more about the languages available, visit this article.

The latest updates on Tymeshift represent a significant advancement in workforce management for Zendesk. These improvements are designed to equip teams with the necessary tools to drive efficiency across their operations. As businesses continue to seek out ways to optimize agent productivity and satisfaction, Tymeshift’s new features offer a robust solution tailored to the complex needs of larger, more dynamic service teams—ensuring Zendesk users remain at the forefront of customer service innovation.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/joeyedwardslebair-part2-podcast/ Wed, 31 Jan 2024 18:55:02 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=642870 Welcome back to part two of our conversation with Joey Edwards-Lebair, Zendesk’s Senior Customer Insights Manager and lead researcher for our annual CX Trends report. This week, Edwards-Lebair joins host Nicole Saunders to take a deeper look at more of the trends shaping the future of customer experience and shares what excites him most about […]

The post Building trust and security at the intersection of AI and CX — with Zendesk’s Joey Edwards-Lebair appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> Welcome back to part two of our conversation with Joey Edwards-Lebair, Zendesk’s Senior Customer Insights Manager and lead researcher for our annual CX Trends report. This week, Edwards-Lebair joins host Nicole Saunders to take a deeper look at more of the trends shaping the future of customer experience and shares what excites him most about the future.

“AI is really helping experiences become what they always were supposed to be,” Edwards-Lebair said. “The goal of customer service and customer experience—to create these amazing experiences and provide people with information—hasn’t changed with AI. It’s just that AI makes that so much easier and better for you, for your customers, for everyone.”

Beyond the important role of AI going forward, Edwards-Lebair shares his thoughts on some of the emerging challenges for CX leadership.





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“Consumers do not want security tacked on to their experience,” said Edwards-Lebair. “They don’t want to be taken out of the moment of what they’re doing to verify themselves somewhere else or remember a password they set up seven years ago.”

If you missed it, be sure to catch part one of our discussion with Edwards-Lebair which covered the big impacts of AI and the critical need for a smart integration approach. And if you’d like to learn more, check out our 2024 CX Trends hub to read custom insights, sign up for a virtual event, or download the full report.

The post Building trust and security at the intersection of AI and CX — with Zendesk’s Joey Edwards-Lebair appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/new-integrations-jan-2024/ Wed, 31 Jan 2024 17:05:04 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=642811 Here are the newest integrations from Zendesk to help your team provide top-quality experiences. Slack Connector for Workflow Builder Slack Connector for Workflow Builder (Support) lets anyone create time-saving workflows using clicks, code, or a mix of both. Pre-built connectors allow you to instantly bring your favorite apps and services into your workflows with drag-and-drop […]

The post Out with the old, in with the new integrations appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> Here are the newest integrations from Zendesk to help your team provide top-quality experiences.

Slack Connector for Workflow Builder

Slack Connector for Workflow Builder (Support) lets anyone create time-saving workflows using clicks, code, or a mix of both. Pre-built connectors allow you to instantly bring your favorite apps and services into your workflows with drag-and-drop simplicity. Using this connector, you can bring key actions from Zendesk into your workflows like creating a ticket, updating a ticket, and adding and removing tags. Combine these Zendesk steps, with the numerous built-in steps offered natively in Workflow Builder, to keep work flowing across all your automations–all in one place. Send workflows in messages, embed them in canvases, bookmark them in a channel, and more.

ShipInsure

ShipInsure (Support) redefines merchant services, transforming hassle and frustration into confidence and ease. Create claims effortlessly on the behalf of customers, ensuring your customers are always protected. View detailed information about customer orders. Easily identify which orders are covered under ShipInsure’s protection plan directly on Zendesk tickets, ensuring you’re always informed.

Calizy for Support

Calizy for Support (Support) brings a whole new level of customer support interactions into a single place by helping you book appointments within the ticket flow. Instantly book an appointment for your client, visualize your team’s availability, and book the best time. You can also display upcoming appointments linked to a ticket and quickly update or cancel booked appointments

Datadog RUM

Datadog RUM (Support) lets your support staff watch Session Replays from native apps and web browsers to aid in visual reproduction of the issue in the ticket. Watch exactly what the user on the support ticket did–as if you’re standing over their shoulder when they went through the issue. Correlate what you saw on the frontend in the Session Replay to telemetry metrics: backend APM traces, browser debugging tools, performance data, and more.

Additional apps added in January:

• Field Rules (Support) is a new and improved rule-based way of controlling your ticket forms. Reduce agent training by not distracting them with ticket fields that do not apply to certain types of tickets. You can even map ticket fields if you want to define another ticket type such as “Change”, or another priority such as “Extremely low”.
• Smartling for Support (Support) provides an enterprise-class LanguageAI platform for translating and localizing all forms of digital content. Empower your customer support teams with Smartling’s Machine Translation (MT) Hub designed for enterprises. Kickstart seamless and high-quality translations for your customer support tickets in Zendesk.
• Octopia (Support) is a game-changer for seamless marketplace communication and efficient order management. With an easy installation process, Octopia consolidates messages from various marketplaces from Octopia, providing a centralized hub for swift responses. Gain comprehensive insights into orders, ensuring informed customer interactions.
• Click to Dial (Support) lets you effortlessly dial directly from Zendesk using any SIP app on your device. Benefit from the plug-and-play nature of Click to Dial–it’s ready to transform your dialing experience right from the moment of installation.
• Nested Views (Support) is an intuitive ticket organization tool designed to streamline your workflow and enhance ticket visibility in Zendesk. Build unlimited nested views to greatly increase your agents’ efficiency and team productivity.
• SentioCX (Support) delivers an orchestrating platform to integrate any conversational AI (bot) platform with the Zendesk application suite. It provides Intelligent Pairing through automated self-adjusting service levels to ensure the best match between the user and the right agent with the right skills and proficiency levels.
• Phone by HelloDuty (Support) empowers your customer service team with a dynamic tool that seamlessly merges phone and computer systems. As an agent’s phone rings, their computer screen instantaneously reveals the caller’s identity and their historical issues, functioning like a readily available cheat sheet. Moreover, agents can initiate calls directly from Zendesk with a simple button click.
• Hide Dropdown Values Lite by LEAFWORKS (Support) makes life easier by hiding selected fields in tickets for your agents. With the use of conditions for ticket fields, you generate a clearly structured and relevant overview of all the information for your different groups and roles.
• Change Ticket Requester by Knots (Support) seamlessly updates the requester field in Zendesk ticket fields, crucial for tickets generated from forwarded emails, scanned documents, or third-party submissions.
• Contract Manager (Support) lets you manage contracts within Zendesk. Each contract is associated with a time credit and a deadline. Agents can assign tickets to a contract and enter the time they spend handling customer requests. The processing time is then deducted from the hour credit of the selected contract. A dashboard is available to view all contracts, including the time remaining on each.
• HelpTree (Support) is an advanced Knowledge Management Platform that helps to streamline your customer support process. It arms your team with easy-to-follow instructions and quick access to key information, ensuring you respond to customer inquiries with both speed and accuracy.
• eZDesk Smart Comments (Support) lets you seamlessly preview comments with all placeholder types–macros, typed or pasted directly on a Zendesk ticket. Enable easy switching between internal and public comment modes and simplify workflow adjustments, which is especially useful for post-draft mode changes.
• Savoir Ticket Copier (Support) lets you easily select source and destination tickets quickly and accurately, copying essential data such as external_id, status, type, priority, subject, description, tags, and more.
• Savoir Import (Support) provides an efficient solution for importing data directly from the top bar. With this tool, you can easily bring relevant information into the system, including tickets, users, groups, and organizations.
• Savoir Slack Message (Support) streamlines communication by effortlessly sending messages from the Zendesk ticket dashboard directly to designated Slack channels with our application. Enhance your team collaboration and expedite issue resolution.
• Aissistant (Support) delivers full-loop automation for your sales and customer service operations. Automatically create tags, access other information systems, generate responses, and summarize situations.
• Attachments Pro (Support) helps you to quickly view all attachments and links of a certain Zendesk ticket, user, or organization. It consists of the three tabs (Images, Files, Links), the search field, and the sorting filters. The search and sorting filters work throughout all the three tabs, so it’s easy to find necessary files or links.
• Service Quality Report (Support) gives your QA team an AI tool that evaluates service management, setting True Resolution Score and Auto CSAT for every ticket. It utilizes real-time sentiment analysis to measure and improve service quality.
• Arrivy Inc. (Support) triggers Arrivy tasks from Zendesk tickets and streamlines your Sales to Ops handoff. Equip your field team with the tools they need to thrive, allowing them to seamlessly report progress on their jobs, access essential data, capture images, and complete paperwork directly within the Arrivy app.
• Anecdote for Chat (Chat) is purpose-built to reveal the underlying reasons behind customer churn and to identify valuable feature requests. Pinpoint the key factors contributing to customer churn so you can take targeted action. Identify and prioritize feature requests to enhance your product roadmap. Create advanced, customizable reporting dashboards to help you make data-driven decisions.
• Voiceflow Sidebar Connector by Zenflow (Support) lets you connect your Voiceflow assistants to Zendesk. Easily send the public comments to Voiceflow and let it summarize the ticket, generate a response, or even translate the last message. Customize Voiceflow to help you retrieve information from other systems like order tracking or reference checks.
• TranslateBuddy by TaskUs (Support) enables support agents to communicate with customers in multiple languages across all support channels and plugs directly into the agent’s standard Zendesk interface. Communicate effortlessly with customers in their preferred language, ensuring a global and inclusive customer service experience.
• Language Detection by Knots (Support) quickly identifies the language of each incoming ticket before any agent opens it. Tag or save the language in a field for routing and reporting.
• Dimensions Connect for Support (Support) provides an embedded CTI client, allowing users to manage and streamline their communications–all from within the Zendesk UI.

New themes added in January:

Spectre is a simple yet customizable Help Center theme to fit most brands and features effortless integration of your brand elements such as logos, color palettes, and typefaces. Add your branding and the theme will automatically highlight posts, recent activity, and community interaction.

Aitvaric is an easy-to-use theme with side panel navigation and an optional toggle for your users to switch between light and dark mode. Tailor the visual experience to suit diverse user preferences, providing a comfortable and personalized reading environment.

Leafworks is a feature-rich Zendesk theme that provides you with limitless possibilities to create the perfect customer support experience. With a wide array of customization options, you can effortlessly tailor the theme to match your brand identity without any coding required.

To view the full list of incoming apps, follow our weekly release notes.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/zendesks-technical-community/ Tue, 30 Jan 2024 19:00:22 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=642027 Living in a digital world, our concept of community transcends geography to include the virtual spaces from which we connect, share, learn, and grow. This same notion of community has been a part of Zendesk for many years, as Partners in our ecosystem seek one another’s expertise across industries, technologies, and languages. In years past, […]

The post Partnering for progress: Exploring Zendesk’s Technical Community appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> Living in a digital world, our concept of community transcends geography to include the virtual spaces from which we connect, share, learn, and grow. This same notion of community has been a part of Zendesk for many years, as Partners in our ecosystem seek one another’s expertise across industries, technologies, and languages.

In years past, the Partner team at Zendesk hosted in-person and online Partner events to discuss product roadmaps and features to help customers find solutions to common pain points.

We’ve evolved the sessions with a digital-first mindset, leading us to unveil our digital Partner Technical Community: where content is available for everyone, all the time. As Global Director of Partner Services, I am thrilled to share a little bit more about this exciting addition to the Zendesk Partner ecosystem and the positive impact it will have on CX teams all over the globe.

Let’s dive into what it’s all about and what you, as Partners, can do on the platform.

What is the Zendesk Partner Technical Community?

The Partner Technical Community is a private online forum designed exclusively for our Zendesk Partners. It’s a space where Partners have access to a plethora of Partner resources and collaborative support. It’s your one-stop platform to enhance your Zendesk aptitude via collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and supporting other users.

What you can expect from the Community

The Community is designed to facilitate collaboration between Partners. You can start discussions, ask questions, share knowledge and expertise with other Partners, and provide complementary skills where needed. You can also browse existing discussions and participate in ongoing conversations.

The beauty of the Community is that it’s yours to shape. You can upvote topics, make comments, and subscribe to receive future updates from both Zendesk and other Partners. You may even highlight your own capabilities and offerings to help and inspire others, or you may use the platform as a way to request support from within the ecosystem.

While the Partner Community encourages interaction, Partner Connect—our dedicated portal—serves as your business’s hub, providing crucial resources such as in-depth product training, sales and marketing materials, and the ability to register deals and opportunities. Both platforms are designed to support your success as a Zendesk Partner, each serving a unique role.





Why join?

This platform gives you access to a network of like-minded individuals who share a passion for delivering exceptional customer experiences. The Community goes beyond being an information repository and collaboration platform—it makes those who use it better in their roles.

For example, we recently added a fantastic pre-sales demo by Partner Bricom to the Community, which not only highlighted the talent of this Partner but also set a benchmark for others to aspire to. Sharing this demo via the Community helped serve as inspiration for others who are on the path to becoming a “Solution Consultant Expert”—a Program requirement and credential earned by Partner Presales Solution Consultants. The shared post proved to be extremely popular with both new and existing Partners. Without the Community, generating this reach would not have been possible.

What’s on the horizon?

Our goal for this Community is to become a trusted source for Partners to support each other, share their successes and challenges, and work together in a supportive and safe environment. We’re looking forward to exciting new programming in the coming months, including Ask Me Anything (AMA) sessions with Zendesk experts in the Community to broaden its scope and allow our incredible Partners to leverage their unique perspectives to help us drive innovation together. So, get out there—start contributing and grow.

How to join

Send an email to PartnerServices@Zendesk.com with your request to join. The Partner Technical Community is open to all reseller Partners who have formally been onboarded into our Partner Program.

The post Partnering for progress: Exploring Zendesk’s Technical Community appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/marketplace-listing/ Tue, 30 Jan 2024 19:00:00 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=642066 It’s fair to say that the Zendesk Marketplace is buzzing with app activity. In my four years as Marketplace Operations Manager, the number of apps available has skyrocketed from 927 to 1,542—that’s a leap of more than 600! And it’s not slowing down. We’re currently adding 200 to 300 net apps per year, which begs […]

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]]> It’s fair to say that the Zendesk Marketplace is buzzing with app activity. In my four years as Marketplace Operations Manager, the number of apps available has skyrocketed from 927 to 1,542—that’s a leap of more than 600!

And it’s not slowing down. We’re currently adding 200 to 300 net apps per year, which begs the question: With so many great options vying for customers’ attention, how can you make your app listings shine?

First things first. Let’s take a peek at what the Marketplace is all about.

The Zendesk Marketplace is an online platform where customers can discover and install apps that serve as solutions for both extending product functionality and complementing their existing Zendesk setup. In other words, it’s a free and open space that brings more value to customers and has the potential to increase your install numbers.

1,542 apps are currently listed on the Zendesk Marketplace.

But keep in mind—there’s more to measuring success than the number of customers using your app. User search, the kind of customer you’re trying to attract, and CSAT score should also be taken into consideration. And even in this digital day and age, never underestimate the power of word of mouth: Informal reviews can be as effective at bringing in new customers as formal ones.

Enhancing app visibility

To make yourself more visible, we’ve got a few pointers you can put into practice. After all, we love beautiful listings that can be approved without a lot of back and forth.

Keep it fresh

Revise your app listings as often as needed, like when new features are added. While every three to six months is a general recommendation, you should decide when information needs a little refresh.

It’s also crucial to keep contact information up to date. Customers must know how to get in touch with you when they need support or have comments—and their feedback should not be ignored. Valuing customer feedback is something all our top-rated apps have in common. Listen to what people have to say and, if necessary, implement changes.

As SweetHawk CEO Tom Hissink says: “One of the smartest moves we made early on? Tapping into user feedback. A few heartfelt reviews can work wonders.”

Keep it concise

The title and short description should grab readers’ attention with a brief idea of what your app does. Make sure to include keywords for searchability that’ll put your product front and center of searches. Ask yourself: What would a potential customer be searching for, and are those terms included?

“If you want to be discoverable inside the Marketplace, you need to craft a catchy title not necessarily related to your brand name,” explains Thomas de Becdelièvre, co-founder of SnapCall.

Keep it creative

The long description is your chance to dive into the nitty-gritty of what your app brings to the table, and why you’re a better option than the competition. Bullet points are your friend—ensure all key info is easily digestible.

Throw caution to the wind and don’t be afraid to really “sell” your app. Include all features, functionalities, benefits, and pricing information (be crystal clear on pricing models—customers value transparency).

Keep it simple

Make your description engaging and user-friendly. People don’t want to get lost in a sea of techie jargon, so plain language is the order of the day. Speaking in a way that everyone can understand not only communicates what your app does more clearly, it also helps your app earn higher visibility.

Last but not least, provide easy-to-follow, step-by-step installation instructions. While people are generally familiar with installing apps, it’s best to err on the side of caution and write as if the customer is installing one for the first time.

Creating picture-perfect app listings

Adding visuals, or short videos and demos, is a great way to illustrate your app’s key functions. All relevant information and guidelines can be found in our developer documentation. High-quality screenshots that show the interface, workflows, and unique features are valuable aids to people browsing the marketplace, and they help break up chunks of copy.

Hissink adds, “A video isn’t just a ‘nice to have’—it’s a necessity. It’s like offering a backstage pass to your app’s experience. For [SweetHawk], a clickable thumbnail linked to an intriguing video was the golden ticket.”

Meanwhile, sign-up links to business resources do a lot of the heavy lifting. Prospects may have questions, so pointing them in the direction of in-depth information lends them a hand in educating themselves on what you’re about.

Engage with the Zendesk Marketplace itself, too. Respond to comments and encourage satisfied customers to post reviews—positive feedback can significantly increase your app’s credibility and attractiveness.

Don’t just take our word for it, though. Sparkly’s Kay Heunen has some valuable insights on finding success in the Zendesk Marketplace: “Adding headings significantly improves the readability of your listing. Also, make sure to list the most common use cases, and use at least 300 words for your entire listing.”

Shine on

Now you’re all set for app listing success! Here are three final tips for standing out in the Marketplace:

1. Include a user-friendly description: Boost interest by clearly defining how your app can benefit prospective customers.
2. Make the visuals appealing: Three screenshots are the bare minimum, but you can use more to break up text or illustrate app features.
3. Tap into reviews: Encourage customers to leave comments and reviews so others will have confidence in your app.

For more information on refreshing your app or submitting a listing to the Zendesk Marketplace, click here.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/elevating-demand-generation/ Tue, 30 Jan 2024 18:01:58 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=642844 Demand generation can be the initial step to building a long-lasting relationship with your customers. So, making a good first impression is critical. Forget about the age-old cold calls and impersonal ads—now it’s all about creating genuine connections, becoming a trusted resource, and guiding potential customers on a value-driven journey. If you need a demand-generation […]

The post Elevating demand generation in your business appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> Demand generation can be the initial step to building a long-lasting relationship with your customers. So, making a good first impression is critical. Forget about the age-old cold calls and impersonal ads—now it’s all about creating genuine connections, becoming a trusted resource, and guiding potential customers on a value-driven journey.

If you need a demand-generation refresher: The goal is to generate and nurture leads. The key to this process? Start building relationships at the awareness stage and continue sustaining them through the consideration and decision stages until your leads are ready to buy.

My time at Zendesk has shown me just how important and effective demand generation is as a starting point. With the right strategy and the comprehensive resources Zendesk offers, you can reach new leads and turn them into clients. Here’s how.

A resounding success: The EMEA Partner Summit

One of the many ways we support our Partners is through Partner Summits, which we host around the globe, from APAC to EMEA to LATAM. This year marked a significant milestone, as we held our first Partner Summit in the EMEA region in over four years.

I was fortunate enough to host the event in Dublin, and wow, what a success it was! We had an astounding number of people sign up before even seeing the event agenda. This speaks volumes about the trust and enthusiasm our Partners have for what we do, and it serves as a reminder of the vast opportunities available through Zendesk.

The best part of these events is coming together to celebrate and recognize the achievements of our Partners across industries. GTM Partners can look forward to similar in-person and digital events in 2024.

Staying top of mind with potential customers

Businesses are navigating a world where their audience expects them to show up anytime, anywhere. So, it’s more important than ever to get their attention and stay front and center in their minds. Use the resources available to align your messaging with Zendesk’s overarching strategy while reinforcing credibility and trust.

Don’t know where to start? Begin with a Strong Guide in the asset library within Partner Connect. This quarterly guide highlights what’s new at Zendesk and is a one-stop-shop where Partners can find current sales and marketing opportunities.

You’ll also discover a range of strategically crafted call scripts within our asset library. These scripts are designed to empower your teams in strategically positioning Zendesk as a leader in both customer experience (CX) and employee experience (EX). They are consistently updated to incorporate the latest products and innovations from Zendesk, ensuring your teams are well-prepared for success.

Another favorite in Partner Connect is the co-branded email tool, which allows you to deploy emails with Zendesk and your Partner logos. This can help enhance the visibility of your events and campaigns while generating Zendesk leads.

Katie Soderberg, sales and marketing director at eOne Solutions, says: “We have been working with Zendesk in a marketing capacity since Q2 2023, at which point we became aware of the CX Trends campaign. In July, we ran the campaign as a part of our integrated marketing campaign and were able to generate 2 percent of Zendesk’s global traffic in July. The co-branded email in Partner Connect was easy to use, and we plan to incorporate it into our 2024 marketing plan.”

It may seem obvious, but it’s always good to emphasize the importance of maintaining a consistent and engaging presence on your social media platforms and other communication channels. Let your creativity shine through while sharing your unique value proposition—whether that means highlighting your expertise, sharing success stories or industry insights, providing updates on Zendesk-related offerings, or positioning yourself as a thought leader in the CX and EX space.

Aligning for future growth

Now that we’ve covered all the bases, you can explore the sales plays (or predefined sales strategies), which are also available in Partner Connect. These sales plays serve as a guide to expand service offerings and create tailored approaches to customers’ unique situations, helping you increase adaptability and effectiveness.

Takeaways:

• Get involved. Attend events and webinars to network with fellow GTM Partners and stay up to date with everything that’s happening in the industry.
• Lean on Partner Connect. This is your go-to resource for finding all the marketing materials you need to help you stand out and generate leads.
• Stay present on social media. Your social media is like a digital window into your brand. With a well-rounded strategy presence across your networks, you can let your audience know what you’re all about.
• Take a page from those who are doing it right. Learning from and getting inspired by other Partners’ journeys is a great way to follow in their footsteps.

Want to stay current without lifting a finger? Follow our Zendesk Partners page on LinkedIn and sign up to receive the monthly newsletter exclusive to Partners. If you’re unsure about your current subscription status, navigate to the Partner Portal, visit the news section, and confirm your preferences.

Remember to leverage all the demand generation resources Zendesk offers in the Partner Connect, our authenticated portal that ensures only Partners can access our exclusive content.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/tech-stack-apps-zendesk-marketplace/ Tue, 30 Jan 2024 18:01:37 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=642834 Every business needs software solutions to thrive, and building the right tech stack means companies can put customer experience front and center. But with so many options out there, finding the best integrations for each of your clients can be a head scratcher. In the context of Zendesk, “tech stack” refers to a combination of […]

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]]> Every business needs software solutions to thrive, and building the right tech stack means companies can put customer experience front and center. But with so many options out there, finding the best integrations for each of your clients can be a head scratcher.

In the context of Zendesk, “tech stack” refers to a combination of tools and technologies that work together with our products—all geared toward improving a business’s customer experience (CX).

Helping customers build the right tech stack for their specific needs can greatly increase efficiency and allow them to scale easily and handle increased loads as their user base grows. Additionally, it enables businesses to get the most out of Zendesk, which is critical to their success—directly affecting functionality, performance, and the speed and ease of development.

In short, selecting the right technologies and tools for your customers’ businesses profoundly impacts nearly every aspect of operations, from day-to-day productivity to long-term goals.

As a GTM Partner, you’re all about selling and implementing Zendesk, while our Tech Partners are focused on development and integration, providing value in the following areas:

• Integration and compatibility: ensuring products and services complement each other or work well together
• Innovation: collaborating on new technologies and features to create cutting edge solutions
• Technical support: making sure issues related to integrations are resolved quickly and effectively
• Product development: working together to build new products or enhance existing ones

In this piece, you’ll find details on the key Tech Partners, integrations, and categories that are most helpful to Zendesk customers.

Building from the (digital) ground up

There’s no specific number of apps required, but there are factors to consider, such as adding one integration at a time versus adding 10 all at once. Ask yourself: What will your customers get the most value from? What will help teams work together more easily? Carefully research, and don’t be afraid of trial and error.

Based on benchmark trends, it might benefit your customers to consider adding a new app every four to five months. We also suggest setting up a minimum of five integrations by the end of their second year of using Zendesk.

As Michelle Torres, the director of technology partner management at Zendesk, explains: “There are a lot of great apps that companies build that our customers have probably never heard of. SweetHawk is always a good example. No customer has ever heard of them because they only build apps for Zendesk, and they are a small dev shop. But we know they build great apps. So the point would be even though you’ve never heard of an app, it doesn’t mean it’s bad.”

When it comes to the pros of an effective tech stack, the buck doesn’t stop at efficiency and scalability. As security is a major concern for businesses, your customer’s stack should include robust features that protect data and maintain customer trust.

The right combination can also help save money in the long run, as apps and integrations that provide a fast, reliable, and seamless experience will attract and maintain customers. Don’t skip the trial period (most apps offer one), and keep the stack as simple as possible.

Browsing the Zendesk Marketplace

We all know Zendesk can unlock the power of customer experiences. But at times, our products aren’t the right fit—that’s why we have Partners. Here are a few Marketplace recommendations for meeting clients’ needs.

We’ve found that customers connecting their other systems of record—like JIRA, Shopify, and Salesforce—with Zendesk is one of the most critical integrations for them. It is often one of the first issues our customers like to tackle.

If they want to level up their collaboration efforts, Microsoft Teams, Slack, and Google Chat are their friends. The Microsoft Teams integration, in particular, can be leveraged to resolve tickets faster, simplify employee workflows, and boost team performance.

Zendesk Talk provides valuable benefits by enhancing customer service operations, but in cases where it’s not the ideal solution, Zendesk collaborates with Partners to meet specific customer needs. This strategy ensures optimal product positioning while offering alternative solutions when necessary.

Make sure you’re in the know about Aircall, Five9, Amazon Connect, and Talkdesk. These solutions can supply agents with the necessary information to offer seamless experiences and can be used to automate tasks, freeing up agents to deal with more complex issues.

For workforce management, our tip is Tymeshift. It can streamline and automate processes—allowing companies to deploy workforces more efficiently—and predict staffing needs to pave the way for great CX.

But customer experience isn’t the only thing we care about—employee experience is equally important to us. So when companies want to give their employees a helping hand, point them toward SweetHawk Super Suite or TeamViewer.

Top 5 categories for your customers’ tech stack

System of record Collaboration Contact center Workforce management Employee experience

You’re now equipped with key categories to nudge customers in the right direction. Choosing the ideal stack is a critical decision for any company, so here are five takeaways to help people choose apps that best fit their needs and grow with their business.

1. Identify business needs: Understand the tasks that need to be performed, the problems that must be solved, and the goals that the company wants to achieve.
2. Evaluate features: Pick apps with the features required to meet the identified business needs.
3. Assess scalability: Chosen apps and integrations should be able to handle an increasing amount of data and users without compromising performance.
4. Check security: Chosen apps and integrations should have robust security features to protect the company’s data and maintain customer trust.
5. Review customer support: It’s crucial to have reliable support in case of any issues or queries.

Check out the Tech Partner training materials within the GTM Partner Connect portal. Please note that you must have a Partner Connect account to access this resource, as it uses single sign-on for account provisioning and authentication. If you have not signed up for Partner Connect yet, you can do so here.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/gartner-magic-quadrant-crm-2023/ Mon, 29 Jan 2024 13:17:51 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=642319 Every year, Gartner evaluates vendors in the customer service and support space. The Gartner Magic Quadrant for the Customer Engagement Center (CEC) and accompanying Critical Capabilities report provides valuable information for business leaders looking for technology solutions that best meet their current and long-term needs. According to Gartner, “The $28.9 billion customer service and support […]

The post 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> Every year, Gartner evaluates vendors in the customer service and support space. The Gartner Magic Quadrant for the Customer Engagement Center (CEC) and accompanying Critical Capabilities report provides valuable information for business leaders looking for technology solutions that best meet their current and long-term needs.

According to Gartner, “The $28.9 billion customer service and support software market, of which the CEC market is a part, grew at a rate of 17% year-over-year and remains the largest subsegment of the customer experience/CRM market (CEC’s proportion of the customer service and support market was about 44.6% in 2021). Enterprise customers and prospective customers will benefit from continued investments in CEC product portfolios by vendors that are experiencing strong growth (Forecast Analysis: CRM Customer Service and Support Software, Worldwide).”

What’s inside

The 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for the Customer Engagement Center report is available for complimentary download for a limited time. The full report includes:

• How Gartner views the current ecosystem of CEC technologies
• Considerations for businesses looking to implement CRM and CEC technologies
• Vendor capabilities for addressing the needs of today’s CECs
• How Gartner analysts position Zendesk and other technologies and service providers

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product, or service depicted in its research publications and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc., as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from Zendesk.

Gartner, Magic Quadrant for the CRM Customer Engagement Center, Pri Rathnayake, Wynn White, Drew Kraus, 1 Nov 2023

Gartner, Critical Capabilities for the CRM Customer Engagement Center, Pri Rathnayake, Wynn White, Drew Kraus, 6 Nov 2023

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/ai-call-center/ Thu, 25 Jan 2024 21:14:08 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=642687 What is an AI call center? An artificial intelligence (AI) call center is a customer service operation that uses AI technologies to manage customer inquiries, interactions, and tasks across voice and digital channels. Customer service technology has come a long way from the oldest documented customer complaint inscribed on a more than 3,700-year-old clay tablet. […]

The post AI call center: A complete guide appeared first on Zendesk.

]]>

What is an AI call center?

An artificial intelligence (AI) call center is a customer service operation that uses AI technologies to manage customer inquiries, interactions, and tasks across voice and digital channels.

Customer service technology has come a long way from the oldest documented customer complaint inscribed on a more than 3,700-year-old clay tablet. Now, businesses are utilizing AI models that use machine learning to create human-like, conversational interactions. Though documenting complaints has come a long way from that clay “ticket,” it’s still just as important to meet and exceed customer expectations.

Thankfully, implementing AI technology with call center software makes delivering an exceptional customer experience easy. Our guide details the benefits, best practices, trends, and ways to use AI call center tools for voice and digital channels.

More in this guide:

• AI’s emergence in contact centers
• Benefits of using AI in a call centers
• Different ways to use AI in contact centers
• Best practices for implementing AI in call centers
• Call center AI trends for 2024
• Frequently asked questions
• Make the right call with AI

AI’s emergence in contact centers

Traditional contact centers continue to keep up with evolving technologies. The rise of artificial intelligence, most notably generative AI, has transformed customer service operations in contact centers. Businesses are now implementing AI within their voice solutions to:

• Summarize calls to save agents time and boost productivity
• Transcribe and analyze calls to assist in agent training and development
• Direct customers to digital channels to reduce call volume

Integrating AI into call center software for small businesses, startups, and enterprises helps companies of any size or industry deliver more efficient customer service experiences. Using machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), and automation technologies, AI’s potential is seemingly limitless.

Benefits of using AI in a call centers

Implementing AI with your call center software benefits customer service teams and their customers. Here are a few notable examples.

Increase customer satisfaction

According to the Zendesk CX Trends Report 2024, 81 percent of consumers say the quick and accurate resolution of issues or complaints heavily influences their decision to purchase. AI in call centers enhances customer satisfaction by helping teams offer faster support.

For example, call center teams can deploy a chatbot to support customers over digital channels while call center representatives are off the clock. AI can also generate a summary after each call, saving agents valuable time from manually summarizing calls so they can help the next customer faster.

Boost agent efficiency and productivity

AI and automation can handle routine, time-consuming tasks—such as call routing—freeing agents to focus on more complex and high-value interactions. For example, on average, call center agents spend 10.2 minutes out of one hour (17 percent of their time) working on post-call wrap-up. With Zendesk, AI can automatically summarize calls and create call transcripts so agents can save that valuable time after calls for other tasks.

AI-powered tools like these enhance customer service teams’ ability to provide fast, efficient, and accurate solutions and improve agent productivity.

Scale operations and reduce call center costs

Our CX Trends Report found that 71 percent of organizations use digital channels primarily for first contact and the phone as the primary channel for resolving complex customer issues or escalations. In fact, consumers rank the phone as the top preferred channel for nuanced problems.

AI can help support teams scale by directing customers to digital channels for quick questions and straightforward requests. This can also reduce call center overhead costs, as digital channels are typically more cost effective than the phone.

AI in contact centers even accelerates agent onboarding, reducing costly training time. AI-powered transcriptions enable managers to perform quality control on calls and train new agents. For example, AI-powered tools—like Klaus—automate QA by reviewing and analyzing interactions, pinpointing areas for improvement, and automatically sending personalized feedback surveys. AI can also provide agents with guidance by offering real-time suggestions on how to resolve an issue.

Predict future workload volume and ensure superior quality

AI in contact centers can gather and analyze historical data to forecast future trends, customer behaviors, and potential challenges. For example, call center workforce management tools (WFM)—like Tymeshift—leverage AI to predict:

• Future workload volume
• Required staffing
• Shift scheduling

These AI-powered WFM insights help call centers proactively refine resource allocation and create strategies that increase agent satisfaction.

Additionally, call center quality assurance tools use AI to proactively analyze agent interactions, pinpoint conversations with positive or negative sentiment, identify customer churn risk, and more.

Different ways to use AI in contact centers

CX leaders are continuously finding new ways to use AI in customer service. Here are a few of the most common ones.

Enhance self-service and knowledge management

AI enhances customer self-service and knowledge management, significantly reducing call volume. Implementing AI knowledge base software allows customers to quickly access accurate information and troubleshoot common issues independently while streamlining knowledge management for your call center team.

For example, Zendesk Content Cues can review support conversations to flag help center content gaps and identify articles that are outdated. Zendesk generative AI tools can also help support teams write self-service content by turning a few bullets into a comprehensive article or changing the tone for consistency.

Reduce call times with intelligent routing

AI can also reduce call times using intelligent routing. AI analyzes the request and directs the customer to the best-suited agent based on skill, expertise, language, or previous interactions. This prevents transfers and minimizes customer wait times.

Perform call quality control

AI helps with call quality control to enhance call monitoring, uncover insights, and facilitate agent training. Here are a few ways to perform call quality control with AI:

• Analyze call transcription: AI generates accurate call transcripts, allowing managers to comprehensively review interactions and identify areas for improvement in agent-customer conversations.
• Gather insights: AI-powered analytics assess call transcripts at scale, revealing trends, common issues, customer preferences, and customer sentiments. Managers can make data-driven decisions for process enhancements based on these call center metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs).
• Assess agent performance: AI-driven algorithms evaluate calls based on customer service goals and benchmarks. This information helps managers determine areas of improvement and whether additional call center training is needed.

AI-powered call transcript analysis empowers call center managers to conduct thorough quality assessments, extract actionable insights, and tailor training programs effectively to improve agent performance and customer satisfaction.

Reduce call wrap-up times

AI can significantly reduce the amount of time agents spend on call wrap-ups by automating two tasks: summarizing tickets after calls and providing full transcriptions.

AI-powered systems can listen to call recordings in real time or post call and generate accurate call summaries based on the conversation. Utilizing NLP, AI algorithms analyze the conversation content, identifying key points, topics discussed, and important details. Based on the analysis, AI generates a concise summary highlighting crucial information, such as customer complaints, resolutions, action items, and any required follow-up.

Call transcription tools use AI to convert spoken conversations into written text, providing a full transcription of each call. AI can transcribe recorded calls or do it in real time. Both generative AI summaries and conversation transcripts are automatically added to the customer conversation, saving agents the time and effort of manually summarizing each call.

Detect customer sentiment

AI in call centers can detect customer sentiment through NLP algorithms that analyze verbal cues, tone, and language patterns in real-time or recorded conversations. Simply put, AI can detect how customers or employees feel during interactions. It can determine positive, negative, or neutral sentiments, enabling agents to gauge situations, respond effectively, adjust their tone, or escalate interactions when dealing with angry customers.

AI can automatically escalate the interaction when a strong negative sentiment is detected. These escalations may include:

• Alerting a manager of the customer’s sentiment, allowing the manager to listen in on the interaction and support the agent.
• Escalating the interaction to a team lead or senior agent with more expertise, a better-suited department, or an appropriate manager to handle the issue.

This results in faster, proactive support so you can diffuse the situation for a better customer experience.

[gated-cta-in-post]

Best practices for implementing AI in call centers

Adding AI to your call center doesn’t have to be stressful. You can choose an AI as a service (AIaaS) company—a third-party vendor that handles the AI technology for a subscription price—or you can do it yourself. Here are the top five best practices for implementing AI in call centers.

1. Define your goals and objectives: Set attainable goals and define clear objectives that align with business needs and strategies for AI implementation in the call center. Ensure that your AI initiatives serve specific purposes, such as improving customer satisfaction, reducing costs, or enhancing agent productivity.
2. Utilize free trials: Begin with free trials of contact center AI software to understand how it fits with your current business needs and CX strategies. Testing the features and capabilities before locking in can help you choose the right AI.
3. Provide agent training and change management strategies: Offer customer service training for agents so they learn how to use the newly implemented AI tools effectively. Be sure to emphasize the important role agents play in customer service to eliminate any fear of replacement and foster acceptance of AI.
4. Ensure data privacy and security: Adhere to customer data privacy regulations and implement robust security measures to safeguard customer data handled by AI systems.
5. Evaluate and monitor AI performance: Regularly monitor AI performance and gather feedback for ongoing improvements. This allows you to refine AI models, workflows, and processes based on feedback and changing business needs for continuous enhancement.

Following these best practices enables call centers to effectively implement AI solutions, maximize their benefits, and drive improvements in customer service, operational efficiency, and overall business performance.

Call center AI trends for 2024

What’s next for AI in call centers? Glad you asked. Here are a few trends to expect in 2024.

Voice and live human interaction still play an important role

Businesses have changed how they help customers. Now, it’s all about digital methods—like chatbots, messages, and emails—instead of using old-school call centers. However, customers still want real people to talk to, especially when things get tricky.

When customers hop on a phone call, they want things sorted out fast. But sometimes, they get passed around, or agents don’t know the context of the situation, causing customers to repeat the same information. To fix this, CX leaders plan to combine phone systems with AI tools, enhancing the original communication channel with conversational AI without sacrificing experiences with live agents.

71% of organizations use digital channels primarily for first contact and voice for resolving complex customer issues or escalations.Source: Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2024

Predictive agent management tools are on the rise

CX leaders often look for new ways to predict staffing needs and accelerate training now and in the future. With AI, you get innovative tools that make this less of a guessing game. These tools can provide insight into how many people to hire and how to train them better.

AI tools can also predict how many agents to have on staff to make customer interactions smoother and faster, reducing wait times and stress. They not only help improve customer service, but they can also increase ROI from optimized staffing forecasts.

69% of CX leaders say that forecasting future labor requirements accurately remains a significant challenge.Source: Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2024

Immediacy and real-time engagement rule customer service

Customers demand more than an average customer service experience. They want fast, engaging, and personalized support, and the standard is the same whether they are receiving support over the phone or a digital channel.

Customers no longer accept call center experiences where they are put on hold or passed between different departments. They expect call center agents to have access to their previous support conversations and any other details to resolve the issue quickly and effectively.

Imagine a buyer calls customer support and asks a question about a previously purchased product. Call centers with AI and automation tools can route the customer to the right product department and surface customer profiles—including order history—to empower agents to provide faster, personalized support.

80% of consumers expect chat agents and support representatives to assist them with everything they need.Source: Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2024

Frequently asked questions

What is AI in a call center?

AI in a call center refers to implementing artificial intelligence technologies to enhance customer service operations. These technologies include AI-powered tools like chatbots, virtual assistants, speech analytics, predictive analytics, and automated call routing. They extend the capabilities of your CX teams, allowing your business to do more with less.

Will AI replace call center agents?

AI technology is meant to enhance the agent experience, not replace agents. Although artificial intelligence can create natural, conversational experiences, humans add empathy, nuanced understanding, and critical thinking to customer interactions.

Implementing AI in call centers can help businesses provide tools that make agents’ jobs easier. Software features like call transcriptions and call summarization boost productivity and efficiency, enabling teams to handle more inquiries without increasing headcount. This helps businesses keep staffing needs balanced, driving down operational costs.

Make the right call with AI

AI contact center tools make it easy for your business to handle more conversations and provide exceptional customer experiences without adding staff. With features like generative AI, AI-powered chatbots, call summaries and transcriptions, and data-driven insights, you can take your CX to a whole new level.

Zendesk boasts all those features and more. We already specialize in CX, so adding call center AI to our toolset made perfect sense. With AI for customer service, you get AI-powered knowledge management, intelligent routing and triage, and sentiment analysis—everything you need to level up your call center. Start a free trial of Zendesk today.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/employee-onboarding/ Wed, 24 Jan 2024 23:07:16 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=642707 What is an onboarding process? An employee onboarding process refers to the steps that integrate new employees into an organization. It is a comprehensive and strategic approach to introducing new hires into the company culture, helping them acclimate to their new roles and providing them with the necessary information to succeed. Dealing with high employee […]

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What is an onboarding process?

An employee onboarding process refers to the steps that integrate new employees into an organization. It is a comprehensive and strategic approach to introducing new hires into the company culture, helping them acclimate to their new roles and providing them with the necessary information to succeed.

Dealing with high employee turnover rates brings several challenges to a business. The constant flow of departing and incoming talent can dampen productivity, disrupt team dynamics, and lead to higher costs. One way to reduce employee churn is to implement an employee onboarding process that sets recruits up for success in their new roles.

Beyond being a mere administrative formality, onboarding is a strategic solution capable of reshaping the employee experience from the outset. By crafting a comprehensive onboarding journey, organizations can retain top talent and create a workplace culture that values and nurtures its members.

Learn about the benefits of effective onboarding and how it can be a catalyst for employee engagement and organizational success.

More in this guide:

• The basics of employee onboarding
• The employee onboarding process timeline
• New hire onboarding roles and responsibilities
• Common onboarding challenges and solutions
• 6 employee onboarding checklists
• Frequently asked questions
• Reduce churn with your onboarding process

The basics of employee onboarding

Employee onboarding serves as the foundational bridge between a new hire’s acceptance of a position and their successful integration into the company culture. Effective onboarding helps employees gain the necessary skills and knowledge for their roles and cultivates a sense of belonging.

A well-structured onboarding program communicates organizational values, clarifies expectations, and provides opportunities for social integration—all of which contribute to higher employee satisfaction and a deeper connection to the company. By investing in a comprehensive onboarding process, companies can create a positive first impression, set the stage for lasting employee success, and ultimately strengthen their workforce.

The employee onboarding process timeline

Tailor employee onboarding to the unique needs of your organization and role responsibilities. While the duration and specifics of onboarding processes vary from company to company, it can help break down the timeline into four distinct phases to promote better employee experiences.

Preboarding

The preboarding phase of employee onboarding often occurs between one and five days before their official start date. During this phase, your organization will lay the groundwork for a seamless transition by preparing new hires for their upcoming roles. Preboarding involves administrative tasks such as:

• Completing a W-4 form
• Setting up employee profiles
• Ensuring workspaces and equipment are ready

Additionally, the preboarding phase includes proactive communication with the incoming employee and providing them with information about the company’s expectations, such as when they start, who they should contact, and how to dress. Early engagement helps new hires feel welcomed, informed, and excited about joining the organization, setting a positive tone for their onboarding journey.

Orientation

The orientation phase of employee onboarding occurs during the first day or week that new hires formally enter the workplace. During this period, organizations provide a comprehensive introduction to the company, including its values, mission, and culture.

Share essential information regarding company policies, procedures, and compliance requirements so new hires clearly understand the work environment.

It’s also common to introduce new employees to key personnel, tour the facilities, and provide insights into the team and individual roles. The orientation phase aims to acclimate individuals to the organizational structure, instill a sense of belonging, and foster connections with colleagues. By offering a structured and informative initiation, businesses contribute to employee morale and confidence.

Training

During the training phase of employee onboarding, new hires acquire the specific skills, knowledge, and competencies necessary for their roles within the organization. Employees engage in targeted training sessions that typically last one week to two months and may encompass a range of topics, from job-specific tasks to broader organizational processes.

The goal throughout this phase is to equip new employees with the tools they need to excel in their positions, fostering a deeper understanding of performance standards. The training phase enhances the professional development of individuals. It aligns their skills with organizational objectives so they can make meaningful contributions.

New hire transition to full responsibilities

The transition phase of the employee onboarding process gradually occurs at the end of the training period after new hires have fully immersed themselves in their responsibilities. As they integrate into their roles, employees gain hands-on experience, collaborate with team members, and contribute directly to the organization’s objectives.

This phase is characterized by a shift from a more structured learning environment to active participation in daily tasks, projects, and team dynamics. Ongoing support and feedback during this period further contribute to a seamless transition, which ensures that new hires perform their duties effectively, feel fully integrated into the workplace culture, and contribute to the team’s success.

New hire onboarding roles and responsibilities

Onboarding employees is a team effort that requires employee collaboration across the organization. Some key roles that contribute to effective new hire onboarding include:

• Human resources (HR): HR professionals typically oversee the onboarding process. This includes coordinating paperwork, facilitating orientation sessions, and relaying information about benefits, compensation, and administrative details. They also act as a point of contact for new employees, addressing any initial queries and providing ongoing support.
• Managers: Managers are directly responsible for guiding new employees in their roles. This involves assigning job-specific training, clarifying expectations, and setting performance goals. Managers also help new hires navigate their responsibilities, foster a positive working relationship, and ensure employees feel supported in their professional development.
• Mentors/buddies: Mentors are seasoned employees assigned to support and guide new hires. They provide insights into company culture, offer advice on navigating workplace dynamics, and assist with day-to-day questions. Mentees can ask mentors questions new hires don’t necessarily feel comfortable asking their manager.
• Coworkers: Coworkers socialize new employees by introducing them to team dynamics and providing practical insights into daily work life. Managers may assign new hires to shadow coworkers to learn specific tasks and processes that the manager doesn’t have time to teach.

Each role brings unique perspectives and inputs, collectively ensuring that new employees receive the support and guidance needed for successful integration into the team.

Common onboarding challenges and solutions

Navigating the onboarding landscape comes with its share of hurdles, from streamlining administrative procedures to ensuring effective team assimilation. Below are some common challenges that employees encounter, plus solutions businesses can use to resolve them once and for all.

HR and IT support isn’t easy to reach

Delays in addressing queries or resolving technical issues can impede the onboarding process and frustrate employees. To tackle this challenge, organizations can implement a multichannel communication approach.

Providing your new hires with resources like Slack, Microsoft Teams, email, and chat allows them to reach HR and IT support and increases their chances of receiving timely responses.

Additionally, establishing service level agreements (SLAs) can clarify response times based on the nature of the issue, ensuring that support teams prioritize and promptly address inquiries. This solution fosters a more responsive and accessible support system during onboarding and sets a foundation for ongoing communication between employees.

Tip: Omnichannel communication software can improve internal support response times by centralizing all conversations across channels.

Inaccurate roles and responsibilities

A contributing factor to high employee turnover is when the job description doesn’t align with the actual responsibilities of the position. If applicants enter their first day expecting one thing but are tasked with miscellaneous duties, they might feel deceived and confused about where they fit in the organization.

Temper a new hire’s role expectations by having HR personnel and department managers collaborate on writing the job description. Managers can share insights that may not be common knowledge, helping HR managers screen candidates before making job offers.

Tip: Department managers should periodically review job descriptions to ensure they accurately represent the duties and responsibilities.

Internal support agents are overwhelmed

The sheer volume of details, ranging from product knowledge to support procedures, can create a steep learning curve for new support staff. Information overload can overwhelm new hires and impact the overall efficiency of IT and HR support teams. Agents may struggle to absorb critical information, leading to an influx of internal support requests.

One way to lessen the workload of internal parties involves leveraging AI and automation to streamline and optimize onboarding processes. The right HR help desk software can provide targeted information to new hires through automated training modules and chatbots that intelligently field their questions. Additionally, automation can assist the IT and HR support teams by tracking and organizing employee requests.

Tip: Employee experience journey mapping can help you identify when new hires encounter specific onboarding issues so you can proactively provide learning resources before your internal teams get overwhelmed with support requests.

Company documents are inaccessible

Businesses create an unnecessary hurdle for new employees when essential documents are scattered across various platforms or stored in different locations. This challenge can lead to delays in the onboarding process, hinder the understanding of company policies and procedures, and frustrate new hires.

You can eliminate this issue by centralizing information in an internal knowledge base integrated into the employee portal. By consolidating relevant documents, policies, and guidelines in a single, easily accessible location, you provide new employees with a user-friendly repository of essential information. It also enhances the onboarding process and increases efficiency and overall employee satisfaction.

Tip: Designate employees from different departments to manage the knowledge base and contribute content to help break down information silos in the organization.

6 employee onboarding checklists

Employee onboarding checklists help teams stay organized so a new hire’s experience is as seamless as possible. You can download our complete set of checklists and customize them to match your company’s unique onboarding processes.

• Pre-onboarding checklist
• First-day onboarding checklist
• 30-day onboarding checklist
• 60-day onboarding checklist
• Customer service onboarding checklist
• Internal support software checklist

Pre-onboarding checklist

Download the pre-onboarding checklist

A comprehensive pre-onboarding guide contributes to a smooth, organized transition for new hires. In this checklist, the HR representative is responsible for coordinating with the new employee, their manager, and the IT department to ensure everything is ready on day one.

Tip: Including status updates on the checklist can help all internal support personnel stay informed on the onboarding progress.

First-day onboarding checklist

Download the free first-day onboarding checklist

An employee’s first day can be a whirlwind of activity, and a checklist can help keep things manageable. This checklist starts by reminding the HR representative to greet the new employee at the front office and conduct a guided tour of the premises. Incorporating orientation courses or self-guided learning modules on the first day ensures that new employees gain a foundational understanding of company culture, policies, and essential procedures.

Tip: The workplace tour is a great way to introduce the new employee to other departments to foster a stronger sense of belonging.

30-day onboarding checklist

Download the free 30-day onboarding checklist

A 30-day onboarding checklist guides new employees through their initial weeks, ensuring a smooth integration into the organization. It should confirm the completion of any remaining orientation courses so new hires can stay on track and gain a solid understanding of company policies and procedures.

Conducting one-on-one check-in meetings with the new hire and their manager allows the HR representative to address any questions, provide guidance, and gauge employee engagement. Additionally, sending an onboarding survey at the end of the first month allows organizations to gather valuable feedback, enabling continuous onboarding process improvements.

Tip: Track survey results using analytics software to reduce the manual effort required to identify trends in your recruitment process and onboarding program.

60-day onboarding checklist

Download the free 60-day onboarding checklist

A well-structured 60-day onboarding checklist fosters the continued success and integration of new hires. The checklist encourages HR reps and managers to assign the new employee tasks that require minimal supervision, providing opportunities for independence and growth. At this stage, making the new hire feel like a valued team member and building camaraderie remain a priority.

Reviewing performance metrics progress at the 60-day mark also allows for constructive feedback sessions, ensuring alignment with organizational expectations and offering insights into the individual’s contributions. The 60-day checklist contributes to a successful onboarding transition and supports long-term employee engagement.

Tip: Gradually increase the complexity of tasks assigned to new hires, allowing them to build confidence and understanding throughout their first two months with the company. This progressive learning approach helps ensure employees are not overwhelmed at the outset.

Customer service onboarding checklist

Get the free customer service onboarding checklist

In contrast to 30-day and 60-day onboarding checklists that can be applied to any position, a customer service onboarding checklist provides a targeted approach to employee onboarding. These checklists outline the essential steps, tasks, and training modules that new customer service agents need to complete to become proficient and effective in their roles.

It typically includes action items like detailed training on products or services, communication and conflict resolution skills development, and an overview of customer service tools and systems.

Tip: Conduct role-playing exercises with new hires to prepare them for real-world interactions with customers.

Internal support software checklist

Get the internal support software checklist

Internal support software checklists are systematic guides that help organizations inventory their various software solutions. Regular audits help teams identify the systems they currently have, those they need, and those that need replacing. By conducting systematic audits, organizations can enhance the onboarding experience and operational efficiency by filling technological gaps in their software.

Tip: Identify the integrations of each software to understand the interconnectedness and overall practicality of your solutions.

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Frequently asked questions

What are the 5 Cs of employee onboarding?

The five Cs of employee onboarding are a framework that highlights key elements to consider when designing and implementing an effective onboarding process. While organizations may use slightly different terms, here are the most commonly recognized Cs:

• Compliance: Ensure that new employees understand and adhere to the company’s policies, procedures, and legal requirements.
• Clarification: Specify job roles and responsibilities and set clear performance goals and objectives for the new employee.
• Culture: Introduce new hires to the company’s culture, values, and mission.
• Connection: Facilitate social connections and networking opportunities with colleagues.
• Check back: Establish periodic reviews to address any concerns, provide additional training if needed, and ensure the employee is progressing.

What are the 4 phases of onboarding new employees?

You can divide the onboarding process into four main phases, each serving a specific purpose in helping new employees integrate into the organization.

• Preboarding: This is the period after a candidate accepts the job offer but before they start working. Activities include preparing the employee’s workspace, setting up access permissions, and completing paperwork.
• Orientation: Generally, this is the first day or week the new employee starts. Key activities include introducing the employee to the company culture, policies, procedures, and compliance requirements. Orientation may also entail introductions to team members, facility tours, and general training sessions.
• Training: This occurs throughout the first few weeks or months of employment, depending on the role. The focus of this phase shifts to the employee receiving job-specific training.
• Integration: After the new employee is proficient in their role, they transition into a team member with full responsibilities. Ongoing measures involve goal-setting, performance reviews, and professional development to promote the employee’s long-term success.

How can feedback improve the onboarding process?

Employee feedback helps organizations improve the onboarding process by providing insights into what works well and what doesn’t. Here are a few ways feedback can enhance the onboarding experience:

• Allows for continuous improvement: Onboarding is an ongoing process, and feedback helps organizations continuously improve their onboarding programs. Regularly collecting and analyzing feedback allows for adjustments and refinements over time.
• Establishes a feedback loop: Feedback loops encourage ongoing communication between new hires and the organization, fostering an open and collaborative culture.
• Reveals differences in onboarding needs across departments: Feedback enables organizations to customize the onboarding process for different roles or teams.

How long should employee onboarding last?

The length of employee onboarding is dependent on the complexity of the job. Onboarding is not a one-size-fits-all process, and employees within the same company can have different onboarding schedules if they work in different departments. It’s not uncommon for highly skilled positions to have an onboarding period lasting up to one year.

What is required for employee onboarding?

Employee onboarding requires careful planning and coordination so new hires can smoothly transition into the organization. Employee onboarding checklists can help HR reps and managers stay organized and ensure that every new hire receives the resources and training they need to succeed.

To fulfill this purpose, the checklists should identify the key onboarding documents HR and recently hired employee are responsible for, including:

• The employment contract
• A tax form
• A direct deposit form
• The employee handbook

Reduce churn with your onboarding process

Your employee onboarding process can shape the success and longevity of a team member’s journey within your organization. As companies seek to enhance their onboarding experiences, leveraging technology becomes imperative.

Zendesk offers comprehensive employee experience software to streamline communication, centralize information, and provide efficient internal support channels. All this to say, Zendesk helps improve the employee experience. Incorporate our software into your onboarding process to deliver a great new hire experience and improve employee retention.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/openstore-jeremy-wood/ Tue, 23 Jan 2024 22:03:23 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=642684 Jeremy Wood’s company, OpenStore, offers founders the option to sell their businesses or have OpenStore operate and run them on their behalf. This innovative approach has not only provided a lifeline for many e-commerce founders but has also positioned OpenStore as a major player in the e-commerce market. Join Wood and Adam O’Donnell as they […]

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Jeremy Wood’s company, OpenStore, offers founders the option to sell their businesses or have OpenStore operate and run them on their behalf. This innovative approach has not only provided a lifeline for many e-commerce founders but has also positioned OpenStore as a major player in the e-commerce market. Join Wood and Adam O’Donnell as they delve deeper in this episode of Sit Down Startup.





Self-belief is a muscle you can build

The journey from founding a startup to running a successful company can be notoriously rocky, and Wood’s was no exception. “It’s a continual set of low moments mixed in with high ones,” he says. “I think for the first year prior to that massive valuation, you are in this constant state of, ‘Is the world going to be as excited about this as I am? Is this as big a deal as I think it is?’”

One of the most challenging responsibilities for Wood as a founder was to share his vision and win people over. He recalls, “I was constantly having to go out and say, ‘Here is everything I believe to be true.’ That was a muscle I had to build over time. I got better, but there are definitely some low moments where I was like, ‘Oh man, how am I ever going to convince everyone else that this is as important as I think it is? I don’t think I can even properly express it.’ And then over time, I got good at expressing it.”

Wood also had to address doubts about his business’s viability from others. “We believed very strongly: Build the right engine and then start running it. That philosophy meant that OpenStore did not buy its first business for quite some time, causing people to doubt whether the company could succeed. That was kind of a deflating moment where I was like, ‘We will get there!’ And they were like, “Yeah, but you’re not there yet. Isn’t this your whole purpose?’”

Timing is everything

Hard work was crucial for OpenStore’s success, but luck also played a part. Wood’s startup began raising capital during the e-commerce boom that happened due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “The funding environment was super favorable,” Wood says.

Consumers were growing weary of giants in the market, too. “Seven months after we founded the company, Shopify surpassed Amazon in total number of monthly customers,” Wood recalls. “That was a really cool moment of people moving away from these Amazon-like experiences towards more of these narrative-driven e-commerce brands.”

Wood’s own experience has taught him the value of good timing in business. “One key question I ask people when they are fundraising, especially their first round, is: Why now? Why would you build your business now? What changed about the market that this couldn’t have been built 5 or 10 years ago? There are a lot of ideas out there and there are a lot of motivated people. You need to time the market correctly and come in with really motivated people and a strong idea.”

How AI will impact the future of e-commerce marketing

OpenStore currently manages 40 e-commerce companies. Handling multiple businesses emphasizes the need to leverage AI effectively. The use of AI has enabled Wood and his team to extract valuable insights from customer reviews. “It just helps us understand what the community likes about our products because you can’t always read every review. Synthesizing that means we can respond and improve our products.”

Wood is also excited about how AI will change e-commerce marketing. Influencers have pioneered live commerce, but soon, Wood believes that AI will dominate this form of marketing.

“Suddenly, people are able to ask questions and see a product interacted with live. … You’re seeing [the product] moving around and you’re seeing someone’s facial expressions as they interact with it. I think [AI] is also going to open the door towards really strong customization for customers that’s going to allow customized viewings of products so that they can get their questions answered about it in a reliable fashion. That’s something I am really excited for in the future.”

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/agent-scheduling/ Tue, 23 Jan 2024 21:24:51 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=642677 What is agent scheduling? Agent scheduling is the strategic process of organizing work hours for customer service agents. This involves setting weekly schedules, navigating time off and PTO requests, and ensuring the right number of agents work at the right time for optimal organizational efficiency. Agent scheduling isn’t as simple as inputting employee names on […]

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What is agent scheduling?

Agent scheduling is the strategic process of organizing work hours for customer service agents. This involves setting weekly schedules, navigating time off and PTO requests, and ensuring the right number of agents work at the right time for optimal organizational efficiency.

Agent scheduling isn’t as simple as inputting employee names on a spreadsheet. When creating schedules, workforce managers must plan for future call volume, assign agents to the right roles, and factor in breaks and time-off requests. And they must do all this while meeting customer demand and keeping labor costs low.

This guide details agent scheduling, including best practices, benefits, and key components. Read on to add this skill to your workforce management (WFM) arsenal.

More in this guide:

• Benefits of effective agent scheduling
• Key components of agent scheduling
• 7 agent scheduling best practices
• Frequently asked questions
• Optimize agent scheduling with Zendesk and Tymeshift

Benefits of effective agent scheduling

Businesses that schedule agents effectively are more efficient than those that don’t. Here are the top benefits of effective agent scheduling.

Enhanced employee experience

Employee experience (EX) is how companies treat their employees and how those individuals feel about their job, work environment, and employer. Improving EX is an important step in developing a productive and engaged workforce, and one way to do that is with proper agent scheduling.

Businesses can use effective scheduling processes to provide agents with a predictable outlook of their schedule that’s mindful of hours, days off, and general work-life balance. Furthermore, thoughtful scheduling considers individual preferences and skills, ensuring that employees align with the hours and roles that make the most sense for them.

Improved customer experience

Customer experience (CX) refers to every interaction a consumer has with a business—whether that’s making a call to customer service or observing an ad on social media. CX is crucial because every exchange between an organization and a consumer has the power to build or damage the relationship, and a major touchpoint in the business-consumer relationship is customer support.

Consumers expect timely and efficient customer service. Businesses can achieve this by staffing the right number of agents at the right place and time. A carefully constructed schedule ensures that a knowledgeable agent is always available to greet customers and answer technical questions.

Increased operational efficiency

While certain hours and days of the week are busier than others for contact centers, companies can optimize schedules to anticipate support needs and increase operational efficiency.

Effective scheduling can limit periods of overstaffing or understaffing by accurately predicting demand. This can result in:

• Saved labor costs
• Improved resource utilization
• Reduced idle time for both agents and consumers

Better long-term scalability

While effective scheduling is useful for short-term fluctuations in customer activity, it can also give businesses greater scalability for long-term planning. Scaling customer support is how organizations adapt their customer service operations to meet customer needs, and knowing how to schedule properly is integral to accommodating rising demand.

Successful businesses grow, and agent scheduling can be the foundation that supports your company through these demand increases. And doing it well can prepare your team for the months—and years—ahead.

Key components of agent scheduling

Agent scheduling can be a complicated process that balances multiple moving parts. These are the key components to be aware of.

Staff forecasting

Businesses need the right number of employees working at the right time. Too many agents on shift can result in an unnecessary hit to your labor budget, while too few can cause a dip in the customer experience.

Managers can use staff forecasting to analyze historical data and seasonal trends to make educated predictions on future demand for more effective schedules. Organizations can also develop workforce planning templates to aid in their forecasting efforts.

Shift planning

When analyzing and planning future schedules, staff forecasting is only half the battle. Workforce managers must also utilize shift planning to configure schedules around employee preferences and skill levels.

It wouldn’t make sense for a new support agent to be scheduled in a lead role, just as assigning an experienced agent to a novice role would be ineffective. Managers need to factor this in when planning, as well as managing employee breaks, lunches, and time-off requests. Proper shift planning accounts for these situations and more.

Real-time team monitoring

Managers know that workdays can be hectic. You can have the most comprehensive schedule that accounts for every minute detail, but something completely unexpected can shift the course of the workday. Because of this, workforce managers need to be adaptable and change course when necessary.

Real-time team monitoring allows managers to track agent activities to get a sense of performance metrics, utilization rate, and potential issues like unplanned increases in call volume. This enables organizations to make swift adjustments when days don’t go as planned.

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7 agent scheduling best practices

While we’ve covered the primary pieces of agent scheduling, blending everything together to create a functional work schedule is easier said than done. Below, we detail seven best practices you should follow when executing your schedule.

1. Utilize workforce management software

Far too many businesses engage in workforce management techniques of days gone by—manually entering figures in a spreadsheet and creating schedules by hand. While this used to be the only way of doing things, today’s organizations can implement workforce management software to streamline their operations.

WFM software uses AI and automation to simplify every aspect of agent scheduling. This technology can automatically create staffing forecasts, independently build optimized employee schedules, and simplify real-time team management. Organizations that utilize WFM software can also create more accurate schedules in less time.

2. Talk to agents to determine preferences

Managers can create schedules that resonate with employees by having an open dialogue about their preferences. Discussing preferred working hours, aspirations, constraints, and more can improve agent productivity and ensure workers are scheduled in the best shifts and roles for them to succeed. Employees perform effectively when working in the hours and roles that suit them best.

3. Understand customer demand

We’ve touched on anticipating customer demand, but organizations must have a solid understanding of what that means for their business. Look at historical data, seasonal trends, and any other relevant metrics to understand how your customers behave. Businesses need a solid grasp of demand levels to have adequate staffing and provide a positive CX.

4. Leave room for flexibility

There can always be situations or events that throw the workday into a state of pandemonium. Luckily, you can structure your schedule to accommodate a little bit of uncertainty and flexibility.

For example, employees may call out sick or customer demand may unexpectedly rise. Having room to adapt to the situation at hand might entail having a pool of on-call employees or developing contingency plans. Also, you should account for employee time-off requests. Your schedule shouldn’t be so tight that you need all hands on deck at all hours of the day.

5. Monitor key performance indicators

It’s not enough to create optimized schedules—you need to ensure they’re working as intended. Take a look at customer service key performance indicators (KPIs) like first reply time, resolution time, occupancy, and more to monitor agent performance.

Regularly tracking KPIs gives organizations insight into how their scheduling is working. For example, if your agent’s first reply time figures are slipping, you may want to look at how much and how often reps are working, as burnout could be a source of subpar performance.

6. Evenly disperse tenured agents and new hires

Where you schedule your agents is just as important as how you schedule them. When you’re creating your schedule, make sure you’re evenly dispersing tenured agents and new hires. That way, there are no knowledge gaps, and someone is always on hand to address different customer needs. This results in smoother workflows, promotes mentorship and collaborative opportunities, and facilitates skill and expertise sharing.

7. Regularly review and adjust

As a final step in the scheduling process, you should regularly review and adjust your methods. Consistently monitor your KPIs and customer feedback and compare this information to industry trends. Constantly examining and refining your strategy ensures that your scheduling is effective and your KPIs align with previously defined goals.

Frequently asked questions

What is the role of a scheduler?

In workforce management, a scheduler coordinates business schedules to ensure adequate staffing. This person confirms that schedules accommodate customer demand while accounting for agent skills and availability.

What is the purpose of scheduling?

Businesses use scheduling to make sure they have a suitable number of employees working at a time. Effective scheduling results in an improved customer experience, an enhanced employee experience, lower labor costs, and more.

How do you schedule a call center agent?

Schedule a call center agent by utilizing call center workforce management strategies to predict demand accurately. You can also implement scheduling software to guarantee intraday employee coverage, consistent service levels, and employee schedule adherence.

Optimize agent scheduling with Zendesk and Tymeshift

Workforce managers need to blend demand forecasting, staff forecasting, real-time team management, and more to create effective agent schedules. Without the right partner, however, this can be a monumental task.

Zendesk is proud to announce our acquisition of Tymeshift—a workforce management solution that can bring AI, automation, and increased efficiency to your agent scheduling and monitoring.

Start a free trial of Tymeshift today and enhance your agent scheduling.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/zendesk-agents-of-change/ Thu, 18 Jan 2024 22:12:58 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=642527 The Zendesk Agents of Change program partners with nonprofit organizations that offer workforce development training and upskilling services to historically marginalized or underrepresented adult communities. Agents of Change was launched in 2021 by the Zendesk Tech for Good team. The program provides grant funding, free Zendesk software, and free certification exams to nonprofit organizations so […]

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The Zendesk Agents of Change program partners with nonprofit organizations that offer workforce development training and upskilling services to historically marginalized or underrepresented adult communities.

Agents of Change was launched in 2021 by the Zendesk Tech for Good team. The program provides grant funding, free Zendesk software, and free certification exams to nonprofit organizations so they can provide skills-based learning to students from underserved communities.

Since its inception, the program has certified nearly 200 agents through six programs spanning five continents, including launching the first admin-level course with Instituto da Oportunidade Social (IOS) in Brazil.

Empowered lives, brighter future

According to the Harvard Business School report, Dismissed by Degrees, college degrees are increasingly becoming an essential requirement for middle-skill jobs. OneTen reports that nearly two-thirds of Americans who do not have four-year college degrees are losing access to middle-skills roles that are drivers of economic mobility, creating an opportunity gap for skilled workers. This untapped talent pool—upwards of 70M+ Americans—is widely diverse and includes veterans, caregivers, rural workers, and workers in roles vulnerable to automation.

Offering upskilling opportunities to this pool of potential workers is an opportunity for tech companies, including Zendesk. Upskilling programs provide more people with pathways to family-sustaining careers, helping to close the economic opportunity gap. It also provides employers with a larger, more diverse talent pool.

The Zendesk Agents of Change program is on a mission to break down these barriers and encourage employers to adopt a skills-first strategy for hiring. It’s empowering job seekers with upskilling opportunities to enhance their access to higher-paying jobs within the technology industry and specifically with Zendesk customers. Alana Ramo, director of the Agents of Change program, explains why this work is so vital:

“Zendesk helps nonprofit organizations train students with backgrounds in traditional customer service so they can enter into new careers with tech-enabled companies and access more opportunities. This program is a win for our customers who need skilled voices on their advocacy and support teams to respond to the diverse needs of their client base.”

The Agents of Change program works hand in hand with nonprofit training partners—including KindWork, NPower, and StreetCode Academy in the US and IOS and Skills2Work in the Asia-Pacific region—to help underrepresented communities enter the workforce with technology and digital training. The program includes customer service training, free Zendesk Suite donations, free curriculum materials, and access to Zendesk subject matter experts. It also offers employee engagement opportunities.

Key milestones in the Tech for Good Career Pathways program

• Nearly 200 students graduated since 22’
• 137 agents certified since 22’
• Nearly $3.5M in total wages earned for graduates to date

Partner organizations use Zendesk to provide a real-world test environment for their students to engage in hands-on learning using demo support tickets and interactions. The comprehensive customer service training program has enabled students from underserved communities to significantly boost their self-sufficiency, skill set, and profile on the job market while providing alternative routes to family-sustaining income.

Jeanine Mendez, the co-founder of KindWork, explains why the program is so powerful and life-changing for its students:

“We teach our students the Zendesk platform because if you look at all the customer support jobs in NYC, at least 50 percent to 75 percent will say ‘Zendesk skills preferred.’ If you know how to use Zendesk and can put that on a resume, it will propel you pretty far. We consciously built our program to prepare students to become Zendesk masters.”

A winning partnership: Zendesk and NPower Community Helpdesk

NPower is a US-based nonprofit organization that strives to create pathways to economic prosperity by launching digital careers for military veterans and young adults from underserved communities.

The NPower Community Helpdesk enables its apprentices to gain on-the-job experience as first-time tech support professionals by delivering quality customer service, communications, references, and a plethora of other resources. With Zendesk, they also gain key insights into the technology needs of the community thanks to robust reporting capabilities.

Matt Velez, the executive director of the National Instructors Institute at NPower, describes how Zendesk has supported the organization:

“Zendesk has been a critical partner in supporting the day-to-day operations of our national Community Helpdesks in Baltimore, Maryland, St. Louis, Missouri, and Dallas. Through the Zendesk platform, NPower can effectively capture and respond to the many tech support requests made by local community residents who rely on our help desk services for digital support.”

Access to Zendesk certification tracks has also been a major resource for apprentices to earn in-demand certifications to help support their career growth and marketability as tech professionals.

NPower has expanded its presence across the United States and is now able to support a wider community of apprentices with on-the-job experience and certification tracks to launch their digital careers in key markets.

“Zendesk makes it easy for our partner organizations to grow and scale,” says Sam Kind, senior manager of Agents of Change. “The flexibility of the platform and the easy learning environment help our partners train more students and grow to new cities. For example, NPower is taking their Zendesk Baltimore training program to two new cities this year: St. Louis and Dallas.”

NPower recruits two apprentices in each of its markets for a 12-week apprenticeship opportunity every quarter. Velez shares the success story of Mikenzhie Smith, who joined the apprenticeship program in the spring of 2023. Mikenzhie has since earned her Zendesk CX Omnichannel Agent certification and was hired full-time by NPower as the Community Help Desk coordinator in Baltimore, where she now trains and mentors incoming apprentices on daily operations, customer support, and partnership engagement.

“With Mikenzhie being a prime example of the life-changing work we are doing through the National Community Help Desks, we can envision our help desk operations being entirely managed and supported by NPower alumni across the country. Our partnership with Zendesk can surely make this possible,” says Velez.



Vision for the future

The Zendesk Agents of Change program is currently working its magic across the world in alliance with nonprofit partners such as Skills2Work and Passerelles Numériques in Asia-Pacific; Instituto Da Oportunidade Social, Laboratoria, Somas Projetos Sociais, and Fundación Compromiso in Latin America; Jobcare and the African Refugee Development Center (ARDC) in Europe; and Nairobits and WAVE in Africa.

The program has ambitious goals for the future. By 2024, the Agents of Change program aims to have 300 agents certified, get 80 percent of those certified graduates hired within 12 months of their training, and garner $10 million in total wages for those graduates. For the program, the journey to change lives has only just begun.

Learn more about our Tech for Good Agents of Change program and sign up now to hire our recent graduates.

Zendesk Agents of Change Global Partners

• KindWork: New York City
• Jobcare: Dublin, Ireland
• The Asia Foundation Skills to Work: San Francisco, CA and Washington, DC. Serves the Philippines, Malaysia, and India.
• Nairobits: Nairobi, Kenya
• NPower: Headquartered in New York City, with multiple locations across the US
• Somas Projetos Sociais: Sao Paulo, Brazil
• Instituto da Oportunidade Social (IOS): Sao Paulo, with locations across Brazil
• African Refugee Development Center (ARDC): Israel-based program serving African refugees predominantly Ethiopian diaspora in Israel: The program is paused due to the conflict
• Fundación Compromiso: Buenos Aires, Argentina. Serves multiple countries in Latin America.
• Laboratoria: New York City. Serves multiple countries in Latin America.
• Passerelles Numériques (PN): Paris, France. Serves Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, and Madagascar.
• StreetCode Academy: Online-based and serves all of the US.
• West Africa Vocational Education (WAVE): Lagos, Nigeria. Serves all of West Africa.

The post Zendesk Agents of Change program: Empowering communities with CX agent training appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/customer-data-privacy/ Thu, 18 Jan 2024 17:42:15 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=642242 What is consumer data privacy? Consumer data privacy, also known as customer data privacy, is the practice of protecting sensitive customer data your business receives. This may include contact information, usernames and passwords, and payment information. Customer data without privacy protection is like money stashed in a cardboard box. Sure, someone might not find it […]

The post Customer data privacy: A CX guide for 2024 appeared first on Zendesk.

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What is consumer data privacy?

Consumer data privacy, also known as customer data privacy, is the practice of protecting sensitive customer data your business receives. This may include contact information, usernames and passwords, and payment information.

Customer data without privacy protection is like money stashed in a cardboard box. Sure, someone might not find it immediately, but if they do, nothing is preventing them from stealing it. So when it comes to managing customer data, prioritizing customer data privacy is mandatory. Plus, proper data management can turn that cardboard box into a steel bank vault, helping ward off anyone looking to exploit your data.

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll break down the importance of customer data privacy, common privacy concerns, best practices, and key privacy standards and regulations, all backed up with facts and figures from the Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2024.

More in this guide:

• Why is customer data privacy important?
• 6 consumer data privacy concerns
• 12 best practices for protecting customer data
• Key consumer data privacy standards and regulations to know
• Frequently asked questions
• Secure customer data with Zendesk

Why is customer data privacy important?

Customer data privacy is important because it helps protect your customers’ personal information. When businesses don’t prioritize customer data privacy, there’s a risk of exposing private information to people or entities consumers had no intention of sharing their data with.

Many customer experience (CX) leaders prioritize strong customer data privacy to provide a secure, positive CX and build customer trust. If your customers can’t trust your business to properly handle their personal information, it is unlikely that they’ll trust you for anything else.

Plus, customer data privacy is often a legal requirement. If you fail to comply with relevant privacy laws, based on your industry and the location of your business and customers, you may be subject to fines.

83% of CX leaders say data protection and cybersecurity are top priorities in their customer service strategies.Source: Zendesk CX Trends Report 2024.

How does consumer data privacy impact your business?

Customer data privacy impacts your business because it directly affects your customer relationships. If your business doesn’t safely handle consumer data, you could leave your customers vulnerable to threats that could negatively impact their lives. As a result, your customers may lose trust in your business and take their business elsewhere.

And if your business gains a reputation for not properly protecting customer privacy, potential customers may be less willing to work with you. On the other hand, if your business prioritizes the safety and privacy of customer data, your customers may trust your business more and choose you over your competitors.

6 consumer data privacy concerns

Failure to safeguard customer data can compromise your customers’ privacy. From identity theft to software vulnerabilities, here are six data privacy concerns your organization should know about.

Identity theft

If consumer data isn’t kept private, your customers could be at risk of identity theft. Generally speaking, identity theft is when someone uses another person’s information without their consent or knowledge.

For example, an identity thief may use personal information to apply for government benefits, sign up for credit cards, or take out loans in the victim’s name. Identity theft can have devastating consequences, from negatively impacting credit scores to financial loss.

Financial fraud

Like identity theft, financial fraud involves exploiting a person’s identity, specifically for financial gain. If a fraudster finds the right customer data, they can commit financial fraud in different ways.

For example, a thief may use stolen login credentials to gain unauthorized access to someone’s online bank account. Or, they can use stolen credit card information to make purchases online.

Data breaches

Data breaches are security incidents in which individuals gain unauthorized access to private or confidential information, like customer data. If a business is targeted in a cyberattack and doesn’t have the proper protection, its consumer data could become exposed. This can open the door to identity theft, financial fraud, and other privacy threats.

Hackers and cyberattacks

Hackers and cyberattacks are also threats to customer data privacy. One common example of a cyberattack is phishing. Phishing attacks are when hackers send emails impersonating trusted sources to trick people into giving up private information. If a phishing scam targets someone at your company, it could put the privacy of your company’s customer data at risk.

Another example is malware attacks. Malware is malicious software designed to gain unauthorized access or damage a computer system. Hackers may expose systems to malware by attaching it to a phishing email or linking to it on a malicious website designed to impersonate a trustworthy website. A successful malware attack could compromise the security of customer data.

Software vulnerabilities

Whether it’s the software you use to message your coworkers or the customer relationship management (CRM) tool you use to keep track of leads, hackers may look to take advantage of software vulnerabilities to gain unauthorized access to consumer data.

Because of this, you’ll want to ensure you only use software with trusted security measures and privacy standards. Additionally, keeping your software up to date can help reduce the risk of vulnerabilities, as software updates usually address these issues.

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12 best practices for protecting customer data

While breaches in consumer privacy can negatively impact your business and CX, your organization can take action to help keep your customers safe. Follow these best practices to prioritize the security and privacy of important customer data.

1. Educate employees on data privacy

As the saying goes, “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.” This also applies to your organization’s cybersecurity. If your company handles customer data, you’ll want to educate every employee on data privacy best practices.

This can ensure that every one of your employees behaves in a way that prioritizes the privacy and security of your customer data. For example, all employees should use strong passwords and avoid clicking on suspicious links. If your employees don’t understand data privacy best practices, they could accidentally put your customer data at risk without even knowing it.

Only 28% of CX leaders report that their teams have advanced knowledge about data privacy best practices.Zendesk CX Trends Report 2024

2. Collect only the necessary data

Gathering only the consumer data that is essential to your business operations is a great way to help protect customer information. For example, if your business has no need for a customer’s date of birth, then you shouldn’t ask them to provide it. This practice can help build trust with your customers and reduce the amount of information that could be exposed in a breach or cyberattack.

Additionally, if your business doesn’t collect a lot of customer information, it could be a less appealing target for cybercriminals.

3. Encrypt sensitive consumer data

Simply put, encryption is the process of converting plain text into a secret code that helps prevent unauthorized users from accessing it. Unencrypted data is easier to exploit if intercepted, making it a prime target for hackers.

Encrypting all consumer data from the moment you receive it can help you reduce the risk of exposure. For example, Zendesk Advanced Encryption ensures that external parties cannot read stored customer data in plain text.

78% of CX leaders agree that ignoring encryption in customer service exchanges leaves customer data vulnerable.Zendesk CX Trends Report 2024

4. Implement a transparent data privacy policy

Before collecting customer data, create a transparent data privacy policy and share it with all relevant stakeholders. This policy should clearly state the do’s and don’ts of how your business handles and uses consumer data if given consent.

You should also publish a privacy policy on your website that details how your company collects, uses, and stores customer data. With this level of customer transparency, nothing should be left open to interpretation and customers can easily learn how your business uses their information. For example, our Zendesk Privacy Policy clearly states how we handle personal data, including emails and purchase history.

5. Audit your data regularly

Regularly performing data audits can help your business answer the following customer data questions:

• What data are you collecting?
• Where are you storing the data?
• How are you using the data?

If you don’t know the answers to these questions, then you can’t determine if you’re following the proper steps to protect consumer data.

Regular data audits can also help you identify customer information that you don’t need to collect. That way, you can adjust your practices to gather only the most necessary data for business operations.

6. Avoid data silos

Data silos occur when data is stored in different places and unable to be accessed by everyone who needs it. When businesses silo customer data, it’s easier for information to get misplaced, misused, or exposed.

You can avoid silos by keeping all types of consumer data in a single place, such as a cloud storage system with trusted security measures.

7. Protect against cyberattacks

Because cyberattacks can expose customer data, your organization must follow proper cybersecurity best practices to help reduce the risk. For example, implementing cybersecurity protection like antivirus software can help detect security risks and remove malware cybercriminals may use in an attack.

88% of IT leaders plan to increase the budget on cybersecurity over the next 12 months.
Zendesk 2023 data security report

8. Keep your software up to date

From your operating system to customer service software, always apply updates issued by the software company. Software updates often include security patches that can help fix any bugs or vulnerabilities bad actors may try to exploit.

9. Use multifactor authentication

Multifactor authentication (MFA) is an authentication method that requires users to provide more than one type of verification factor when logging in to a website or app. Examples of an MFA verification factor include:

• Passwords
• Verification codes (often sent via email or text message)
• Security questions
• Fingerprint ID

Using MFA reduces the risk of bad actors gaining unauthorized access to your consumer data, even if they figure out somebody’s password.

10. Limit access to sensitive consumer data

In most cases, not every employee at your company needs access to all the data your business collects and stores. To ensure consumer data is only accessible to those who need it, consider implementing the principle of least privilege (PoLP).

PoLP is a security practice where users have access to the minimum amount of data needed to do their job. This can help reduce points of vulnerability within your organization. For example, if 10 employees have access to your customer analytics but only three really need this information, you’re creating seven unnecessary potential entry points a hacker could attempt to exploit.

11. Roll out a comprehensive data protection plan

To maximize the security and privacy of your customer data, you need to roll out a comprehensive data security plan across your organization, including protections like:

• Cybersecurity software (antivirus, antimalware, antispyware, etc.)
• Password managers
• Organization-wide cybersecurity education
• Pop-up blockers
• Next-generation firewalls
• Multifactor authentication
• Mandatory software updates
• Endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools
• Data encryption
• Spam and phishing filters

By taking a holistic approach to protect consumer data, you can reduce the risk of it being exploited in a cyberattack or other privacy threats.

12. Review compliance with data protection laws

Depending on the location of your business and your customers, you’ll likely need to follow data protection laws and regulations. These laws protect consumers, and following them can help ensure your organization is on the right track to use and store customer data safely.

Before collecting customer data, do your research to determine which laws apply to your business. In some regions, you may need to give customers specific data rights, such as opting out of data collection or requesting data access. Because managing these privacy requests can be time-consuming, you might consider using a CX tool with privacy workflow automation features to streamline the process.

Key consumer data privacy standards and regulations to know

Consumer data privacy standards and regulations vary around the world and even differ state by state in the U.S. Here are some common data privacy laws your business should be aware of when dealing with customer data.

GDPR

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a privacy and security law that protects people’s data within the European Union (EU). The law applies to all companies within the EU and any company that targets or collects data involving people in the EU.

Simply put, GDPR compliance helps ensure lawful, transparent, and fair data processing practices. One of the most notable aspects of the GDPR is that it requires consumers to provide “freely given, specific, informed, and unambiguous” consent before their data is collected. The GDPR also gives consumers specific privacy rights, including the right to object data collection.

Those who fail to comply with the GDPR will be subject to harsh fines, with some up to 4 percent of a company’s global revenue. Additionally, those who had their data misused also have the right to seek compensation for damages.

U.S. data privacy laws

Unlike the EU, there is currently no unified data privacy standard at the federal level in the U.S. Instead, there is a collection of laws at both the federal and state levels that are related to customer data privacy and security, including:

• The Privacy Act of 1974: This federal law governs the collection and use of personal information, including names and Social Security numbers used in government records.
• Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA): COPPA is a federal law that protects the data privacy of children under 13 years of age.
• Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (Financial Modernization Act of 1999): This federal law ensures financial institutions explain their data collection practices and safeguard sensitive financial information.
• California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA): The CCPA is a law that regulates the data collection of consumers located in California. The law gives consumers certain rights, including the right to opt out of the selling and sharing of their personal information.
• Consumer Data Protection Act (CDPA): The CDPA is a law that protects the data privacy of Virginia state residents. Like the CCPA, CDPA gives consumers certain rights, including the right to have their data deleted.
• Colorado Privacy Act (CPA): The CPA protects the personal information of Colorado residents and gives consumers multiple privacy protections, including the right to know when their data is collected and the option to opt out of the sale of their personal information.

When doing business in the U.S., you must ensure you comply with all privacy laws, both where you and your customers are located.

Industry-specific privacy standards

Similar to how privacy standards can vary depending on your location, your organization may be subject to industry-specific privacy standards, such as:

• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA): HIPAA is a federal law that protects the privacy of patients’ sensitive health information. Under HIPAA, health information cannot be disclosed without patient consent.
• Health Data Hosting (HDS): Like HIPAA, HDS is a privacy standard that protects patients’ health data in France.
• Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS): PCI DSS is a global security standard that helps protect the data of consumers using payment cards like debit and credit cards. Simply put, if your business accepts payment via cards, you must ensure your business is PCI DSS compliant.
• Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA): FERPA is a federal law that safeguards the personal information of student education records for any school funded by the U.S. Department of Education.

Determine what industry-specific privacy stands may apply to your business to ensure your customer data is protected.

Frequently asked questions

How do you keep customer data private?

Generally speaking, you can help keep customer data private by prioritizing cybersecurity best practices and using trusted tools that are compliant with all applicable data privacy standards and regulations.

Does GDPR apply to personal data?

Yes, GDPR applies to the personal data of consumers in the EU. Failure to follow GDPR can result in hefty fines.

Secure customer data with Zendesk

To protect your customers and build trust, use tools that offer a secure CX. Without the proper tools or protections, your customers may not trust your business with their personal information.

With trusted customer experience software like Zendesk, you can secure your customer data with bring your own key (BYOK) encryption. Additionally, Zendesk complies with industry-accepted data privacy frameworks and includes customer data privacy protection features like custom data retention policies, ensuring you only keep the data you need.

The post Customer data privacy: A CX guide for 2024 appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/ai-transparency/ Thu, 18 Jan 2024 17:34:33 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=642224 What is AI transparency? AI transparency means understanding how artificial intelligence systems make decisions, why they produce specific results, and what data they’re using. Simply put, AI transparency is like providing a window into the inner workings of AI, helping people understand and trust how these systems work. We use artificial intelligence (AI) more than […]

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What is AI transparency?

AI transparency means understanding how artificial intelligence systems make decisions, why they produce specific results, and what data they’re using. Simply put, AI transparency is like providing a window into the inner workings of AI, helping people understand and trust how these systems work.

We use artificial intelligence (AI) more than we think—some of us speak with Siri or Alexa every day. As we continue to learn more about the impact of AI, businesses must keep transparency in AI top of mind, especially when it comes to the customer experience (CX).

Taking facts and figures from our Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2024, our beginner’s guide to transparent AI includes the significance of AI transparency and its requirements, regulations, benefits, challenges, best practices, and more.

More in this guide:

• Why is AI transparency important?
• AI transparency requirements
• Levels of AI transparency
• Regulations and standards of transparency in AI
• The benefits of AI transparency
• Challenges of transparency in AI (and ways to address them)
• AI transparency best practices
• Examples of companies practicing transparent AI
• Frequently asked questions
• What’s next for AI transparency?

Why is AI transparency important?

In the most simplified terms, transparency in AI is important because it provides a clear explanation for why things happen with AI. It helps us understand the reasons behind AI’s decisions and actions so we can ensure they’re fair and reliable. According to our CX Trends Report, 65 percent of CX leaders see AI as a strategic necessity, making AI transparency a crucial element to consider.

Being transparent about the data that drives AI models and their decisions will be a defining element in building and maintaining trust with customers.Zendesk CX Trends Report 2024

AI transparency involves understanding its ethical, legal, and societal implications and how transparency fosters trust with users and stakeholders. According to our CX Trends Report, 75 percent of businesses believe that a lack of transparency could lead to increased customer churn in the future. Because AI as a service (AIaaS) providers make AI technology more accessible to businesses, ensuring AI transparency is more important than ever.

The ethical implications of AI means making sure AI behaves fairly and responsibly. Biases in AI models can unintentionally discriminate against certain demographics. For example, using AI in the workplace can help with the hiring process, but it may inadvertently favor certain groups over others based on irrelevant factors like gender or race. Transparent AI helps reduce biases to sustain fair results in business use cases.

The legal Implications of AI involve ensuring that AI systems follow the rules and laws set by governments. For instance, if an AI-powered software collects personal information without proper consent, it can violate privacy laws. Creating laws that emphasize transparency in AI can ensure compliance with legal requirements.

The societal implications of AI entail understanding how AI affects the daily lives of individuals and society as a whole. For example, using AI in healthcare can help doctors make accurate diagnoses faster or suggest personalized treatments. However, it can raise questions about equitable access based on the technology’s affordability.

AI transparency requirements

There are three key requirements for transparent AI: explainability, interpretability, and accountability. Let’s look at what these requirements are and how they pertain to training data, algorithms, and decision-making in AI.

Explainability

Explainable AI (XAI) refers to the ability of an AI system to provide easy-to-understand explanations for its decisions and actions. For example, if a customer asks a chatbot for product recommendations, an explainable AI system could provide details such as:

• “We think you’d like this product based on your purchase history and preferences.”
• “We’re recommending this product based on your positive reviews for similar items.”

Offering clear explanations gives the customer an understanding of the AI’s decision-making process. This builds customer trust because consumers understand what’s behind the AI’s responses. This concept can also be referred to as responsible AI, trustworthy AI, or glass box systems.

On the flip side, there are black box systems. These AI models are complex and provide results without clearly explaining how they achieved them. This lack of transparency makes it difficult or impossible for users to understand the AI’s decision-making processes, leading to a lack of trust in the information provided.

Interpretability

Interpretability in AI focuses on human understanding of how an AI model operates and behaves. While XAI focuses on providing clear explanations about the results, interpretability focuses on internal processes (like the relationships between inputs and outputs) to understand the system’s predictions or decisions.

Let’s use the same scenario from above where a customer asks a chatbot for product suggestions. An interpretable AI system could explain that it uses a decision tree model to decide on a recommendation.

Accountability

Accountability in AI means ensuring AI systems are held responsible for their actions and decisions. With machine learning (ML), AI should learn from its mistakes and improve over time, while businesses should take suitable corrective actions to prevent similar errors in the future.

Say an AI chatbot mistakenly recommends an item that’s out of stock. The customer attempts to purchase the product because they believe it’s available, but they are later informed that the item is temporarily out of stock, leading to frustration. The company apologizes and implements human oversight to review and validate critical product-related information before bots can communicate it to customers.

This example of accountability in AI for customer service shows how the company took responsibility for the error, outlined steps to correct it, and implemented preventative measures. Businesses should also perform regular audits of AI systems to identify and eliminate biases, ensure fair and nondiscriminatory outcomes, and foster transparency in AI.

Levels of AI transparency

There are three levels of AI transparency, starting from within the AI system, then moving to the user, and finishing with a global impact. The levels are as follows:

• Algorithmic transparency
• Interaction transparency
• Social transparency

Algorithmic transparency focuses on explaining the logic, processes, and algorithms used by AI systems. It provides insights into the types of AI algorithms, like machine learning models, decision trees (flowchart-like models), neural networks (computational models), and more. It also details how systems process data, how they reach decisions, and any factors that influence those decisions. This level of transparency makes the internal workings of AI models more understandable to users and stakeholders.

Interaction transparency deals with the communication and interactions between users and AI systems. It involves making exchanges more transparent and understandable. Businesses can achieve this by creating interfaces that communicate how the AI system operates and what users can expect from their interactions.

Social transparency extends beyond the technical aspects and focuses on the broader impact of AI systems on society as a whole. This level of transparency addresses the ethical and societal implications of AI deployment, including potential biases, fairness, and privacy concerns.

Regulations and standards of transparency in AI

Because artificial intelligence is a newer technology, the regulations and standards of transparency in AI have been rapidly evolving to address ethical, legal, and societal concerns. Here are a few key regulations and standards to help govern artificial intelligence:

• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR): established by the European Union (EU) and includes provisions surrounding data protection, privacy, consent, and transparency
• Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) AI Principles: a set of value-based principles that promotes the trustworthy, transparent, explainable, accountable, and secure use of AI
• U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) AI accountability framework: a framework that outlines responsibilities and liabilities in AI systems, ensuring accountability and transparency for AI-generated results
• EU Artificial Intelligence Act: an act proposed by the European Commission that aims to regulate the development of AI systems in the EU

These regulations can standardize the use and development of AI, locally and globally. AI systems can be consistently more clear and trustworthy by emphasizing transparency, ethical considerations, and accountability.

The benefits of AI transparency

Transparent AI offers many benefits for businesses across ethical, operational, and societal realms. Here are a few advantages of transparency in AI:

• Builds trust with users, customers, and stakeholders: Users, customers, and stakeholders are more likely to engage with AI technologies or businesses that utilize an AI help desk when they understand how these systems function and trust that they operate fairly and ethically.
• Promotes accountability and responsible use of AI: Clear documentation and explanations of AI processes make the responsible use of AI easier and hold businesses accountable in case of errors or biases.
• Detects and mitigates data biases and discrimination: Visibility into the data sources and algorithms allows developers and data scientists to identify biases and discriminatory patterns. This allows businesses to take proactive steps to eliminate biases and ensure fair, equitable outcomes.
• Improves AI performance: Developers who clearly understand how models operate can fine-tune algorithms and processes more effectively. Feedback collected from users and insights from performance data allow for continuous improvements to enhance the accuracy and efficiency of AI systems over time, especially with AI for the employee experience.
• Addresses ethical issues and concerns: Transparency in AI enables stakeholders to evaluate the ethical implications of AI-powered decisions and actions and ensure that AI systems operate within ethical guidelines.

Embracing transparency in AI not only enhances the reliability of AI systems but also contributes to responsible and ethical usage.

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Challenges of transparency in AI (and ways to address them)

Along with the many benefits of AI transparency come a few challenges. These challenges, however, can be managed and minimized effectively.

Keeping data secure

Ensuring customer data privacy while maintaining transparency can be a balancing act. Transparency may require sharing details about the data used in AI software, raising concerns about data privacy. According to our CX Trends Report, 83 percent of CX leaders say data protection and cybersecurity are top priorities in their customer service strategies.

How to handle this challenge:
Appoint at least one person on the team whose primary responsibility is data protection. Brandon Tidd, the lead Zendesk architect at 729 Solutions, says that “CX leaders must critically think about their entry and exit points and actively workshop scenarios wherein a bad actor may attempt to compromise your systems.”

Explaining complex AI models

Some AI models, especially those utilizing deep learning or neural networks, can be challenging to explain in simple terms. This makes it difficult for users to grasp complex AI models’ decision-making and intelligent automation processes.

How to handle this challenge:
Develop visuals or simplified diagrams to illustrate how complex AI models function. Choose an AI-powered software with a user-friendly interface that provides easy-to-follow explanations without the technical stuff.

Maintaining transparency with evolving AI models

As AI models change and adapt over time, maintaining transparency becomes increasingly more difficult. Making updates or modifications to AI systems or retraining them on new datasets can alter their decision-making processes, which can make it challenging to maintain transparency consistently.

How to handle this challenge:
Establish a comprehensive documentation process that tracks the changes made to an AI ecosystem, like its algorithms and data. Provide regular and updated transparency reports that note these changes in the AI system so stakeholders are informed about these updates and any implications.

AI transparency best practices

Incorporating AI transparency best practices helps foster accountability and trust between AI developers, businesses, and users. Clear and open communication about data practices, bias prevention measures, and the data used (and not used) in AI models can help users feel more confident using AI technology. Here are some best practices for ensuring transparent AI.

Be clear with customers about how their data is collected, stored, and used

Provide transparent and understandable explanations to customers about the collection, storage, and utilization of their data by AI systems. Clearly outline privacy policies detailing the type of data collected, the purpose of collection, storage methods, and data usage in AI systems. Protecting customer privacy starts with obtaining explicit consent from users before collecting or using their data for AI purposes.

Detail how you’re preventing inherent biases

Conduct regular assessments to identify and eliminate biases within your AI software. Communicate the methods used to prevent and address biases in AI models so users understand the steps being taken to enhance fairness and prevent discrimination. Maintain records of bias detection, evaluation, and processes to show a commitment to customer transparency and bias prevention.

Explain what data is included and excluded in AI models

Clearly define and communicate the types of data included and excluded from AI models. Provide reasoning behind the selection of data used in AI training to help users understand the model’s limitations and capabilities. Avoid including sensitive or discriminatory data that could result in biases or infringe on privacy rights.

Examples of companies practicing transparent AI

Here are a few examples of companies putting transparent AI initiatives into action. Their efforts to maintain AI transparency and promote responsible AI practices continue to help them build trust with their customers.

Zendesk

At Zendesk, we create customer experience software that enables users to enhance their customer support with AI and machine learning tools, like generative AI and AI chatbots. Zendesk AI emphasizes explainability by providing insights into how its AI-powered tools work and how AI decisions are made.

Zendesk also offers educational resources and documentation to help users understand AI’s integration into customer service software, the ethics of AI in CX, and its impact on customer interactions.

Lush

Cosmetic retailer Lush is vocal about ethical AI usage in its business operations. The company is transparent about not using social scoring systems or technologies that could infringe on customer privacy or autonomy. Lush engages in public discussions and shares its stance on ethical AI practices through its communications and social media channels.

OpenAI

OpenAI, an AI research laboratory popular for its generative AI applications ChatGPT and Dall-E, regularly publishes research papers and findings that provide insights into its AI developments and breakthroughs.

OpenAI is transparent about its goals, ethical guidelines, and the potential societal impact of AI through comprehensive documentation. The company encourages collaboration and engagement with the wider AI community, fostering transparency and sharing knowledge about AI development.

65% percent of CX leaders see AI not as a fad but as a strategic necessity and reality.Zendesk CX Trends Report 2024

Frequently asked questions

Why is transparency in AI hard?

Transparent AI can be challenging because of the complexity of AI models, the explainability of datasets, and trade-offs between explainability and AI performance. Some AI systems operate as black boxes and can rely on vast, complex datasets. This lack of transparency makes it difficult to trace how the data influences outcomes and how to explain AI models’ decision-making processes in ways that are easy to understand.

What does lack of transparency in AI mean?

Lack of transparency in AI refers to situations where users don’t have the necessary visibility or understanding of how AI systems work, how they make decisions, or any influencing factors. This can result in people being untrustworthy of AI systems and how they use customer data.

Why is transparency a concern in AI?

A lack of transparency in AI is concerning for several reasons, including:

• Ethical or biased implications: Lack of transparency can lead to unethical or biased outcomes, impacting fairness and potentially causing harm or discrimination.
• Accountability issues: Without transparency, assigning responsibility or accountability for AI-generated decisions becomes challenging.
• User trust and understanding: Lack of transparency diminishes user trust in AI systems, leading to skepticism and reluctance to adopt or rely on AI technologies.
• Regulatory compliance: Increasingly, regulations require transparency in AI systems to ensure compliance with ethical, legal, and privacy standards.

Transparency in AI is important because it fosters trust, ensures accountability, reduces biases in conversational AI, and aligns with ethical and legal guidelines, ultimately contributing to responsible and ethical AI deployment.

What’s next for AI transparency?

As artificial intelligence continues to evolve and advance, so will transparency in AI. Though it may be difficult to predict exactly what the future of AI transparency will look like, several trends and expectations might shape the landscape.

These expectations include developing better tools to help explain complex AI models so users can understand the AI decision-making process, which will help to increase trust and usability.

There will also be more emphasis on AI regulations and ethical considerations. This will make it easier for businesses to implement standard practices for AI transparency, addressing biases, fairness, and privacy concerns for more responsible AI systems.

The post What is AI transparency? A comprehensive guide appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/intelligent-customer-experience/ Wed, 17 Jan 2024 21:04:17 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=642410 What is intelligent customer experience? Intelligent customer experience (ICX) is how a business uses artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and data to provide personalized and proactive experiences. On December 17, 1903, the Wright brothers first took flight. Roughly 65 years later, innovators and scientists had built on the Wrights’ discovery to propel humans to the moon. […]

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What is intelligent customer experience?

Intelligent customer experience (ICX) is how a business uses artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and data to provide personalized and proactive experiences.

On December 17, 1903, the Wright brothers first took flight. Roughly 65 years later, innovators and scientists had built on the Wrights’ discovery to propel humans to the moon. This timeline perfectly illustrates how we live in an era of increasingly expedited and impactful change—and that change is prevalent in everything from exploring the cosmos to how businesses interact with customers.

Just as humans achieved space flight on the foundation of a rickety airplane, a new method for consumer interaction—intelligent customer experience—is built on business methods of bygone days. The ICX is a revolutionary way for businesses to exceed customer expectations and enhance their bottom line at scale.

The Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2024 dives into why intelligent customer experience is so important. This article highlights some of the key takeaways from that report, including what makes an effective ICX, how it builds on the customer experience, and how you can implement it in your operations.

More in this guide:

• Why are intelligent customer experiences important?
• Key components of an intelligent CX
• Benefits of an intelligent CX
• How to implement intelligent customer experiences into your organization
• Frequently asked questions
• Build an intelligent customer experience with Zendesk

Why are intelligent customer experiences important?

Intelligent customer experiences are important because every interaction between a consumer and a business matters. In the wake of evolving technology, organizations need to leverage generative AI, automation, and data analytics to enhance these interactions and provide outstanding consumer experiences.

How businesses interact with their customers has changed rapidly over the years, and until recently, it didn’t take much to make a positive impression. Answering the phone with a smile and effectively solving issues used to be enough to stand out in the marketplace.

Then came CX—a concept that taught businesses the power of every consumer interaction. Companies use this philosophy to foster loyalty and retention at all touchpoints, whether that’s a call to customer service, an ad on social media, or an email campaign. Recently, however, organizations have realized an excellent customer experience isn’t enough.

Businesses now need to adopt an intelligent customer experience that utilizes generative AI, conversational AI, next-gen experiences, and data analytics to deliver comprehensive and outstanding consumer interactions at every stage of the customer journey. Consumers expect the best. Businesses that hesitate to adopt ICX will be left behind, and their competitors will reap the benefits.

75% of consumers who have experienced generative AI believe the technology will completely change how they interact with companies in the next two years.Zendesk CX Trends Report 2024

Key components of an intelligent CX

An intelligent CX consists of several components working together to help businesses understand customer expectations and deliver outstanding consumer interactions. Here are some of the key elements of an ICX.

Generative AI and automation

Generative AI, evolved chatbots, and advanced automation are transforming customer interactions. These technologies enable businesses to automate repetitive tasks, streamline processes, and respond swiftly to customer queries.

70% of CX leaders plan to integrate generative AI into many of their touchpoints in the next two years.Zendesk CX Trends Report 2024

For example, our new Zendesk generative AI capabilities powered by OpenAI enable bots to support customers with natural, human language. Businesses can set the tone to match their brand, get data-driven automated suggestions, and encourage self-service so agents can focus on more complex issues and tasks.

Data-driven insights

There’s one variable that fuels AI-powered and personalized experiences: information. Harnessing and analyzing data allows businesses to better understand consumer behavior and preferences. With this information, organizations can anticipate consumer needs and personalize offerings to align with customer expectations.

While consumers advocate for these experiences, businesses must also know how to engage in customer data privacy to keep their customer and organizational data safe.

Personalization

The modern consumer doesn’t just prefer personalization—they expect it. Using data, businesses can tailor interactions that cater to customer preferences. This may look like sending emails to customers with product suggestions based on their search or purchase history. Doing so fosters a stronger connection between the company and the consumer and improves customer satisfaction and long-term loyalty.

Omnichannel experiences

Customers should be able to interact with your business on their preferred channel—whether that’s your website, app, social media page, or anywhere else you have a presence. An omnichannel approach makes it easier to communicate with customers and seamlessly continue conversations across all channels, ultimately enhancing the ICX.

For example, a customer may start a conversation with a support agent via Instagram but then want to continue the conversation over the phone. An omnichannel ICX allows that fluid conversation to exist without losing context or creating the need for the customer to repeat themselves.

Seamless integration

An intelligent CX leverages customer data to provide more personalized and proactive experiences. But this isn’t possible if your customer data is siloed. That’s why integrating your CX tools and systems is key to building an ICX.

For example, if an e-commerce chatbot can access your customer’s shopping cart, it can proactively send them a discount code to nudge them to check out. Or, if a bot has access to a customer’s loyalty status, it can route them to the VIP support team so they get more specialized support.

Whether incorporating consumer information into customer relationship management (CRM) software or allowing support agents to access customer and company information from one interface, the seamless integration of processes and systems creates an intelligent CX.

Benefits of an intelligent CX

Organizations that embrace an ICX see improvements to their processes and bottom line. Here are some of the top benefits of an intelligent CX.

Enhanced customer experience

Businesses can improve the customer experience by leveraging generative AI, data-driven insights, personalization, and the other key components we’ve covered. And finding a recipe for ICX success isn’t rigid, either. Organizations can tinker with processes and conduct split tests to figure out how to best turn these ICX ingredients into five-star customer experiences.

70% of CX leaders say that ICX factors like generative AI have led them to take a step back and reevaluate their entire customer experience.Zendesk CX Trends Report 2024

For example, businesses can embrace workforce management software that automatically creates optimized schedules and identifies agent training opportunities. This can result in improved operational efficiency, reduced wait times, and more comprehensive consumer support.

Improved customer loyalty and retention

When businesses analyze consumer data, they can create a comprehensive customer experience strategy and personalize communication. Agents can also use Zendesk to proactively solve customer issues using real-time insights around customer intent and sentiment, leading to more helpful and efficient service.

This leads to a better CX, enhanced customer loyalty, and an improved bottom line. Most importantly, this can ensure that individuals receive a proactive experience—one that delivers what they want before they want it.

Competitive advantage

Businesses that invest in ICX principles and the next generation of technology have a competitive advantage over businesses that don’t. Offering a personalized and efficient CX will keep your current customer base happy and also reel in consumers looking for a similar experience.

Picture this: A consumer is deciding between two companies to make a purchase. Company A has a great product, but the only option for post-purchase customer service is a phone call. Company B also has a great product and offers AI chatbots, messaging services, omnichannel support, and a host of communication options. The right choice for the consumer is clear.

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How to implement intelligent customer experiences into your organization

Adopting an ICX strategy requires a flexible approach that combines several elements. Here are some tips for implementing ICX into your organization.

Embrace a customer-first philosophy

The first step in overhauling a customer experience strategy is to embrace a customer-first approach. Being customer-first means putting the consumer at the center of organizational decision-making rather than simply focusing on profits or products. When businesses take this approach, they can tune in to their customers’ needs and deliver experiences they appreciate.

Invest in the right tools

Businesses can’t deploy an effective ICX strategy without the right tools. Look for customer experience software that offers features like generative AI, chatbots, automation, analytics, and other important elements that can help your organization provide better customer experiences. Investing in the right CX partner is crucial for creating an ecosystem that supports and optimizes ICX initiatives.

Establish a highly trained workforce

You can have the most advanced ICX processes in your industry, but if you don’t have a skilled workforce to execute those initiatives, your strategy will fall flat. Provide ongoing training and development to ensure your team knows how to utilize automation, omnichannel communication, and other important ICX elements. A highly trained workforce provides the ever-important human touch in support interactions.

Measure and analyze performance

It’s important to define customer service key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with your objectives and to track that information over time. These metrics can provide insights into the effectiveness of your strategy. After measuring and analyzing your KPIs, you can double down on what’s working and refine what isn’t.

Prioritize continuous improvement

As with any business strategy, an intelligent customer experience isn’t a “set and forget” approach. Regularly review your data, customer feedback, and other relevant metrics to identify areas of improvement. This gives your organization the agility to adapt to changing consumer trends and stay atop the marketplace.

Frequently asked questions

What is the role of AI in CX?

AI is a cornerstone of an intelligent customer experience. Businesses must harness this emerging technology to deliver seamless, high-quality support interactions that meet customer needs and expectations.

What is experience intelligence?

Experience intelligence signifies the strategic application of insights gleaned from previous experiences and lessons learned—especially from customer information—to bolster future decision-making. It allows businesses, for instance, to leverage historical customer data to deliver a more informed and proactive CX.

What is the difference between CX and ICX?

CX and ICX are similar concepts that rely on several strategies to deliver proactive customer experiences. The difference is that ICX harnesses emerging technologies like generative AI and automation to deliver those experiences.

What are the 4 components of customer experience?

There are many components of an effective customer experience. Four of them are strategy, customer understanding, consistent quality, and consumer touchpoints.

Build an intelligent customer experience with Zendesk

Just as the Wright brothers laid the foundation for space flight, CX laid the foundation for ICX. New ICX approaches, like generative AI and data-driven insights, are integral to executing elevated experiences. Still, you can’t harness the full power of ICX without the right partner.

At Zendesk, we’ve made a name for ourselves by helping thousands of businesses perfect their CX. We also empower businesses of all sizes to create an effective ICX strategy through AI, chatbots, omnichannel experiences, and more.

Start a free trial of Zendesk today to build a comprehensive ICX ecosystem that will impress your customers and improve your bottom line.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/joeyedwardslebair-podcast/ Wed, 17 Jan 2024 17:50:44 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=642429 As Zendesk unveils its sixth CX Trends report, it’s become clear that the CX landscape is undergoing sweeping changes. As Joey Edwards-Lebair, one of our data and insights experts at Zendesk, explains in this latest episode of Conversations with Zendesk, businesses and their customers are entering the era of intelligent CX. “What sets this moment […]

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As Zendesk unveils its sixth CX Trends report, it’s become clear that the CX landscape is undergoing sweeping changes. As Joey Edwards-Lebair, one of our data and insights experts at Zendesk, explains in this latest episode of Conversations with Zendesk, businesses and their customers are entering the era of intelligent CX.

“What sets this moment in time apart is really the convergence and synergies of capabilities and technologies coming together,” Edwards-Lebair said. “While AI is a massive part of this evolution, it’s not the only part. It’s like we’re witnessing a symphony. AI might have struck that first chord, but the melody is really made up of so much more.”





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In the first part of a two-episode conversation with host Nicole Saunders, Edwards-Lebair pointed out that CX leaders increasingly view AI as playing a significant role in both providing the kind of immersive experiences customers demand while driving efficiencies that will enable agents to focus on escalated issues that require the human touch. But to get there, he warns, companies must implement AI wisely.

“One thing that’s critical about leveraging AI in CX is ensuring that AI is infused directly into tools and processes,” Edwards-Lebair said.

Be sure to catch part two of Edwards-Lebair’s conversation with Saunders on January 31, and go to our 2024 CX Trends to download the full report.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/cx-trends-2024/ Wed, 17 Jan 2024 12:28:30 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=641822 We’re facing a seismic shift in the world of customer experience with rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, data analytics, and other emerging technologies shaking the very foundations of our industry. Businesses are rethinking the structure of everything, from their tech stacks to their teams. In just a few years time, these forces will radically transform […]

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]]> We’re facing a seismic shift in the world of customer experience with rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, data analytics, and other emerging technologies shaking the very foundations of our industry. Businesses are rethinking the structure of everything, from their tech stacks to their teams. In just a few years time, these forces will radically transform the pivotal connection between customers getting support and the organizations that provide it.

This is new terrain for all businesses, and understanding the challenges and opportunities—and planning wisely—will pay immense dividends. From greatly reduced CX costs to improved customer affinity, the era of intelligent CX will deliver a new level of connection between customers and the organizations they purchase from.

At Zendesk, we think deeply about the customer experience and how to make it better for every party involved. Now in its sixth year, our annual CX Trends report is the biggest and most important to date. We’ve identified ten distinct trends to help you navigate the road ahead. They fall into three innovation areas:

1. AI and intelligent experiences
2. Data and trustworthy experiences
3. Next gen and immersive experiences

AI and intelligent experiences

The best customer experience is one with a personal touch. As 4,500 global CX leaders told Zendesk, they expect generative AI to accelerate the delivery of more humanized journeys, ones that leverage data to feel personable and interactive.

70% of CX leaders plan to integrate generative AI into many of their touchpoints in the next two years.

While CX leaders and their teams wrestle with how to effectively implement AI, they understand that if they’re successful, the rewards will be well worth the effort. They expect AI to greatly improve team efficiency, enabling agents to dedicate their time to higher-level work, with significant effects on chatbots and email communications with customers.

Meanwhile, customers are ready for this seachange: 59 percent of the 2,500 global consumers say they expect AI to completely alter how they interact with businesses.

In this first section of the 2024 CX Trends report, we also dive into how AI will turn chatbots into true digital agents, why AI transparency and decisioning are the order of the day, and the startling disconnect between CX leaders and their teams on everything related to AI, including strategy, tools, and role impact.

Data and trustworthy experiences

One of the biggest challenges companies have faced over the years is putting their mountains of customer data to effective use. Now, as we enter the era of intelligent CX, businesses are heavily focused on being able to instantly modify user experiences, putting increased pressure on leveraging data in real time.

62% of CX leaders feel they are behind in providing the more instant experiences consumers expect.

Being able to anticipate customer needs, resolve issues faster, and provide hyper-personalized experiences would have already been accomplished if it were simple to do, but this is no easy task. Getting there means pulling data together from disparate sources and quickly synthesizing it, and once again, AI is proving to be the solution.

While CX leaders increasingly feel confident that they’ll be able to modify user experiences instantly, they also face other emerging trends, such as data privacy being a non-negotiable aspect of their plans. As a result, CX leaders are requiring that robust security measures be an integral part of the customer experience.

Next gen and immersive experiences

Consumers have been shopping online for decades now, and purchasing goods and services via the internet continues to evolve. Now, live and immersive experiences are heavily influencing the future of online shopping.

Customers expect conversational commerce and eagerly tune into live-streaming sessions to learn about—and purchase—new products. It’s not enough for transactions to be seamless. They must also be engaging and leave customers feeling informed.

Consumers report they are only able to make purchases directly within chat-based conversations with agents 34% of the time.

To provide live-streaming experiences, CX leaders must be ready to invest in the right technology and seek expertise, often through external partners. And when implementing live-streaming or conversational commerce, CX leaders need to train their teams thoroughly while simultaneously updating privacy policies to protect customers.

These next-gen experiences also encompass refinements to voice channels, which in the wake of increasingly effective AI-powered digital agents, will be used to handle more complex issues that require a human agent. And finally, predictive agent management tools will play an ever-expanding role in helping CX leaders build teams that will operate at peak efficiency.

The era of intelligent CX is here

While navigating this new era of CX might seem daunting, Zendesk is here to help CX leaders take advantage of the technology that will change customer experiences forever. Over the course of 2024 and beyond, we’ll be providing additional insights and best practices so your company can excel in this exciting new world.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/hypercare/ Fri, 12 Jan 2024 15:41:53 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=642386 What is hypercare? Hypercare is the period of heightened customer support and attention immediately after a major change in operations. During hypercare, businesses are particularly vigilant and proactive in addressing customer needs, issues, and feedback to ensure a smooth transition and a positive customer experience (CX). There’s a reason why so many people are averse […]

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What is hypercare?

Hypercare is the period of heightened customer support and attention immediately after a major change in operations. During hypercare, businesses are particularly vigilant and proactive in addressing customer needs, issues, and feedback to ensure a smooth transition and a positive customer experience (CX).

There’s a reason why so many people are averse to change. It’s challenging, it’s scary, and it carries the risk of failure. But change is a part of life—even in business—and properly addressing it can greatly increase success rates.

Organizations can use hypercare to onboard new customers, launch a new product, or introduce customers to a software update. Learn how hypercare support can help improve customer retention and satisfaction.

More in this guide:

• Benefits of hypercare support
• Challenges (and mistakes) of hypercare support
• How to implement hypercare in your business
• Frequently asked questions
• Give customers the hypercare treatment today

Benefits of hypercare support

While hypercare support exists for a small window of time, it can have a far-reaching impact on your organization. Here are three primary benefits of implementing a hypercare strategy.

Improves CSAT

Just by its very nature of being a proactive support period, hypercare can enhance customer satisfaction (CSAT). Businesses create a smoother transition when they can promptly address customer inquiries, concerns, and issues, which helps to alleviate the frustration that may come with the change.

For example, by providing omnichannel support, you make it easy for customers to get help across the channels that are most convenient for them—whether it’s the phone for complex queries or your knowledge base for quick answers. Customers feel heard, valued, and supported throughout the transition, resulting in an improved overall experience.

Reduces customer churn

Hypercare is a strategic tool for reducing your customer churn rate, solidifying relationships, and laying the foundation for enduring customer loyalty. By addressing issues quickly during critical phases, businesses can minimize disruptions that can lead to dissatisfaction and attrition.

The increased level of support during hypercare also demonstrates a commitment to customer success, fostering a sense of trust and reliability. Customers are more likely to stay engaged and loyal when they experience a seamless transition and when their concerns and issues are acknowledged and resolved.

Increases product adoption

Careful monitoring of user interactions and feedback during hypercare helps businesses identify and rectify potential adoption barriers before users are deterred. Good customer service enables this, as agents help users understand the new features and how to leverage them effectively. When users feel supported, informed, and confident in navigating and using the product, overall product adoption rates often increase.

Challenges (and mistakes) of hypercare support

There are plenty of unknowns and issues that can pop up during hypercare customer support, but that doesn’t mean you have to experience them. Here are a few common hypercare challenges and mistakes and how to avoid them.

Staff burnout

The heightened demand for support and rapid issue resolution can overwhelm already stretched teams. The stress of managing an influx of customer inquiries without sufficient resources impacts the quality of support. This can take a toll on customer service agents’ well-being—potentially leading to burnout.

Proactively analyzing customer support needs and implementing customer success software with automation are two potential solutions to support your team. Customer success software streamlines workflows for greater team efficiency and reduces repetitive tasks for an enhanced employee experience.

Inadequate preparation

Failing to create a well-thought-out hypercare plan before implementing a product change can lead to a cascade of issues. Without a carefully devised plan, organizations may be caught off guard by customer concerns, technical glitches, or operational challenges. This lack of preparedness hampers the effectiveness of hypercare and can result in a disjointed and reactive approach to customer service.

Creating a comprehensive customer success plan requires clearly defining your objectives during the hypercare period and identifying potential challenges that may arise during the transition. By approaching hypercare planning systematically, you can proactively address challenges, enhance customer satisfaction, and ensure a successful transition.

Poor issue prioritization

Without an organized approach to prioritizing issues, critical problems may be overlooked, leading to potential disruptions and customer dissatisfaction. Conversely, if less important issues receive undue attention, this diverts resources from more urgent matters. A lack of issue prioritization can create a chaotic support environment where teams are reactive rather than strategically addressing customer needs.

Implementing a system that prioritizes issues can help you effectively manage hypercare support. Automated systems can analyze the nature of incoming tickets, assess their impact and urgency, and intelligently route them to the right agents or teams. Critical issues receive immediate attention, while teams can appropriately address less urgent matters in time.

Inconsistent training

Because hypercare is a period of heightened support and rapid issue resolution, any discrepancies in how you handle customer inquiries or concerns can lead to customer confusion and frustration. Support team members who aren’t aligned on or don’t fully understand product nuances can provide unclear or conflicting information, diminishing the effectiveness of hypercare efforts and potentially eroding customer trust.

One way to prevent this is through a knowledge management system, a centralized repository for capturing, updating, and sharing accurate and up-to-date information. You can add new hypercare resources to the system that serve as a single source of truth. That way, employees across various roles can access consistent and reliable guidance, minimizing the chances of providing inconsistent information to customers.

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How to implement hypercare in your business

Providing the level of support that hypercare requires can be challenging. Luckily, you can improve your team’s functionality and end-user experiences by breaking the process down into five manageable steps.

1. Establish a hypercare team

Designate staff whose sole focus is shepherding customers and employees through this potentially hectic period. Your hypercare team should include key roles with well-defined responsibilities:

• Hypercare manager: This role oversees the entire process, coordinates efforts, and ensures that the team aligns with the organization’s objectives.
• Support agents: They address customer inquiries, resolve issues, and provide timely assistance.
• Communication specialists: These team members maintain transparent and proactive communication with customers to keep them informed about changes and updates.
• Data analysts: They monitor customer feedback, analyze data, and identify patterns to make informed decisions.

By strategically assembling and empowering individuals in these key roles, you can prepare your hypercare team to navigate challenges and foster a positive customer experience during critical transitions.

2. Train your team

Conduct customer service training with your hypercare team. Be sure to share strategies and go over scenarios to sharpen support agents’ decision-making skills during real-time situations. It’s also important to empower customers to adapt to changes. The hypercare team should be well-versed in knowledge management tools and how to deliver training materials, tutorials, and FAQs that guide users through the transition.

You can also train your team to leverage AI tools to automate tasks for greater efficiency while still providing personalized support. Some AI can even perform predictive analysis, anticipating customer needs and proactively addressing potential concerns before they escalate.

3. Proactively communicate with customers

Proactive communication involves providing customers advance notice of upcoming changes so there are no surprises and they have a clear understanding of what to expect. Establishing an open line of communication builds trust and allows businesses to obtain customer buy-in, making them active participants in the transition process.

You can empower customers to better navigate updates by providing detailed information about the changes, the potential impacts, and the available support. This approach can reduce confusion or frustration and promote a collaborative relationship, one in which customers feel valued and confident in your commitment to a positive customer experience.

4. Actively monitor progress

Monitoring progress throughout the hypercare phase helps keep the transition on track and allows you to make adjustments when needed. Key customer metrics to watch include:

• Response and resolution times: Assess the support team’s efficiency in promptly addressing customer inquiries
• The volume and nature of reported issues: Get a quantitative understanding of the challenges customers are facing and if those challenges are increasing or decreasing.
• Analyzing user adoption rates and engagement metrics: Gauge how well customers adapt to the changes.

By closely monitoring these customer service metrics, you can identify patterns, address emerging issues, and continuously refine your approach.

5. Collect customer feedback

Businesses can gain valuable insights into their audience and operations when they ask for input on customers’ experiences. Sending surveys, feedback forms, or other types of direct outreach encourages customers to share their thoughts, which makes them feel heard and valued.

Feedback like challenges the customer may have faced or the quality of support they received helps organizations address specific issues and improve their hypercare strategy. Additionally, analyzing consumer input can also help you identify trends, measure the success of implemented changes, and continuously enhance your hypercare customer support. The result is that each subsequent initiative is more refined and tailored to meet customer needs.

Frequently asked questions

When does the hypercare period end?

The duration of the hypercare period can vary depending on the nature of the change, update, or launch that triggered it. The hypercare period is temporary and typically concludes once you’re confident that the transition was successful and customers adapted to the changes. You can determine the end of your hypercare period by setting a goal for help ticket requests to decrease by a certain percentage.

What comes after hypercare?

The post-go-live support phase, where users settle into the new normal, comes immediately after the hypercare period. As users acclimate to the changes, teams must maintain an adequate support system to ensure ongoing customer satisfaction.

Simultaneously, this phase is a strategic opportunity for organizations to gather insights that can influence future enhancements and improvements. Not to mention, a customer-oriented post-go-live approach showcases a business’s commitment to user satisfaction and lays the groundwork for continuous innovation and success.

Give customers the hypercare treatment today

As you stand on the cusp of a hypercare period, remember that preparation is key to transforming challenges into opportunities that build customer loyalty.

By anticipating customer needs, proactively addressing potential issues, and leveraging the right technologies, you set the stage for resolving problems effectively and creating exceptional experiences. Embrace the hypercare phase as a unique chance to showcase your commitment to customer success and demonstrate the resilience of your operations.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/workforce-management-metrics/ Wed, 10 Jan 2024 16:46:23 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=642308 What are workforce management metrics? Workforce management metrics are statistics businesses can use to measure, analyze, and optimize their operations. These figures provide information on team performance, employee engagement, and the organization’s overall productivity. Nearly every successful business engages in workforce management (WFM) to achieve organizational goals. This philosophy drives efficiency across departments, influencing everything […]

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What are workforce management metrics?

Workforce management metrics are statistics businesses can use to measure, analyze, and optimize their operations. These figures provide information on team performance, employee engagement, and the organization’s overall productivity.

Nearly every successful business engages in workforce management (WFM) to achieve organizational goals. This philosophy drives efficiency across departments, influencing everything from employee scheduling to future benchmarks and initiatives. That said, a WFM strategy will fall flat without properly analyzing and utilizing data.

Workforce managers can use workforce management metrics to optimize their teams, ensure the growth and development of employees, improve organizational processes, and more. This guide details 23 of the most important workforce management metrics you can use to achieve your WFM goals.

• Customer satisfaction
• Head count
• Attendance rate
• Late occurrences
• Turnover rate
• Overtime occurrences
• Time to hire
• Employee attrition
• Employee retention rate
• Salary distribution
• Revenue per employee

• Utilization rate
• Tenure rate
• Unplanned time off
• Planned time off
• Total cost of workforce
• Employee productivity
• Schedule adherence
• Occupancy rate
• Average handle time
• Idle time
• Ramp rate
• Cost per hire

1. Customer satisfaction

Customer satisfaction (CSAT) is a measure of how well a company’s products, services, and overall customer experience (CX) meet customer expectations. CSAT is a valuable resource because if your customers are happy, you’re likely doing something right.

You can measure customer satisfaction in several ways, including:

• Customer surveys: Collect consumer sentiment directly from the source with CSAT surveys, customer effort scores (CES), and the Net Promoter ScoreⓇ (NPS).
• Focus groups: Hosting meetings with customers in focus groups or advisory meetings can give more context than surveys alone.
• Social media: Use your social pages to your advantage by monitoring customer comments and conducting polls.
• Response rate: Metrics like first reply time and resolution time highlight how long it takes to resolve customer issues. The quicker you are, the happier your customers will be
• Customer churn: Monitor the number of customers that end their relationship with your company to gain insight into areas of improvement.

This is just a starting point to measure CSAT, and you can use any relevant method you see fit to evaluate your customer’s mindset.

2. Head count

Head count is the total number of employees within an organization. This number can be the total count of every individual company-wide or segmented by department or role. By aligning head count with business goals and market demands, organizations can determine if they have the right number of employees at the right time.

3. Attendance rate

Attendance rate, otherwise known as absenteeism rate, measures the punctuality and reliability of your workforce. This metric can be calculated as the percentage of scheduled employees who consistently report to work on time. Monitoring attendance rate helps identify employee performance, whether it’s individuals who are slipping or those who are consistently meeting expectations.

Attendance rate = (Total number of absences / Total number of workdays) x 100

4. Late occurrences

Late occurrences measure instances of tardiness among employees. You can evaluate this on an individual, departmental, or organization-wide basis. Analyzing late occurrences can help you identify punctuality patterns, employee engagement, and potential areas for improvement in your organization.

5. Turnover rate

Employee turnover rate represents the percentage of employees who leave an organization within a specific period. This figure includes voluntary exits, layoffs, and terminations but excludes internal changes like transfers or promotions. High turnover impacts productivity and labor budgets, while low turnover can indicate a stable and satisfied workforce.

Turnover rate = Number of firings or resignations in a period / Number of employees at the start of the period

6. Overtime occurrences

Overtime occurrences represent employees who work beyond their regularly scheduled hours. While some overtime may be necessary to meet demand, consistently high levels can indicate issues in areas like:

• Workload distribution
• Staffing levels
• Resource allocation

Calculate this metric by adding up all instances of overtime in a designated group, whether that’s a certain department or company-wide.

7. Time to hire

Time to hire represents the duration it takes to fill a vacant position. The metaphorical clock starts at the initial job posting and continues until a candidate accepts an offer.

A lengthy time to hire can cause productivity issues and lost revenue, whereas a swift hiring process ensures your organization is fully staffed and efficient. When managers analyze time to hire, they can identify bottlenecks in the recruitment process and streamline operations to make hiring more efficient.

8. Employee attrition

Employee attrition measures the rate at which employees leave an organization over a specified period. While this metric is closely related to turnover, a key difference is that turnover accounts for firings, whereas attrition only focuses on resignations, retirements, and company layoffs.

By understanding attrition, workforce managers can closely monitor their personnel to ensure departments are adequately staffed. If attrition trends in the wrong direction, organizations can implement retention strategies like engaging in employee experience journey mapping.

Employee attrition = Number of employees that resigned or were downsized during a period / Number of employees at the start of the period

9. Employee retention rate

Employee retention rate represents the percentage of workers that stay with their employer over a given period. A high employee retention rate indicates a healthy and satisfied workforce. In contrast, a low retention rate can indicate problems with employee satisfaction, work-life balance, and other important factors.

Retention rate = (Number of employees at the end of a period / Number of employees at the start of the period) x 100

10. Salary distribution

Salary distribution is a bird’s-eye view of everyone’s pay in an organization. Businesses can use this information to examine collective worker salaries and to understand employee pay rates in a specific role, department, or team. Companies can use this data to identify problematic wage gaps, assess whether their compensation is market competitive and more.

11. Revenue per employee

Revenue per employee measures roughly how much each worker contributes to organizational revenue. This figure is important because it can impact profitability and future operations planning and will determine if workforce managers need to implement changes to foster additional productivity.

A higher revenue per employee means a business is operating efficiently, while a low ratio may indicate a change in strategy or employee training is needed.

Revenue per employee = Revenue in a period / Number of employees

12. Utilization rate

Utilization rate is the percentage of time a worker engages in revenue-generating activities. This metric highlights employee productivity, and a higher utilization rate can signify effective time management and resource allocation. Managers can use this information to guide training and development opportunities or make operational changes to increase productivity.

Utilization rate = Total billable hours / Total available hours

13. Tenure rate

Tenure rate is the length of time employees stay with an organization. Businesses can use this information to gain insight into their workforce’s stability and overall employee experience (EX). A higher tenure rate typically means that employees are happy in an organization, while a low rate may indicate companies need to change their strategy or workplace culture.

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14. Unplanned time off

Unplanned time off refers to instances when employees are away from work unexpectedly due to illness, unapproved absences, or other unforeseen circumstances. Managers can evaluate unplanned time off to determine how the organization can proactively respond to an unexpected short-term drop in labor.

15. Planned time off

Planned time off encompasses scheduled PTO, vacations, and other approved leave. Businesses need to know when their employees are taking time off to ensure appropriate coverage and to keep operations running smoothly.

16. Total cost of workforce

Total cost of workforce (TCOW) is the sum of all labor costs, including salaries, bonuses, training costs, internal customer service, and all other relevant expenses. This metric helps organizations determine how much a team or department impacts labor budgets and how to align this impact with organizational goals.

17. Employee productivity

Employee productivity assesses an employee’s or team’s work output compared to their input (or hours worked and resources utilized) in a given period. Businesses can use this figure to determine how effectively employees operate per hour, per week, or across longer time frames.

Businesses can also use it in tandem with other metrics and tools like employee surveys to measure employee satisfaction. The higher productivity is, the more effectively a workplace is operating.

Employee productivity = Total output per employee or team / Total input

18. Schedule adherence

Schedule adherence measures how effectively employees adhere to their assigned work schedule. While it’s similar to employee productivity, the key difference is that schedule adherence measures how much an employee works and how effectively they’re sticking to their schedule, not necessarily how productive they are.

Schedule adherence = Total time worked / Total time scheduled

19. Occupancy rate

Occupancy rate measures the percentage of time employees spend on work-related tasks, specifically revenue-generating activities like handling customer interactions. In the context of a call center, this figure helps organizations understand how much time an agent spends on support-related activities vs. non-support-related activities.

Organizations can ensure productive service and support when employees operate at peak efficiency. A high occupancy rate shows that a business utilizes employees effectively.

Occupancy rate = Time spent on support-related tasks / Total time scheduled

20. Average handle time

Average handle time (AHT) measures the average duration of a customer service interaction. Call centers often use this as a customer service key performance indicator (KPI) to improve operations, as a lower AHT typically indicates customers are getting their issues solved promptly.

Average handle time = (Talk time + Hold time + Follow-up time) / Total number of calls

21. Idle time

Idle time is the amount of time employees are not actively engaged in work-related tasks. While no employee works at 100 percent efficiency, excessive idle time throughout a team or organization can signify workflow inefficiency. Workforce managers can use this figure to optimize work allocation and enhance productivity.

22. Ramp rate

Ramp rate is the time it takes for a new hire to become fully productive in their role. This metric can provide insight into the onboarding process, as a shorter ramp time indicates effective training processes. In comparison, a longer ramp time may signify an organization needs to change its new hire approach.

23. Cost per hire

Cost per hire calculates all the expenses associated with hiring a new employee. This can include internal costs, like HR salaries and onboarding costs, and external costs, like job posting fees and candidate screening tests.

Cost per hire = (Internal recruiting costs + External recruiting costs) / Total number of hires

Why are workforce metrics important to track?

Workforce metrics are important to track because they provide valuable insight into employees, teams, and the entire business. When companies analyze this data, they can make informed WFM decisions and hit their goals—even more so when they combine analysis with workforce management tools and AI.

There are several reasons why tracking workforce metrics is important, including:

• Increased efficiency: Workforce metrics highlight how a business performs on a team or individual level. With this information, workforce managers can identify areas of improvement and implement data-driven strategies to increase operational efficiency.
• Informed decision-making: Organizations can use these metrics to understand how their business is trending and to implement future initiatives. If, for example, the average handle time is trending upward, businesses can make AHT a long-term priority to improve customer service processes.
• Enhanced talent development: Businesses can use figures like ramp rate to identify effective onboarding initiatives and employee productivity to determine training opportunities. This information can lead to continued employee development, resulting in a more capable workforce.

Overall, workforce metrics provide a comprehensive view of organizational performance and can be used to improve every aspect of a company’s operations.

Common challenges when tracking workforce management

Tracking workforce management comes with its own set of challenges. A few of the most common include:

• Data inaccuracy: Inaccurate or incomplete workforce data can skew numbers and lead to flawed analysis and decision-making. Organizations must be sure their figures are accurate for effective insight.
• Inefficient communication: Communication affects everything in an organization, from how employees do their jobs to how statistics are reported. Good communication helps managers instruct employees on new processes and WFM initiatives, give comprehensive reports to higher-ups, and more.
• Operational issues: Businesses need to be aware of operational issues that can skew workforce management metrics. Improper time tracking, poor communication, sub-par management, or outdated processes can negatively impact data.
• Staff shortages: Organizational efficiency is dependent on a functioning workforce. When businesses are experiencing high turnover or resignations, productivity can suffer.

You can address and mitigate these challenges with the right approach, like utilizing a workforce planning template.

Improve your workforce management with Zendesk + Tymeshift

Workforce management is an important process involving everything from employee scheduling to day-to-day tasks. Organizations serious about WFM need to track important workforce management metrics—and to do so effectively, you need the right partner.

Zendesk is proud to announce our acquisition of Tymeshift—a workforce management software built just for Zendesk users that can help you track, analyze, and improve upon essential workforce metrics.

Start a free trial of Tymeshift today.

Net Promoter, Net Promoter Score, and NPS are trademarks of NICE Satmetrix, Inc., Bain & Company, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/slice-ilir-sela/ Fri, 15 Dec 2023 18:52:55 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=641901 Everybody likes pizza, and there are often strong opinions about it: pineapple doesn’t belong on pizza, thin crust is better than deep dish, and ranch dressing is a must-have dipping sauce. Regardless of your pizza preferences, at some point, you’ve likely ordered from a chain—such as Pizza Hut, Domino’s, and Papa John’s—but it’s important to […]

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Everybody likes pizza, and there are often strong opinions about it: pineapple doesn’t belong on pizza, thin crust is better than deep dish, and ranch dressing is a must-have dipping sauce. Regardless of your pizza preferences, at some point, you’ve likely ordered from a chain—such as Pizza Hut, Domino’s, and Papa John’s—but it’s important to support neighborhood pizza joints, and one startup made it their mission to help independent shop owners compete with the big guys.

Founded by Ilir Sela, Slice is a platform that “builds innovative tech to empower America’s independent pizzerias.” Since starting the company, Sela has raised over $125 million in funding and gone on to partner with restaurants in 3,000+ cities and all 50 states, forming the nation’s largest community of independent pizzerias.

Want to get a taste of how he reached this level of success? Tune into this episode of Sit Down Startup and learn why Sela bootstrapped to $40M GMV instead of raising money sooner, what he looked for in a VC partner, and why he believes it’s critical to meet customers where they are.





The benefits of bootstrapping

The first incarnation of Slice was founded in 2010 and was called MyPizza. Before launching, Sela studied the pizza industry. He found that 30 percent of Domino’s business was attributed to online ordering, and he knew that would only increase (today, it’s 80 percent).

Sela says, “When I started Slice, 1 percent of food ordering transactions were online. I knew eventually that would be 100 percent.” The founder aimed to enable independent pizzerias to go digital and decided to bootstrap the company. He credits his decision to bootstrap Slice for learning lessons that he still benefits from today.

“Bootstrapping is a very powerful experience because it teaches you how to be resourceful,” he says. “It teaches founders how to be scrappy. It forces you to focus. You don’t have the luxury of doing 30 different things. You can only do one thing, and it has to be done very well.”

The background in bootstrapping also equipped the Slice team with the skills and savvy to navigate the recent shifts in the corporate landscape.

Sela says, “I’m very fortunate to have gone through that bootstrap phase because in the last two years, where companies have needed to become more efficient, for Slice it was a natural transition. We are a profitable company today. That’s because it’s ingrained in the DNA of our people and our business model. I don’t know if we would be as successful at that transition if we didn’t have those bootstrap years under our belt.”

A growing network leads to growth capital

Bootstrapping Slice meant that Sela never had to look for capital. “I actually didn’t know what VCs were,” Sela admits. That changed in 2015—Slice was about to generate $40 million in sales, but Sela realized he wanted the company to scale at a quicker clip. So, he reached out to Wiley Cerilli, a serial entrepreneur and founder of successful companies like Seamless and SinglePlatform.

“I thought he could be someone who could connect me to people who could join the company to help us scale faster,” Sela says. “I actually didn’t need money. We were profitable. What I needed was a network of individuals who knew how to help scale this business from point A to what my future vision was.”

Cerilli helped Sela by introducing him to investors who not only gave him business advice but also helped him raise the first round of capital for Slice. Two more rounds of capital followed. Benjamin Sun from Primary Venture Partners joined the second round, and Jeff Richards from GGV Capital joined the third round. Although Sela was able to get notable investors on board, his priorities didn’t change.

“I can say that I was not deliberately trying to get growth capital, what I was trying to get was growth people,” Sela explains. “Growth capital became a byproduct of that.”

Meeting customers where they are

The first product that Slice built was a website that allowed independent pizzerias to receive online food orders. The Slice team visited the pizzerias and presented the staff with a dashboard or tablet to receive orders. However, a challenge arose when the shop owners didn’t recognize the need for this technology. They wanted to stick with what was familiar. To meet customers where they were, Slice developed a method to convert orders into a fax format via an API.

Sela explains, “You would place an order on the Joe’s Pizza website, and that order would print on the fax machine at Joe’s Pizza because they were used to getting orders as faxes. They didn’t have to change anything about their experience and the customer had this new channel.” The tactic worked and helped build customers’ trust in Slice.

Ultimately, Slice successfully transitioned customers from fax machines to dashboards by respecting the work processes of their partnered pizzerias. “The conversation is a lot easier once you show them what is possible,” Sela says. “But upfront, asking them to change their workflow so you can have the right to deliver them value is a very steep ask for a very small business.”

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/workforce-manager/ Fri, 15 Dec 2023 15:23:06 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=641888 What is a workforce manager? A workforce manager is a professional responsible for optimizing the performance and productivity of a company’s workforce. This role has a hand in staffing, scheduling, performance monitoring, workforce allocation, reporting, compliance tracking, and more. Overall, workforce managers seek to get the most out of employees and processes to ensure businesses […]

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What is a workforce manager?

A workforce manager is a professional responsible for optimizing the performance and productivity of a company’s workforce. This role has a hand in staffing, scheduling, performance monitoring, workforce allocation, reporting, compliance tracking, and more. Overall, workforce managers seek to get the most out of employees and processes to ensure businesses can meet and exceed their goals.

Every group of individuals needs a great leader who can maximize their potential: the Spartans had Leonidas, the Rebel Alliance had Princess Leia, and the T.C. Williams High School football team had coach Herman Boone. These leaders took the competencies of every individual and molded them into a well-oiled machine—an approach that workforce managers emulate every day.

Workforce managers play a pivotal role in an organization by ensuring everything operates at peak efficiency. They make sure that employees are performing efficiently, that everyone is meeting company initiatives, and that the business achieves current and future goals. In this guide, we’ll explain the role of a workforce manager in detail and highlight how these leaders contribute to a successful workforce management (WFM) strategy.

More in this guide:

• Responsibilities of a workforce manager
• Workforce manager qualifications
• How to become a workforce manager
• Frequently asked questions

Responsibilities of a workforce manager

Workforce managers can dictate team and company-wide success in several key areas. Here are some of their primary responsibilities.

Scheduling and labor forecasting

Scheduling isn’t as simple as jotting some employee names down for next week’s shifts. It’s important for organizations to properly determine how much coverage is needed since too many employees clocked in at one time results in a wasted labor budget. On the other hand, too few agents can negatively impact the employee and customer experience (CX), possibly resulting in overwhelmed workers and long wait times to speak with a representative.

Workforce managers craft employee schedules and monitor timesheets while considering factors like:

• Upcoming demand
• Employee strengths and weaknesses
• Absence management
• Employee time-off requests

Striking a meticulous balance between staffing needs and demand, managers facilitate productivity and labor cost optimization.

Resource allocation

Business schedules are written in pencil, not pen. Anything can derail even the most comprehensive forecast: Team members can call in sick, equipment can break down, an unexpected wave of customer demand can flood support lines, and anything else you can imagine.

Workforce managers assess suboptimal situations and reassign assets and employees on the fly. They can do this through real-time team management and a commitment to monitoring daily productivity—aspects that help businesses meet customer expectations and maintain team efficiency.

Performance monitoring

Workforce managers need to track daily employee productivity, but long-term performance and trends are just as important. This role requires a strong understanding of key performance indicators (KPIs), data analysis tools, reporting, and—if applicable to the industry—software solutions, like employee experience software and help desk software.

With performance monitoring, workforce managers can assess individuals, teams, and the organization as a whole. This assessment can help workforce managers identify areas or skills that require additional employee training as well as opportunities for new organizational processes.

Reporting

Performance monitoring goes hand in hand with reporting. Workforce managers compile data into weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual reports.

These comprehensive reports are presented to business leaders and highlight key metrics like first reply time (FRT), customer satisfaction (CSAT), and ongoing profitability. This data gives organizational decision-makers the information they need to make informed decisions on short- and long-term planning. For example, if your growing customer base is causing increased wait times, you may need to hire more support agents.

Recruiting, training, and development

Workforce managers are involved in the growth and development of employees. This role often has a say during recruitment to ensure the organization brings in the right talent with the necessary skills for the job.

With the help of WFM software and other related tools, managers can also identify tasks employees spend the most time on during the day and suggest individual training programs if an employee is consistently falling behind. Additionally, workforce managers may also identify team-wide training opportunities and suggest new training initiatives or other activities that improve agent productivity.

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Workforce manager qualifications

The exact qualifications for a workforce manager can vary between industries and organizations. That said, there are a few standard requirements for this role, like:

• Education: Employers will often prefer a bachelor’s degree in a business-related field like business administration or human resources. Some senior positions may require a master’s degree.
• Work experience: Many workforce manager jobs require several years of experience in employee management, operations, and human resources.
• Skills: Candidates for workforce manager positions should be proficient in staffing, scheduling, and performance management. Additionally, communication, analytical, technical, and problem-solving skills are also highly desired for this role.
• Certifications: Workforce management certifications aren’t necessary, but they can enhance a candidate’s resume. Organizations like the Society of Workforce Planning Professionals (SWPP) offer these types of courses.

Aspiring workforce managers should review job descriptions to ensure their skills and experience match the expectations for the role.

Workforce manager qualities

Beyond basic qualifications, there are five qualities that every workforce manager should have. These include:

• Being data-driven and analytical
• Fostering creativity
• Keeping an open mind
• Anticipating needs
• Having empathy

How to become a workforce manager

There isn’t a defined pathway to becoming a workforce manager as this role can engage in traditional WFM, call center workforce management, and anything in between. That said, you can take some actionable steps to get started in your chosen field:

• Do your research: Many industries like business, finance, tech, healthcare, and more all need workforce managers. Research what type of business you want to work for.
• Obtain a degree: If you don’t already have one, obtain a bachelor’s degree in a relevant business field like management or human resources.
• Gain relevant experience: Gain relevant experience in related roles after getting a degree. You likely won’t be able to find a workforce manager job immediately, but you can choose a position you can learn from.
• Develop key skills: Once you secure entry-level positions, focus on building skills like leadership, communication, and problem-solving.
• Grow a network: Make connections with your colleagues every step of the way. Build a network of individuals in the workforce management field you can get advice from and potentially make connections for a future job.

By following these steps and implementing some of your own along the way, you can work toward becoming a successful workforce manager.

Frequently asked questions

What is the average salary of a workforce manager?

The estimated total pay for workforce managers in the United States is $85,000 a year, while the average salary of a workforce manager in the United States is $78,331, per Glassdoor.

Is workforce management the same as HR?

Workforce management is not the same as HR. While both roles and departments have some overlapping responsibilities, HR mainly focuses on human resource management and creating a modern employee experience (EX), while WFM mainly focuses on workforce optimization, the company’s productivity and efficiency, leveraging workforce management software, and more.

Start your WFM journey with Zendesk and Tymeshift

Workforce managers have a hand in everything, from employee training to scheduling to performance reports. Given the wide range of responsibilities, successful managers need access to the right tools to optimize their performance—something we can help with at Zendesk.

We are proud to announce our acquisition of Tymeshift—a workforce management solution that builds on the wealth of Zendesk CX capabilities to deliver a comprehensive WFM solution.

Start a free trial of Tymeshift today.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/new-integrations-dec-2023/ Thu, 14 Dec 2023 21:42:16 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=641873 Here are the newest integrations from Zendesk to help your team provide top-quality experiences. Apizee Apizee (Support) is a remote assistance video chat that enables customer service teams to increase customer satisfaction. Apizee enhances sales and support performance, allowing for streamlined resolutions, even in intricate scenarios. This platform amplifies human connections, fostering clearer understanding. Places […]

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]]> Here are the newest integrations from Zendesk to help your team provide top-quality experiences.

Apizee

Apizee (Support) is a remote assistance video chat that enables customer service teams to increase customer satisfaction. Apizee enhances sales and support performance, allowing for streamlined resolutions, even in intricate scenarios. This platform amplifies human connections, fostering clearer understanding.

Places

Places (Support) (paid) is all about letting people know where your business is. Increase your walk-ins by sharing your business’ physical location(s) in a way your leads and customers can use. Share the location of your office or store along with a Google Map link–useful for directions, sharing with others, and bookmarking for future reference.

Youtube + ChatGPT AI Assistance

Youtube + ChatGPT AI Assistance (Support) (paid) offers YouTube channel integration for Zendesk, allowing users to manage multiple accounts within a unified inbox. This integration facilitates the efficient handling of YouTube comments as tickets, with ChatGPT support ensuring prompt and accurate customer responses. Create a ticket for each customer comment, regardless of the channels, video, or shorts. Agents can efficiently respond and manage YouTube comments directly within the Zendesk app.

Additional apps added in December:

• Anecdote (Support) is an AI-powered analytics platform purpose-built to reveal the underlying reasons behind customer churn and to identify valuable feature requests. Integrate your qualitative feedback tickets directly from Zendesk to gain a comprehensive view via an insightful dashboard.
• AI KBA Optimizer (Support) is a powerful tool that automatically analyzes and enhances your articles in order to optimize your Help Center. Key features include automatic generation of label tags for your articles, identification of outdated articles, AI-powered analysis of content readability and rewriting suggestion, and automatic translation of content into multiple languages.
• Discorder (Support) helps you integrate and manage Discord discussion threads into your customer support processes within Zendesk. Receive Discord messages in Zendesk, reply to your Discord users via Zendesk in private threads, and add tags to Discord tickets. Messages synchronize in near real-time, typically within seconds.
• Translate Conversations (Support) translate customer tickets instantly for efficient, global support. Communicate with your customers in their own language with fast ticket translation to and from any spoken language. Auto-translate new messages as they arrive and write in your language while replying in your customer’s language.
• Knovvu Analytics (Support) monitors all your customer interactions and provides a full, holistic view of customer behavior and feedback. The platform collects data from a variety of channels–such as phone calls, social media, or internet communication–and provides contact centers insights to measure customer experience.
• StartADAM (Support) is your all-in-one solution for cross-platform collaboration within Zendesk. StartADAM centralizes all communications for compliance and efficiency with cross-platform chat channels. StartADAM connects to the chat channel seamlessly with Slack, MS Teams, Discord, or WhatsApp for efficient ticket communication.
• SIRP (Support) is a risk-based Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) platform. SIRP makes it easy for security teams to quickly realize value through automation playbooks. This SIRP Zendesk App allows users to push the Zendesk ticket closure status to SIRP i.e. Close an Incident on SIRP.
• Caller Verify (Support) streamlines the process of verifying callers. With a push of a button, the requester and their enrolled verification factors are automatically looked up and a request to verify their identity can be easily sent to the caller. Once completed, the verification details are automatically recorded in the Zendesk service ticket.
• OAuth Dashboard by SpectreFlow (Support) serves as a centralized hub, showcasing all Local and Global OAuth tokens associated with the logged-in user’s account. This comprehensive view makes it significantly easier for administrators to manage their tokens, providing a streamlined process for token oversight.
• Chat Gpt4 AI Chat Enhancer (Support) enhances customer service with AI-powered messages tailored to your company’s goals. It offers personalized responses, time-saving summaries, and insightful questions to enhance the quality and efficiency of your customer service.
• Round Robing Assignment by Knots (Support) ensures a fair and efficient distribution of tickets among your support team. Without any manual intervention or agent interaction, this app intelligently assigns incoming tickets to available agents, balancing workload and enhancing response times.
• Sentient Machines Analytics+ (Support) is the next generation AI omnichannel conversational analytics platform. Analyze 100 percent of interactions (chat, email, phone, etc.) seamlessly reviewing not only what is said but also what is not said–including intonation and pauses, and then assessing what it means.
• ValueFirst Business Messaging (Sell) elevates your Zendesk Sell experience with a robust extension designed for efficient SMS and WhatsApp communication directly from your Contacts, Leads, and Deals modules.
• CXBOX Broadcast (Support) helps you filter your customer’s information from particular fields within your CRM platform. Create your intended campaigns with out-of-the-box features. You can simply select content types and chat channels (e.g. LINE, WhatsApp, WeChat, SMS, Twilio, Instagram, etc.) you want to broadcast to your targeted customers.
• Reminder App by Saasly (Support) displays pop-up and receives alerts via diverse channels for effective communication. Enable reminders to function seamlessly on closed tickets. Mark reminders as completed, akin to checklist items.
• Notify & Pin (Support) allows you to get immediate broadcast notifications within Zendesk’s user interface. Receive instant alerts in the top right corner of Zendesk Support.
• ChatGPT 4 Auto Tag (Support) is a Zendesk plugin focused on intelligent Auto-Tagging. Analyze customer interactions in real-time, automatically tagging tickets with relevant keywords.
• ChatGPT 4 Thank You Closer (Support) helps with those “thank you” messages that reopen resolved tickets. It doesn’t just read messages; it intelligently discerns the content. If it’s just gratitude, the ticket is closed. If there’s more to it, it stays open for human attention.
• HolidayZ VM Swapper (Support) lets Zendesk Admins bulk update out of office voicemail across all Zendesk Talk lines with the click of a button. Choose your lines, choose your greeting, and submit.

New themes added in December:

Mandrake offers a seamless blend of aesthetics and functionality. With an optional dark mode and versatile navigation options—choose between accordion menus or content blocks—it provides a tailored experience. Effortlessly customize headers, footers, and more without delving into code.

To view the full list of incoming apps, follow our weekly release notes.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/tom-eggemeier-podcast/ Thu, 14 Dec 2023 17:04:27 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=641771 Tom Eggemeier knows a thing or two about customer experience. Long before he was the CEO of Zendesk, his grandparents operated a small grocery store in Covington, Kentucky. “They gave amazing, proactive, personalized customer service to the people that shopped in their store, and I remember being in there,” he says. “They knew everyone’s name, […]

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Tom Eggemeier knows a thing or two about customer experience. Long before he was the CEO of Zendesk, his grandparents operated a small grocery store in Covington, Kentucky.

“They gave amazing, proactive, personalized customer service to the people that shopped in their store, and I remember being in there,” he says. “They knew everyone’s name, they anticipated what they needed.”

He’s keenly aware that customer experience (CX) has changed a lot since breaking out of brick and mortar into the digital realm—but he also realizes that CX has lost a lot of its luster.

“Over the last 20 or 30 years, it became impersonal, reactive.”

But the right tools, the right strategy, and the right technological innovations solve these problems.

In the last episode of season one, Conversations with Zendesk host Nicole Saunders sits down with Eggemeier to chat about how AI has changed customer service over the last couple of years, where it’s going, and what’s next for Zendesk in 2024.

This episode covers:

• The evolution of customer service, from brick-and-mortar retail to the spectrum of digital, immersive experiences
• Eggemeier’s thoughts on how “digital agents” are augmenting customer experience
• A sneak peek into the future of Zendesk over the next year, from product advancements to Relate 2024




Subscribe to Conversations with Zendesk

Stay up to date on the latest episodes on your favorite podcast platform—such as Spotify, Apple, and YouTube—or return to the Zendesk Blog for new episodes every two weeks.

Conversations with Zendesk will be back in 2024 with new episodes. Catch us on January 17 when we sit down with Zendesk’s Joey Edwards to discuss the research that went into the upcoming 2024 CX Trends report.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/ai-sustainability/ Mon, 11 Dec 2023 13:59:51 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=641614 Artificial intelligence (AI) is powering one of the biggest transformations in history, but powering AI is vast amounts of energy—an estimated 85.4 terawatt-hours of electricity annually by 2027, or more than most small countries use in a single year. As the demand for computing grows and accelerates, so too does the potential environmental cost. According […]

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]]> Artificial intelligence (AI) is powering one of the biggest transformations in history, but powering AI is vast amounts of energy—an estimated 85.4 terawatt-hours of electricity annually by 2027, or more than most small countries use in a single year.

As the demand for computing grows and accelerates, so too does the potential environmental cost. According to a recent MIT study, training a single AI model can emit as much carbon as five cars in their lifetimes. Put simply, higher energy consumption means higher carbon emissions, a slippery slope as we struggle to get rising global temperatures under control.

Despite the risks, there are enormous opportunities. AI indeed has the potential to vastly increase our carbon footprint, but finding more sustainable approaches to its development can help companies use it more responsibly—and even help to combat emissions in the long run.

From optimizing our energy consumption to improving climate models and detecting methane leaks, AI has a critical role to play in climate change mitigation and adaptation. Particularly as the energy used to train and deploy its models increasingly comes from sustainable sources. A BCG study found that AI can actually reduce an organization’s carbon footprint by 5 to 10 percent, or by up to 5.3 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) if scaled globally. That’s roughly the emissions of India and Japan combined.

Small steps, big impact

At a business level, AI can be used to automate and optimize operations, which helps to reduce carbon emissions at scale. Since launching our “suggested macros” feature in October 2021, Zendesk has saved an estimated 18.6 million minutes of agent time for our customers. This in turn has helped to reduce over 600 tonnes of CO2e from customer experience (CX) activities—roughly equivalent to 133 gasoline-powered vehicles driven for one year. And that’s just the impact of one feature.

We believe that AI can be a powerful tool in the push to accelerate climate action, but only if used and developed responsibly. Here are the steps companies can take to promote more sustainable AI:

Boost awareness

Raising stakeholder awareness is a critical first step to driving action. By implementing responsible AI policies and educating employees, companies can promote a more sustainable culture around AI training and implementation.

At Zendesk, environmental sustainability is a key consideration of our Business Code of Conduct and our guidelines for responsible AI usage.

Call for greater supplier transparency

Companies should call on their cloud vendors and AI service providers to be more transparent about their own AI policies, and push for more sustainable practices where possible. This sends a strong signal to suppliers that more accurate data around the true environmental impact of AI services is needed.

Promote energy efficiency

Using energy-efficient IT hardware, such as servers and laptops with a high Energy Star rating, can play a major role in minimizing power usage of AI computation and in reducing companies’ carbon footprint. It can also greatly reduce companies’ energy expenses.

Use renewable energy

When possible, power AI computation with renewable energy, such as solar and wind. These sources produce energy without depleting natural resources and with minimal greenhouse gas emissions.

Apply sustainable engineering practices

AI engineers can help to improve energy efficiency and sustainability across the entire development lifecycle. At Zendesk, we have used the following techniques to reduce the carbon footprint of our AI features:

• Use existing models and trained datasets whenever possible: Developing, training, and deploying new models requires additional energy and risk contributing to carbon emissions.
• Rightsize and simplify AI models: Large language models (LLMs) are not always the best approach to solving problems. Consider using smaller, lighter models to reduce computation power, while also accomplishing business outcomes.
• Use domain-specific models tailored to our business needs: This can lead to similar outputs with much better efficiency. For instance, Zendesk AI uses models that are trained specifically for the CX industry.
• Only use AI when we truly need it: Think about whether AI is the best tool to solve the problem, or whether other technologies (with lower computing and energy requirements) can be used to achieve business needs.

Our shared role

AI will transform much of how we live and work. That much is certain. But how it’s used and to what end have yet to be determined.

We all have a role to play in ensuring that AI can contribute to a more sustainable, low-carbon future—and what we do now matters. Zendesk is committed to measuring and reducing the environmental impact of our AI products, and as we do so, we will continue to share our learnings with our communities and customers.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/electricai-ryan-denehy/ Fri, 08 Dec 2023 16:19:12 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=641587 Electric.ai, an IT solution for small businesses, was founded in 2016. Today, Electric.ai has grown to 300 employees, and more than 1000 customers. CEO and founder Ryan Denehy joined us to discuss the importance of overcoming self-doubt, learning how to surrender, and making tough calls. Here are his three tips for other entrepreneurs. Overcome self-doubt […]

The post How to overcome self-doubt and thrive through startup challenges with Electric.ai’s Ryan Denehy appeared first on Zendesk.

]]>

Electric.ai, an IT solution for small businesses, was founded in 2016. Today, Electric.ai has grown to 300 employees, and more than 1000 customers. CEO and founder Ryan Denehy joined us to discuss the importance of overcoming self-doubt, learning how to surrender, and making tough calls. Here are his three tips for other entrepreneurs.





Overcome self-doubt by asking a simple question

Self-doubt can creep in at any time. In Denehy’s case, it first emerged during a time that would normally be a cause for celebration among founders. ‘When the first million hit the company bank account, I was sitting at home one night,” he recalls. “I was thinking of all the different ways the company wouldn’t work, all the potential competitors, and all the reasons why it was going to fail. And I spent half an hour seriously considering just wiring the million dollars back and not doing it.”

Denehy experienced many more moments when he believed Electric.ai was on the brink of failure. Two of them were so extreme that it made the founder physically ill. “It literally felt like my head was detaching from my body,” he says.

Today, Denehy has developed a perspective that has helped him navigate the uncertain nature of being a founder: “What I say is, ‘Well, what’s the worst that could happen? The company fails. I would rather fail having tried than fail after never even starting.’ That’s the thing I remind myself of every day. As an entrepreneur, you have to go into it with the expectation that there is a high likelihood that it’s not going to work, and you just have to get comfortable with it.”

Surrender—only worry about the things you have control over

Over the last 17 years, Denehy has founded three companies. His experience as a prolific founder has taught Denehy not to worry about anything that he does not personally control. He explains, “When people talk about ‘trusting the process,’ that process is having a maniacal focus on the stuff you can control. The stuff you don’t control is going to come at you no matter what.”

By focusing on his own sphere of influence, rather than dwelling on uncontrollable variables, Denehy discovered a newfound peace of mind. “I had to surrender to the fact that I can’t change that we are in a macroeconomic downturn, or that 10 percent of my customers might go out of business,” he says. “You know what I do control? I control my time, how much money we spend, the products we release, how fast we move, and how I communicate with my investors. That was probably the biggest turning point for me in terms of my own sanity—you just need to stop worrying about the things you can’t control. Life gets a lot easier.”

To put his thoughts in order and help him stay motivated, Denehy has developed a habit of writing lists. He says, “It’s like a form of journaling. Every morning I think about the things that are going to have the highest impact. I remind myself of that every single day so that I have my head screwed on straight when I come into the office. I think through the narrative that I would tell internally and externally about how things are going right now.”

Make the tough calls, and know when to say no

After just three months on the market, Denehy was approached by the CTO of a well-funded startup. The CTO offered Electric.ai a $250,000 enterprise deal. “We fell out of our chairs because we were grinding 12 hours a day over $1,000 deals,” Denehy recalls. “Then this really well-known logo comes in and says we will pay you a quarter of a million bucks.”

The deal was tempting. Like most startups, Denehy and his team were fighting for survival. However, after discussing the deal, Electric.ai decided to turn it down because the deal didn’t align with the opportunity the company was pursuing. Electric.ai was created to help small businesses manage their IT, and if Denehy took the deal, he would not only be taking on another customer, but he would also be changing the direction of his business.

“That deal was going to drag us into a highly competitive market where there are a ton of other solutions,” he explains. “It was a tough call to turn the money down, but in hindsight, who knows what would have happened to our company? It would have represented 80 percent of our revenue and 80 percent of our time spent to go build something that ultimately wouldn’t have been a competitive solution in the market.”

The post How to overcome self-doubt and thrive through startup challenges with Electric.ai’s Ryan Denehy appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/ai-transforming-cx-agents/ Fri, 08 Dec 2023 16:17:20 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=641563 Few can deny the transformative power of AI, with customer experience (CX) set to see some of its biggest and most immediate impacts. Yet what that future actually looks like—and how soon we can expect it—is less certain. There’s always a gap between the development and adoption of new technologies, and AI is no different. […]

The post AI is transforming the role of CX agents—see what they expect and when appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> Few can deny the transformative power of AI, with customer experience (CX) set to see some of its biggest and most immediate impacts. Yet what that future actually looks like—and how soon we can expect it—is less certain.

There’s always a gap between the development and adoption of new technologies, and AI is no different. How big that gap is depends on numerous factors and perhaps, most importantly, the readiness of teams. According to our research, 84 percent of CX leaders feel they must do more to prepare for the impacts of AI, with 82 percent rethinking their entire approach.

Transitioning to a hybrid model will be key. This means embracing the efficiency gains of automation without losing the human touch. But how quickly teams expect they can make these changes is an important question. We surveyed 600 CX leaders and agents to better understand their views on the evolution of their roles, their industry, and what that timeline might look like.

Here’s what they predict CX teams will look like one, three, and five years out:

Year 1: Agent as troubleshooter, AI as traffic cop

Looking one year out, teams will be focused on upskilling their agents while primarily using AI for ticket routing and deflection. During this period, training will be essential. In fact, 69 percent of respondents say that training on AI has increased or will do so in the next year, with a similar number citing increased training specifically on AI-driven sentiment analysis.

Agents will need to understand where AI fits into their evolving workflows and how tools like generative AI can make them more efficient. They will also begin to provide a critical layer of AI oversight—ensuring that AI outputs are carefully monitored before going out to customers. 70 percent say this is happening or will happen in the next 12 months.

In addition to the technical aspects, respondents expect a greater emphasis on soft skills. The human element—empathy, communication, and understanding—will become even more critical to recruiters and teams.

Year 3: Agent as expert, AI as co-pilot

Three years from now, expect to see a closer partnership between human agents and bots—with each carving out their own unique set of roles and responsibilities. Agents will transition into deeper product and data expertise, all while relying on AI to drive a greater amount of routine customer engagement.

AI is also expected to play a critical role in providing real-time data on key performance metrics like customer sentiment and agent productivity. This will ensure that teams can optimize their operations and deliver the highest quality customer service.

61% of respondents say agents will transition into deep product and data experts within the next three years.

As agent skill sets broaden to include harder skills like data interpretation and analysis, recruitment strategies are expected to evolve. 62 percent of CX leaders and agents say that in three years, organizations will prioritize candidates with an aptitude for AI and tech.

Year 5: Agent as conductor, AI as driver

Within five years, agents will no longer just be experts. Instead, they will be conducting a harmonious symphony of AI-driven customer service. In this time frame, AI will become more than a tool—it will be driving the majority of customer interactions, preemptively addressing customer needs, and streamlining processes automatically as issues arise.

Even as AI takes on the lion’s share of engagement, agents will remain the human touchpoint by ensuring that every interaction feels genuine, approachable, and personal. Where necessary, they will have the authority and know-how to override AI’s recommendations and create the best possible outcomes for customers.

Teams are expected to seamlessly leverage various innovative tools to improve customer experiences. This may include mixed reality for immersive customer solutions, digital twins to help scale their reach, or something entirely new.

70% of respondents say that agents will utilize mixed reality to help solve complex customer issues in the next five years.

Keeping the heart in customer service

As AI grows in influence and agent roles change, we expect massive changes to the world of customer service. Though the future isn’t certain, one thing is abundantly clear: the need to connect with customers on a genuine, human level should remain the central commitment of any great CX team. And for that, agents will remain indispensable.

Learn more about what CX leaders and agents predict for the future of customer service.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/it-leaders-employee-experience/ Thu, 07 Dec 2023 20:44:04 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=640865 “The way we work” is a global preoccupation. Are we doing a good job? Are we driving results? Is our work meaningful? Good employee experiences are a luxury in times of economic hardship. Adequate pay, work-life balance, and benefits like healthcare go further to create positive employee experiences than perks like office pizza parties or […]

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]]> “The way we work” is a global preoccupation. Are we doing a good job? Are we driving results? Is our work meaningful?

Good employee experiences are a luxury in times of economic hardship. Adequate pay, work-life balance, and benefits like healthcare go further to create positive employee experiences than perks like office pizza parties or casual Fridays.

But good employee experiences result in better business outcomes. Higher employee satisfaction drives revenue. The smart thing for businesses to do is to invest in employee experience (EX). And according to a new Zendesk report, IT leaders understand this need but have different ideas about how to solve for it.

According to a global survey we conducted of 1,200 IT leaders, employee experience is mission-critical, with 86 percent of surveyed leaders agreeing that employee experience has a “very positive impact” on ROI.

If there’s one thing we can take away from the shift to hybrid working models, it’s that the way we work is always evolving. Expectations have changed. Legacy systems are no longer optimized for current conditions. To combat silos and poor communication between teams, many companies are reinvesting in tools and software, leading to better employee experiences.

In this report

Here are five takeaways from our research—be sure to check out the full report:

1. When it comes to EX, there’s an ownership problem

Almost half of the IT leaders we surveyed admit that “no one really owns” the employee experience, indicating a lack of clear responsibility or strategic focus in this area. A lack of visibility into operations can result in oversights, like disparate systems performing similar functions that could otherwise be consolidated.

2. Silos aren’t going anywhere, but the right tools can help

Getting to the root cause of workplace silos, like competition between teams and a lack of communication, is the first step in clearing hurdles. Most can relate to the feeling of navigating esoteric portals and email chains to get the answers they need. To foster better communication, tools that easily connect employees to services from HR and IT should be accessible and readily available.

3. IT leaders play a huge role in getting EX buy-in

IT leaders understand the role they play in improving employee experience. In fact, the ones we surveyed see plenty of areas for improvement: 86 percent of them agree that their teams are integral to building up EX across their organization, while 85 percent see value in implementing a single solution that meets the needs of multiple departments. IT leaders will have expert insights into the complicated ecosystem of their business systems and integrations and the impact of introducing new tools or processes.

4. Improving EX is possible despite setbacks

While some research suggests employee satisfaction is likely to drop in 2024, businesses that take action now can ensure positive experiences that result in better outcomes. These actions can include digging deep to understand employee needs, investing in modern tools that automate routine tasks, and choosing the right tools with the right features based on specific criteria.

5. AI has the potential to drastically enhance EX

IT leaders see significant potential in AI to enhance the EX, with 85 percent agreeing that deploying or evolving AI is a high priority over the next year. For example, AI can be used in EX tools to manage high volumes of requests—especially when trained on IT- and HR-related queries—without adding headcount. AI tools can help employees solve issues on their own, eliminating complicated webs of intranets and portals between them and their solutions.

To get more details on how IT leaders can enhance the employee experience by eliminating silos, download the full report below for free. If you’re interested in learning about Zendesk AI for EX, go here.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/frontlines-critical-customer-service/ Fri, 01 Dec 2023 00:20:42 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=640991 The vast majority of customer service isn’t critical, but that’s not the case for nonprofits working at the forefront of some of the most pressing challenges facing our planet and society today. From connecting refugees with life-saving information to responding to survivors of domestic violence, these teams understand the urgency of a quick, efficient, and […]

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]]> The vast majority of customer service isn’t critical, but that’s not the case for nonprofits working at the forefront of some of the most pressing challenges facing our planet and society today.

From connecting refugees with life-saving information to responding to survivors of domestic violence, these teams understand the urgency of a quick, efficient, and empathetic response. Moreover, they recognize the important role that tech platforms like Zendesk play in helping them to scale their limited resources, boost their efficiency, and ultimately serve more people.

Though most teams aren’t responding to populations in crisis, there are important lessons to be learned from those working at the very frontlines. Here are four ways that Zendesk’s Tech for Good partners are scaling and accelerating their ability to serve needy communities around the world.

1. Expand your reach with hyper-personalized support

Tailoring your tech to reach people in their local language and on channels they’re familiar with is an important step to unlocking new interactions.

The Signpost Project is an innovative digital platform aimed at helping crisis-affected communities around the world. It provides vital, often life-saving information in local languages to help people access services and make informed decisions.

Utilizing Zendesk’s multilingual support capability, Signpost created help centers in more than 20 countries—ensuring the broadest reach within 48 hours of any crisis. As a result, they expanded their operations tenfold in just three years. To date, Signpost has reached over 60 million people, earning it the distinction of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Action Campaign Award in 2023.

2. Use chatbots to boost the impact of small teams

Like any small support team, nonprofits must find creative ways to ensure that their limited resources don’t limit their impact. That’s why it’s so important to find tech solutions that can empower their employees and increase their reach.

For Spring ACT, an organization that supports survivors of domestic abuse, speed and scale are a must. By utilizing a chatbot, this dedicated team of nine full-time employees and about 80 volunteers is able to provide confidential, 24/7 support to survivors of domestic violence—no matter where they are in the world.

Known as “Sophia,” this always-on support channel instantly connects survivors with the information and resources they need to understand their rights, collect evidence, and get help.

3. Continually audit and update self-service resources

Self-service can be a helpful way to get information quickly into the hands of those who need it, but only if it’s updated and easily accessible.

By consolidating their resources into one place, The Information Technology Disaster Resource Center (ITDRC) streamlined the process for deploying life-saving assistance in an emergency. Here, volunteers can find updated information on organizational policies, training resources, and field equipment available for use.

When it’s time to move quickly, this self-service portal helps ITDRC reduce the burden on their team, eliminate friction, and ultimately be more effective in getting the job done.

4. Learn from your work

Tracking your efforts and analyzing the results can help service teams understand common issues and become more efficient.

For Urban Alchemy (UA), an organization that provides outreach and support to disenfranchised communities, being able to collect, route, and visualize data makes it possible for them to improve their response and scale their impact.

As part of their Los Angeles-based CIRCLE project, the team receives and responds to all non-violent 911 calls related to homelessness, mental health, and addiction. They rely on Zendesk to collect information on each call, route it to their medics on the streets, and then evaluate their results. Equipped with this valuable feedback, they’re able to better service their community as the project continues to grow.

Building a team that can meet any challenge

To meet the urgent needs of their communities, critical customer service teams must be agile, responsive, and easily scalable—something that all CX leaders, no matter what issues they’re tackling, should strive for.

Not sure where to start? Look to those where fast, personalized, and empathetic responses are mission critical.

Learn more about Zendesk’s Tech for Good program, which provides free software and expertise to nonprofits that address urgent social problems.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/new-integrations-nov-2023/ Thu, 30 Nov 2023 21:22:22 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=641174 Here are the newest integrations from Zendesk to help your team provide top-quality experiences. Zoom Phone for Zendesk Zoom Phone for Zendesk (Support) enhances your Zendesk experience and streamlines your workflows. Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise video communications–with an easy, reliable cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, collaboration, chat, and webinars across […]

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]]> Here are the newest integrations from Zendesk to help your team provide top-quality experiences.

Zoom Phone for Zendesk

Zoom Phone for Zendesk (Support) enhances your Zendesk experience and streamlines your workflows. Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise video communications–with an easy, reliable cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, collaboration, chat, and webinars across mobile devices, desktops, telephones, and room systems. Install the Zoom Phone integration and enjoy benefits like click-to-dial phone numbers in Zendesk, automatic call logging, automatic logging of calls to Zendesk, voicemail and recording access in call logs, ability to send and receive SMS, and more.

Maven AGI Co-Pilot

Maven AGI Co-Pilot (Support) is the modern AI-powered co-pilot for your support team. Maven helps customers deploy the power of AI to improve the support experience. It helps answer questions instantly, suggest follow ups, and take action. By automating support workflows with AI agents, customers can reduce support costs by up to 75 percent. The Agent Co-Pilot system assists human agents in crafting perfect responses, freeing them up to focus on complex, higher-level tasks. Leverage AI to anticipate customer needs and provide proactive guidance, preventing problems before they arise.

Sellcustbridge

Sellcustbridge (Support) revolutionizes the way marketplace sellers manage customer interactions. Designed for efficiency, this tool seamlessly aggregates all buyer messages from multiple Amazon and eBay seller accounts, regardless of how many seller accounts you manage. See all relevant order details next to a customer message and fill custom fields automatically by order-related data.

Yellow.ai Agent Assist

Yellow.ai Agent Assist (Support) is an AI-first Automation for better customer experiences using XO Platform. The app is designed to enhance customer support by leveraging a range of functionalities to streamline the conversation process and improve overall efficiency. Key features include chat summarization, agent suggestions, and search capability.

Additional apps added in November:

• NotifyMe (Support) allows you to create and receive ticket alerts in the Zendesk agent workspace. NotifyMe is a lightweight notification and reminder application designed to help you stay organized and on top of your tickets.
• Apple + ChatGPT AI assistant By Saasly (Support) is developed to handle your multiple apps for Apple Store reviews and ratings within Zendesk and convert all customer inquiries from the Apple Store into Zendesk tickets. It is enabled with ChatGPT to help you create personalized responses to customers automatically, generate ticket summaries, and adjust the tone of how you respond to your customers.
• Worknet.ai (Support) is a conversational user experience, akin to ChatGPT, integrated to all of your relevant data sources: Zendesk Guide, Confluence, Jira tickets, and more. It is seamlessly integrated with both Zendesk and Slack for native functionality.
• Opencart Multistore (Support) smoothly integrates your Opencart store with Zendesk, enhancing the accessibility of customer information within the Zendesk platform. The application consolidates comprehensive customer details and offers a robust breakdown of all customer orders.
• Help Center Translate (Support) automatically translates your Zendesk Guide articles into any language and maintains original HTML formatting. Synchronize translations to and from Zendesk Guide and even bulk-translate multiple articles into one or more languages.
• Stylo Voice AI (Support), powered by the latest OpenAI and ChatGPT technology, instantly converts your voicemails into accurate text, making it easier to stay on top of your messages without ever hitting ‘play’.
• Markprompt AI Draft Composer (Support) is the AI chatbot creation platform that empowers businesses to build and customize chatbots in minutes, no setup required.
• Out-Of-Office by Saasly (Support) gives agents the capability to set Out of Office (OOO) status for future dates, enabling them to plan ahead. Agents can define a customized response automation rule for their Out-of-Office status. During the agent’s absence, ticket assignments are restricted until their return.
• Custom Object Commentator (Support) allows you to add custom object detail to ticket comments. The Custom Object Commentator sidebar app allows you to add a custom object lookup field’s data and related lookup object data to Zendesk ticket comments.
• Macha AI Support (Support) integrates with Shopify stores to help support teams answer redundant customer queries. Macha uses a combination of Shopify products, collections, order details along with Zendesk help articles, macros, and previously solved tickets. This allows the AI to create accurate answers from a robust knowledge base.
• Tubelight Communications (Sell) empowers your teams with the convenience of initiating calls with a single click in Zendesk Sell. Capture crucial conversations and transactions with ease. Every call, whether inbound or outbound, can be recorded, archived, and retrieved whenever needed.
• Nightfall Data-at-Rest Scanner (Support) helps you scan all data-at-rest that is stored in your Zendesk account across tickets, comments, and file attachments, including HTTP Archive (HAR) files. Harness the power of Nightfall’s advanced detection engine to scan data at rest in your Zendesk instance, providing you with a comprehensive inventory of risk.
• Avenue (Support) centralizes business monitoring systems, ensures the right person is alerted at the right time, and holds your team accountable for each follow-up all the way through resolution. Use this Zendesk application to view the Avenue data associated with each Zendesk ticket and submit Avenue forms directly from Zendesk.
• Macorva (Support) seamlessly integrates with Zendesk to provide a comprehensive customer feedback experience. With Macorva, you can automatically trigger customer surveys at key stages of the resolution process, allowing you to gather real-time feedback and gauge customer sentiment.
• GCF Softphone (Support) allows users to make and receive calls directly from Zendesk, save call history in CRM, start calls to customers from their page in CRM, view voicemails, and use a variety of numbers provided for incoming and outgoing calls, including numbers from over 150 countries.
• ChatGpt Suporte Inteligente (Support) helps you quickly grasp the context of Zendesk tickets with AI-generated summaries of previous tickets and enhances the quality of your replies with AI support, ensuring accuracy and consistency in your responses.
• Mercado Pago by menze (Support) lets you integrate Mercado Pago to Zendesk to be able to create and send payment links directly within your Support tickets, offering a faster and easier payment method to your customers.
• Casas Bahia by menze (Support) lets you connect your Casas Bahia accounts to your Zendesk instances, allowing you to centrally manage all customer interactions and provide more effective support.
• ImpulSIS para WhatsApp (Support) is a friendly and intuitive app for sending tailored messages and campaigns. Customer service agents will be able to send active messages via WhatsApp using the official Meta APIs, one at a time or in bulk, directly from the Zendesk Support screen.
• ChatGpt AI by IntegrateCloud (Support) instantly answers your customer’s queries with a personalized ChatGPT AI bot trained on your Zendesk Help Center. The ChatGPT AI integration with Zendesk enables you to automate customer interactions and provide instant, personalized support, all within the Zendesk platform.

New themes added in November:

Ralph theme has a clean and modern layout and comes with all the necessary features to help you bring your help center vision to life. It boasts a neat layout theme offering customizable features including page layout, homepage, header and footer links–and offers image boxes.

To view the full list of incoming apps, follow our weekly release notes.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/erika-tabacniks-podcast/ Wed, 29 Nov 2023 18:06:02 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=641150 As the manager of customer success for the world’s largest professional networking platform, LinkedIn, Erika Tabacniks knows a thing or two about the importance of work-life balance in ensuring team success. In this episode of Conversations with Zendesk, Tabacniks spoke about managing customer success with AI, the importance of open communication and work-life balance for […]

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]]>

As the manager of customer success for the world’s largest professional networking platform, LinkedIn, Erika Tabacniks knows a thing or two about the importance of work-life balance in ensuring team success.

In this episode of Conversations with Zendesk, Tabacniks spoke about managing customer success with AI, the importance of open communication and work-life balance for support teams, and a charming anecdote about exceptional customer service that embodies the Japanese concept of ikigai.

“Customer relationship management—building and nurturing strong, long-lasting relationships—is at the core of our mission,” Tabacniks says. And in order to navigate the complexities of customer success, one must cultivate meaningful relationships on their teams.





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Tabacniks also highlights the importance of work-life balance in fostering a healthy work environment, which, in turn, goes a long way toward improving the customer experience. “I encourage a work-life balance,” she says. “Taking breaks, disconnecting from work when they’re actually off. Using their vacation days—something a lot of Americans don’t do. Leaders can set an example.”

Catch the last episode of 2023 on December 14, when Zendesk CEO Tom Eggemeier sits down with host Nicole Saunders to talk about how AI is delivering a real-world impact and where Zendesk is headed in 2024.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/saas-customer-support/ Tue, 28 Nov 2023 22:39:49 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=641130 What is SaaS customer support? SaaS (software as a service) customer support refers to the systems and practices technology companies use to best serve their customers. This support extends from pre-purchase to post-sale, focusing on completely resolving consumer issues while also driving home the value and functionality of the SaaS product. Nowadays, every business needs […]

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What is SaaS customer support?

SaaS (software as a service) customer support refers to the systems and practices technology companies use to best serve their customers. This support extends from pre-purchase to post-sale, focusing on completely resolving consumer issues while also driving home the value and functionality of the SaaS product.

Nowadays, every business needs to provide an outstanding customer experience (CX), but the level and expertise of support varies by industry. An e-commerce brand, for example, may only need to handle basic inquiries about product specs, refunds, or shipping concerns. Diving into the world of technology companies, however, provides a vastly different experience.

SaaS businesses have the unique responsibility of providing both basic and technical support. This includes answering common customer concerns while also ensuring customers completely understand the product for maximum adoption and customer retention.

In this guide, we’ll touch on the basics of SaaS customer support and the steps you can take to implement a successful support ecosystem.

More in this guide:

• Why is SaaS customer support important?
• Components of a strong SaaS customer support strategy
• How to measure SaaS customer support
• How to improve SaaS customer support
• SaaS customer support examples
• Scale your SaaS customer support with Zendesk

Why is SaaS customer support important?

SaaS customer support is important because every interaction between a business and a consumer matters. Companies that can effectively educate and assist their customers have a greater chance of maintaining long-term consumer relationships.

SaaS organizations provide ongoing product support alongside general customer support requests due to the learning curve often associated with these products. Therefore, support agents need to ensure every individual they interact with leaves with complete resolution. If not, customer churn rates can skyrocket due to a misunderstanding of the software.

There are numerous benefits of SaaS customer support, including:

• Customer satisfaction: According to the Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2023, over 70 percent of consumers will switch to a competitor after multiple bad experiences. When companies provide excellent SaaS customer support, they can better secure customer retention.
• Customer knowledge: SaaS products often come with several features and capabilities that may be difficult for consumers to learn. Support interactions can offer information customers need to understand the product and possibly contribute to long-term adoption.
• Internal feedback: Customer support interactions can provide valuable insights into user needs and pain points. SaaS businesses can use internal feedback to improve their product and internal processes.
• Competitive advantage: According to our CX Trends Report, more than half of customers have made a purchase solely based on the customer service they expect to receive. In an industry as competitive as SaaS, companies with exceptional customer support can stand out in the marketplace.

SaaS businesses can achieve all these benefits with the right processes and action plan.

Components of a strong SaaS customer support strategy

A well-crafted SaaS customer service strategy consists of several key components and support tools that can increase the level of customer service and drive product success. Here are a few of the most important ones.

AI and automation

AI and automation have become integral to a strong customer support ecosystem and can help businesses streamline issue resolution. Chatbots, for example, can automate responses to frequently asked questions, helping consumers resolve their issues in seconds. And with the help of AI, the bot can also automatically transfer a customer to the right live support agent for the task. Customers can get answers faster through this process, and support teams can focus on more complex issues.

Additionally, generative AI can assist agents by quickly expanding and shifting the tone of their messages, so they can resolve issues quickly and consistently.

Integrated customer data

According to our CX Trends Report, 7 in 10 consumers expect anyone they interact with to have the full context of their situation. This means SaaS support teams must have access to comprehensive customer data.

This data—which you can gather from user accounts, email, previous support interactions, and more—creates a holistic view of the customer, so support reps can personalize every interaction. Doing so results in streamlined support interactions and more effective service desks.

Unified omnichannel ticketing system

Today’s consumer communicates with businesses through several mediums, including a company website, email, or social media profile. As such, SaaS companies need a unified omnichannel ticketing system to centralize all interactions in one place. When businesses embrace an omnichannel approach, they can streamline ticket management, prevent duplicate tickets, and ensure good customer service.

Scalability and agility

SaaS businesses can achieve exponential growth seemingly overnight. As a result, their chosen support strategies and service desk software must be agile, to get up and running quickly, and scalable to adapt to changing user demands without a decrease in support quality. These principles are essential to ensure that customer support remains responsive and effective even with a customer base increase.

Outstanding support team

SaaS customer service agents are the first line of defense against customer questions and concerns. These team members have the unique responsibility of being an empathetic voice when faced with dissatisfied customers and serving as experts on technical issues or similar product concerns. Building a team of skilled and effective support agents is crucial for great customer service and a successful SaaS customer support strategy.

Customer-first initiatives

Being customer-first means putting the customer at the center of organizational decision-making instead of only focusing on products or profitability. When SaaS businesses adopt this mindset, they can better understand customer needs and pain points, more effectively gather feedback, and proactively address concerns.

How to measure SaaS customer support

There are many ways to measure SaaS customer support, but the best way is by keeping track of essential customer service key performance indicators (KPIs). A few KPIs include:

• Average resolution time: This refers to the time it takes a customer service representative to solve a ticket.
• Occupancy: This is the amount of time a support agent spends resolving tickets.
• First reply time: Also known as first response time, this measures how long it takes for a support agent to respond to a consumer request.
• First contact resolution: Known as “one-touch tickets” at Zendesk, first contact resolution measures how many tickets are solved with only one support agent (i.e., no transfers or multiple agents are involved).
• Tickets handled per hour: This is how many tickets, on average, a support agent interacts with per hour.
• Customer satisfaction score: Otherwise known as CSAT, this measures how happy your customers are with products, services, and the overall experience with your business.

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How to improve SaaS customer support

There’s no one solution to improve SaaS customer support. It’s a constantly evolving process requiring teams and processes to work harmoniously. To reach your goals, consider the following steps.

1. Take a proactive approach

Most businesses want to reduce customer support interactions, and taking a proactive approach is the best way to do just that. Part of a customer-first strategy, being proactive involves anticipating customer needs before they become major concerns.

To illustrate, a company may emphasize information on its product page addressing a frequently asked question about a product. Or, a company may send out an email alerting customers that there is a product bug that is currently being fixed. Businesses can significantly improve their customer relationships by identifying and addressing issues as soon as possible.

2. Keep a record of your metrics

Data and performance metrics are some of the most important indicators of the effectiveness of your support efforts. Regularly track and analyze customer satisfaction, first reply time, first contact resolution, and other metrics using help desk software or other recording methods.

Businesses that develop comprehensive records of these metrics can use that data to identify areas of improvement and other bottlenecks in their operations. This results in more intelligent, data-driven decisions that can improve the support system.

3. Always strive for improvement

A continuous commitment to improvement should be at the core of any customer support strategy. Regularly review your performance metrics, agent training programs, support technologies, and high-level strategy to ensure you are always progressing and improving as a support system.

Furthermore, set concrete goals to guide those improvement efforts. For example, don’t just pledge to be “better” in six months—pledge to have a five percent CSAT improvement by Q3.

4. Ask for customer feedback

No one knows the effectiveness of your support system better than your customers. Regularly seek their feedback through surveys, feedback forms, questionnaires, FAQ pages, community forums, help desk ticketing systems, and any other place you can connect with them.

This information is invaluable in uncovering common pain points, preferences, and customer expectations. Doing so shows that you value customer opinion and can unearth improvement opportunities that your team may not be aware of.

5. Promote team collaboration

Effective SaaS customer service is a collaborative effort. If every department or team functions as an independent silo, impactful consumer information and support interactions can easily be forgotten.

Encourage collaboration and knowledge sharing among your support agents and schedule team meetings and brainstorming sessions so every customer-facing employee can weigh in on trends and current operations. By fostering a collaborative environment, you can tap into your team’s collective expertise to improve the customer experience.

SaaS customer support examples

Now that we’ve covered what efficient SaaS customer service and strategy look like, let’s see how businesses have used customer service software to level up their operations.

Reverb

Reverb is a Chicago-based business that focuses on buying and selling musical instruments, as well as teaching people how to play. Given the expertise that many of its customers have, the company quickly knew that knowledgeable, effective customer service was paramount to success—something Reverb turned to Zendesk for.

Pairing musically inclined support agents with Zendesk omnichannel capabilities, Reverb’s support staff delivers an outstanding CX across phone calls, chat requests, and emails. Furthermore, the company leans on many of the Zendesk personalization capabilities to get ahead of customer needs and provide proactive service.

With Zendesk, Reverb saw a big jump in support efforts, including a 10X increase in self-service usage and a 97.6 percent CSAT.

Instacart

Instacart is a same-day grocery delivery service with two distinct user bases: customers who order food and shoppers who pick up and deliver that food. The company needed a system that would allow them to best serve each user—and that system was Zendesk.

Instacart relies on the customizable features and comprehensive integrations Zendesk offers to tailor the experience for each user base. Now, whether a shopper or a customer contacts Instacart through call, email, or text, its support team has everything they need to solve these issues in a flash.

After partnering with Zendesk, Instacart achieved a 90+ percent CSAT score, even with a 175,000+ monthly ticket volume.

CARET

CARET is a SaaS company that seeks to deliver high-quality legal and accounting software solutions. The organization always prioritized customer-first experiences, so when they needed to enhance the customer and agent experience, Zendesk was a no-brainer.

CARET uses Zendesk to streamline its workflows and communication as well as manage client services, business systems, and support tickets from internal and external customers. Since partnering with Zendesk, CARET has achieved a 1.54-hour median first reply time and 91 percent average CSAT score.

Scale your SaaS customer support with Zendesk

Effective SaaS customer support is vital for enhancing CX, promoting customer acquisition, and fostering long-term relationships. Businesses need to implement a strong strategy that utilizes AI and automation, an omnichannel ticketing system, customer data, and more—key areas where Zendesk excels.

With Zendesk, you can create meaningful connections with your customers, scale your support, and maintain flexibility through change.

Start a free trial today.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/auth0-eugenio-pace/ Mon, 20 Nov 2023 15:54:55 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=640857 At the age of 42, Eugenio Pace was a late bloomer in the startup game. But that didn’t stop him from thriving. The first-time founder built the identity authentication platform Auth0 from scratch in 2013, and in May 2021, he sold it to Okta for $6.5 billion. In this episode of Sit Down Startup, Pace […]

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At the age of 42, Eugenio Pace was a late bloomer in the startup game. But that didn’t stop him from thriving. The first-time founder built the identity authentication platform Auth0 from scratch in 2013, and in May 2021, he sold it to Okta for $6.5 billion. In this episode of Sit Down Startup, Pace discusses why developers are important in tech, the validation of that first sale, and how luck and timing impact growth.





Understand the people you’re selling to

Pace understands developers. When he was working at Microsoft, Pace was tasked with finding obstacles that would prevent developers from moving applications to the cloud or building them there. Pace initially attempted to enhance Microsoft’s configuration system, but realized it was limiting and opted to build his own.

Pace’s goal was to create solutions that provided a good user experience for developers. He believed selling services to developers could lead to selling to bigger organizations.

He explains, “Developers are a very important constituency in the technology world, but they are often overlooked by companies because they don’t have money or they don’t have a budget themselves. They unlock budgets from others.”

Celebrate the first sale, no matter the amount

In 2013, Pace achieved a major milestone for any startup founder: the first sale. Pace was so excited he screamed with happiness. His wife rushed into his office, and Pace told her the good news—he had just made a $27-a-month sale. She said, “You are going to need a lot of those.”

His wife was right, but for Pace, the sale was about more than money. “The first sale is such an important milestone for a startup because it doesn’t matter what advisors and investors tell you—the true proof that you are doing something valuable in the world is a customer’s check. That is the ultimate validation.”

Later that year, Pace closed Auth0’s first enterprise deal for hundreds of thousands of dollars. It was a phenomenal moment that confirmed the belief Pace had built his company on. “For me, that was the first enlightenment that our hypothesis—that we could sell to developers, and through developers, we could sell to bigger organizations and get a bigger commitment—was real. We could do it.”

Timing (and luck) both play a part in company growth

When Auth0 entered the market, cloud computing was in its emergent stage. Pace admits his first year as a startup founder was difficult, but Auth0 had a significant advantage. “There is a non-trivial component of luck,” he says. “The biggest component to what we call luck, it’s really the timing.”

In 2013, the tech landscape saw the emergence of companies that centered their business models around the developer persona. Notable examples included Twilio, Stripe, Heroku, and SendGrid. Each of these companies shared a key element with Auth0. “All these companies are awesome, and they have the same approach,” Pace explains. “We make the life of developers super easy.’’

As the market began to acknowledge the value of a developer-centric strategy, Auth0 launched and experienced significant growth. “The timing was the right timing for us,” Pace says.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/mercury-immad-akhund/ Fri, 17 Nov 2023 17:13:27 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=640819 Mercury, a banking service for startups, was launched in 2019 and has since grown to 357 employees and tens of thousands of customers. CEO and co-founder Immad Akhund joined us to share some advice on classic strategies, ambition, and how to spread the word about your business. Here are his tips. Encourage your investors to […]

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Mercury, a banking service for startups, was launched in 2019 and has since grown to 357 employees and tens of thousands of customers. CEO and co-founder Immad Akhund joined us to share some advice on classic strategies, ambition, and how to spread the word about your business. Here are his tips.





Encourage your investors to talk about you on social media

Mercury was founded to provide banking for startups. To attract startup founders, Akhund took an organic approach to marketing. “What worked for us was Twitter,” he says. Mercury had 60 angel investors at the seed round, and Akhund asked all of them to tweet about the company. The impactful tweets from A16z, Elad Gil, Justin Kan, and other tech influencers helped drive the initial growth.

As an experienced entrepreneur who founded multiple companies, Akhund knew that most startups were dissatisfied with their business bank accounts. He was confident Mercury would win customers because it fulfilled an obvious need in the tech industry. “That bit wasn’t hard—the hard bit was trust,” he says. “Do you trust your hard-earned business money to a new startup that just launched? Getting these relatively well-known tech influencers to tweet about us gave us distribution, and it also helped bridge this trust gap that existed. That was very important.”

Akhund also knew the organic approach was key to getting Mercury in front of founders. He explains, “We deliberately targeted startups because the way founders make a decision about whether to use a tool is not through a Google search—they ask other founders.”

According to Akhund, this word-of-mouth approach continues to be successful, driving about 55 percent of the company’s growth.

Make sure your message encapsulates the scale of what you’re trying to achieve

While the investor tweets certainly helped to spur Mercury’s growth, Akhund insists that messaging matters, especially when it comes to organic marketing. He has been a member of the startup founder community since 2007, so he understands that creating interest in a startup relies on two key factors: ambition and simple messaging.

“I think the important thing is to be doing something ambitious. We were like, ‘Hey, we are building a bank.’ That’s something that is ambitious, and it’s a hard thing to think about.” Although introducing and explaining a new banking service can be difficult, Akhund developed a straightforward message that he used throughout his organic marketing campaign. “The message was ‘banking for startups.’ We wanted people to say that over and over.”

Participate in podcasts or start your own and chat with other founders

Organic marketing was so effective for Mercury that Akhund pursued any opportunity to talk about his startup. “When it comes to early marketing, I am a big fan of trying lots of stuff,” he says. “I don’t think you can really know what’s going to work and what will scale—you have to throw a lot of stuff out there. I went on a bunch of podcasts, and we ran our own podcast. My thinking was, ‘The Twitter thing worked so how can we generate more tweets?’” He invited subject matter experts with large followings onto the podcast to gain more exposure for his company while educating his audience.

Akhund also developed a platform called Mercury Raise, which helps founders fundraise and network. He says, “One of the things to do to drive marketing is to do the things that don’t make you money. When it’s all about, ‘I am going to personally make money from this thing,’ it’s easy for other people to tune out. But if you do a helpful thing that is educational for the community, that drives marketing for free. It is cheaper to do that than to spend millions of dollars on billboards.”

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/workforce-planning-template/ Thu, 16 Nov 2023 21:00:50 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=640732 What is a workforce planning template? A workforce planning template is a guide that helps a business align its workforce with future goals and objectives. Through strategic questions and steps, an organization can evaluate the current status of its employees and identify opportunities for training, hiring, succession planning, and more. In the American National Football […]

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What is a workforce planning template?

A workforce planning template is a guide that helps a business align its workforce with future goals and objectives. Through strategic questions and steps, an organization can evaluate the current status of its employees and identify opportunities for training, hiring, succession planning, and more.

In the American National Football League (NFL), teams don’t just happen to win the Super Bowl.

Sure, there are star players and strong offensive lines, but championships are won by well-rounded teams, goal setting, and game-day strategies—all of which require plenty of forethought, planning, and hard work.

Successful organizations draft and develop new talent, acquire impact players through trades and free agency, and start looking ahead when star players are nearing retirement. Championship franchises follow a proven framework—one you can emulate in your operations.

Workforce planning templates set businesses up for success by aligning organizational goals with business needs. These templates can help with retirement planning initiatives, identify individual and departmental skill gaps, and shine a light on customer service metrics. Read on to learn how you can set up an organizational dynasty with workforce planning templates.

More in this guide:

• Why do you need a workforce planning template?
• 7 workforce planning templates
• Strategic workforce planning template
• Workforce development plan template
• Workforce gap analysis template
• Workforce transition plan template
• Workforce labor forecasting template
• Workforce individual analysis template
• Customer service workforce template
• How to introduce a workforce planning template to your team

Why do you need a workforce planning template?

A business should use workforce planning templates because they provide a framework for organizational success.

After all, a company is only as successful as its team is, so it’s crucial to keep an eye on agent productivity, competency of the workforce, and future staffing levels. Workforce planning templates can assist in several key areas:

• New hire planning: When organizations identify future talent gaps, they can plan and deploy hiring initiatives to help prevent turnover and maintain an optimal number of employees.
• Training opportunities: Templates can identify where improvements are needed to foster career development and ensure staff members consistently thrive.
• Resignations and retirements: With a proper plan, organizations can combat planned resignations by identifying successors and implementing transition plans, reducing the impact of talent loss.
• Organizational planning: When workforce managers think long-term with workforce planning templates, they can stay ahead of industry trends and maintain market strength.

7 workforce planning templates

Now, let’s look at seven planning templates that can aid in your workforce strategy.

• Strategic workforce planning template
• Workforce development plan template
• Workforce gap analysis template
• Workforce transition plan template
• Workforce labor forecasting template
• Workforce individual analysis template
• Customer service workforce template

1. Strategic workforce planning template

Best for initial workforce planning

When first creating a workforce plan, you need to evaluate your organization from every angle. Our strategic workforce planning template provides a high-level overview of your current and future goals, staffing needs, and training requirements. From here, you can build strategic direction and implement initiatives to improve your organization and foster a modern employee experience.

Download template

2. Workforce development plan template

Best for employee development

To remain competitive in the marketplace, businesses need to invest in their employees. Use this template to evaluate individual staff members to get a sense of their career goals and any training or action steps they’ll need to take. This development plan can also play a helpful role in retention, identifying new skill sets, and employee experience journey mapping.

Download template

3. Workforce gap analysis template

Best for identifying employee and team-wide training opportunities

With this template, businesses can identify gaps and shortages in employee and organizational skill levels. The template includes space for the desired proficiency, action plans for improvements, and timelines. When a company knows the skills and shortcomings of its employees, it can engage in training exercises and product supplementation to help them perform their duties more effectively.

Download template

4. Workforce transition plan template

Best for planned retirements and other planned role changes

Workforce change is inevitable. Organizations should adequately plan for retirements and resignations, especially for high-level roles. Complete with checklists and transition dates, this template can help a business plan for future role changes to ensure incoming employees don’t miss a beat in their new roles.

Download template

5. Workforce labor forecasting template

Best for forecasting future labor needs

Businesses need to plan for internal and external trends affecting future day-to-day operations. This template features entries and questions that allow you to comprehensively analyze the demographics and status of your workforce. Doing so can help you create effective action plans and training regimens for you and your employees.

Download template

6. Workforce individual analysis template

Best for analyzing a workforce on a more individual level

Use the workforce individual analysis template to evaluate your workforce as a sum of its parts. Enter employees’ information to see a side-by-side comparison of team and departmental experience, skill level, salary, and more. This process can highlight areas of improvement and help businesses set new strategic goals and implement employee development initiatives—factors that can improve employee engagement.

Download template

7. Customer service workforce template

Best for examining departmental customer service levels

Providing an outstanding customer experience (CX) should be at the top of every company’s priority list. How you treat and assist customers directly impacts how successful you’ll be in acquiring new business and building long-term relationships. Our customer service workforce template has entries for analyzing the six customer service metrics every support team should track.

Download template

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How to introduce a workforce planning template to your team

Creating a successful workforce planning template is only half the battle. Ensure your organization commits to the new strategy so operations go as planned. Here are some ways you can do that.

Create a unified vision

Every team member needs to align with your workforce planning template. Share it with key stakeholders—like managers, HR professionals, department heads, your collective internal help desk, and other relevant members of your organization—so everyone knows the purpose of your new strategy. You can ensure smooth implementation when all personnel are on the same page and understand their roles in the workforce plan.

Establish benchmarks for success

Workforce planning templates can create organizational success, but their effectiveness depends on your own benchmarks. Don’t just introduce a new template—introduce it with clear and measurable key performance indicators (KPIs) and workforce data. By defining goals, you give your organization the direction needed to fully maximize your new strategy.

Stay flexible

Just because you develop a workforce planning template doesn’t mean it’s the be-all and end-all of your organizational strategy. As time progresses, check in on those previously established benchmarks to monitor your performance. If you need to make strategy adjustments, don’t feel shackled by your current plan, and revise it if necessary.

Explore outside tools like help desk software or employee experience software if you think it will make your organization productive.

Optimize your workforce planning and workforce management with Zendesk and Tymeshift

Workforce planning templates can help you establish an organizational dynasty, but they’re only one piece of the puzzle. Workforce management (WFM) is a set of processes businesses use to manage employees and resources and to optimize productivity—and WFM strategies can inform your planning.

That said, performing WFM can be time-consuming, especially if you’re using spreadsheets. When you manage people, conduct scheduling, and need to understand your employees’ activity, a WFM tool can help—that’s where we come in.

To expand on our world-class customer service capabilities, we’ve acquired Tymeshift, a workforce management solution built just for Zendesk. With the power of both products, you can create a seamless workforce management and customer support ecosystem that can optimize your operations.

Start a free trial of Tymeshift today.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/dianelye-rivian-podcast/ Wed, 15 Nov 2023 19:39:16 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=640725 As chief information officer for electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian, Diane Lye has a front-row seat in the carbon-free transportation revolution. A veteran of companies such as CapitalOne and Amazon, Lye has enjoyed a varied career as a demographer and statistician, among other roles. In this episode of Conversations with Zendesk, Lye spoke about leadership lessons […]

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As chief information officer for electric vehicle manufacturer Rivian, Diane Lye has a front-row seat in the carbon-free transportation revolution. A veteran of companies such as CapitalOne and Amazon, Lye has enjoyed a varied career as a demographer and statistician, among other roles.

In this episode of Conversations with Zendesk, Lye spoke about leadership lessons she’s learned over her career, why it’s so important to find meaning in your work, and the challenges Rivian faces as it expands globally while fine-tuning the customer experience.

“We have a lot of big ideas about how we want to improve our customer experiences across sales, servicing, and support,” Lye said. “We’re beginning to think about what is the next generation, what will the next step look like?”





Subscribe to Conversations with Zendesk

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As Lye and her fellow Rivian employees focus on improving the customer experience, they’re driven by a singular mission: to produce innovative, stylish vehicles that will help drivers move away from fossil fuels.

“If we destroy the Earth’s atmosphere, it’s forever,” Lye said. “We have to make sure that our planet is the place we can be forever. That’s the mission that drives 15,000 Rivians to work very hard every single day.”

Be sure to catch the next episode of Conversations with Zendesk on November 29, when Erika Tabacniks of LinkedIn talks about customer success management best practices, and more.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/employee-experience-zendesk-ai/ Tue, 14 Nov 2023 19:50:21 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=640707 Recent years have brought to light the important role employee experience (EX) plays in a company’s success. According to a study by Harvard Business Review, a company can increase its revenue by 50 percent by improving its employee experience. In our 2023 Employee Experience Trends Report, 79 percent of EX professionals said that EX will […]

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]]> Recent years have brought to light the important role employee experience (EX) plays in a company’s success. According to a study by Harvard Business Review, a company can increase its revenue by 50 percent by improving its employee experience. In our 2023 Employee Experience Trends Report, 79 percent of EX professionals said that EX will be a higher priority within the next 12 months.

Given the significance of EX, we’re thrilled to announce our latest batch of product innovations, designed to help internal service teams, such as IT and HR, deliver exceptional employee experiences. These new capabilities will enable seamless self-service experiences for employees and free up your internal teams to focus on more complex work. Keep reading to discover our latest EX features.

Zendesk AI for EX teams

It’s no secret that HR and IT teams are at the forefront of helping employees navigate the workplace, from pivoting between different working models (remote, in-office, and hybrid) to employee onboarding and offboarding, answering employee questions, and much more. We’re happy to share that our latest AI releases are meant to take the pressure off of IT and HR teams so they’re more productive and engaged. Zendesk AI includes:

• Intelligent triage: This AI-powered feature detects intent, language, and sentiment to classify incoming requests, which helps teams set up the appropriate workflows and provides deeper reporting insights on top employee issues.
• Advanced bots: Enhanced bots for messaging and email come pre-trained on an extensive database of intents and industry-specific topics, so they can deliver personalized, accurate responses to employees.
• Intelligence in the context panel: This feature within the Zendesk Agent Workspace provides agents with insights about the employee and suggests ways to solve issues, helping to improve resolution times.
• Macro suggestions for admins: Zendesk AI suggests new shared macros that admins can create to help agents respond faster and more effectively.

These exciting product innovations help IT and HR teams remain efficient—even when they’re spread thin—ultimately improving the employee experience.

Read more about our advanced AI capabilities here.

Conversation bots for Slack Direct Messages (DM)

Additionally, the Zendesk conversation bot can now be leveraged in Slack Direct Messages (DM) to provide better self-service. Our bot pulls information from your knowledge base to craft accurate responses and surface helpful articles, allowing you to give employees and business partners the answers they need—at any time of the day.

As a result, this feature can enable better self-service, boost productivity, and allow HR and IT teams to focus on more sensitive or complex requests.

See more details about our conversation bot for Slack DMs here.

Secure help center integrations

A common pain point for employees is needing to navigate between different channels to find basic information, which can be time-consuming and decrease productivity levels.

With our latest capabilities, Zendesk users can now make their help center a one-stop shop for all their employees’ self-service needs. For instance, you can integrate data from your HR, finance, and learning management systems into your help center to create a comprehensive employee experience portal—no more switching between systems.

While there’s no cap on services that can be integrated, any request you make to the Zendesk Help Center JWT APIs is subject to your plan’s API rate limits.

Custom ticket statuses

For many IT and HR teams, standard open and closed ticket statuses are not always best suited to describe the status of a specific ticket. This usually results in a lack of visibility for critical ticket collaborators and prevents employees from knowing the status of their own tickets.

With custom ticket statuses, Zendesk users will be able to better manage ticket workflows and create new statuses that are more meaningful to their business and end-users. These can be used in SLAs, automations, triggers, views, and side conversations.

Learn how to create a custom ticket status here.

Employee 360 app

Many HR teams need to know certain employee information, such as location or department, to provide support efficiently and effectively. The lack of integration with a human capital management system (HCM) or other employee systems can often result in longer SLAs and decreased employee satisfaction.

The Employee 360 app is delivered by our Professional Services team for a flat fee, helping Zendesk customers improve their employee experience while removing the need for custom services and integrations. With this launch, our customers can connect up to 15 fields from their HR system of record to Zendesk, and bring key employee context into every interaction.

Get more information about Zendesk Professional Services here.

Zendesk helps businesses deliver better EX

Prioritizing and enhancing EX is both an investment and a commitment for organizations seeking to achieve long-term success. Our new suite of innovations is specifically designed to address the challenges faced by IT and HR teams, as we aim to empower them with a range of features that enhance their productivity and overall experience.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/transforming-customer-service-generative-ai/ Thu, 09 Nov 2023 23:19:42 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=640475 Over the last year, there’s been a lot of talk around generative AI and its potential to improve the customer experience (CX). In fact, two-thirds of consumers believe that generative AI will soon become an important part of their service experiences. Generative AI refers to an AI model that returns or generates outputs based on […]

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]]> Over the last year, there’s been a lot of talk around generative AI and its potential to improve the customer experience (CX). In fact, two-thirds of consumers believe that generative AI will soon become an important part of their service experiences.

Generative AI refers to an AI model that returns or generates outputs based on prompts—these outputs can include text, images, videos, code, or audio. When applied to customer service, generative AI can improve personalization efforts, reduce resolution times, or even create more conversational experiences between customers and bots. As a result, companies can meet customers’ rising expectations.

We’re delighted to broaden our Zendesk AI offering with the integration of elevated generative AI capabilities. From optimized bots to knowledge base enhancements, this suite of capabilities unlocks untapped potential, enabling businesses to deliver effortless service experiences and attain higher customer satisfaction. Learn about our latest innovations below, and click here for more details on our AI capabilities.

Generative AI for bots: Make conversations more human-like and natural

Generative replies for more effective self-service

Building, managing, and training bots has long been a time-consuming task for customer service admins. Even if hundreds of workflows are set up to respond to customer queries, it’s still likely that bots might not understand every customer question, ultimately creating friction within the customer experience.

With generative replies, bots can automatically understand the customer query, sift through the linked help center, and surface the right information in a synthesized format, all on their own. The best part: Generative replies are ready to use with a click of a button—no coding or developer support required. This eliminates the training and maintenance associated with setting up and managing conversation bots. And with an all-new intents dashboard, agents can easily choose the topics that should be automated with generative replies, enabling admins to save a significant amount of time.

This feature can be incredibly helpful for businesses of all sizes, allowing them to scale effortlessly while ensuring customer satisfaction. For instance, generative replies can be used to expand bot coverage to answer frequently asked customer questions, as long as the help center is up to date. Just add articles for the most common customer topics, and the bot will automatically use information from the help center articles to answer those questions. This enables businesses to scale their support—without the need for additional headcount—and enhance the customer experience.

Reflect brand personality with a bot persona

On top of generative replies, a bot persona allows businesses to reflect their brand’s personality across all conversations between bots and customers, reinforcing their brand and ultimately improving CX.

These bot personas determine the style of expression applied to an AI-generated message, giving businesses a consistent voice. Users can select a persona for their bots (professional, friendly, or playful), and choose up to 20 emojis that bots can use in their responses.

For businesses trying to differentiate themselves from their competitors, extending brand personality to bots can be extremely advantageous. It creates service consistency across channels and locations, which helps customers form more meaningful connections with a specific brand.

Generative AI for knowledge bases: Craft content faster

For support agents, building and updating help center articles is a time-consuming task, especially on top of their numerous other responsibilities. To address this, we launched a new feature that enables agents to quickly produce help center content. Agents just need to type a few bullet points, and generative AI can expand them into a full help center article. Support agents can also shift the tone of the article to make it more formal or casual, depending on the company’s brand.

This feature enables businesses to build and expand their knowledge base content efficiently while boosting the productivity of their support agents. Additionally, it ensures the proper tone is used in each article so the content resonates with customers.

Generative AI for agents: Enhance skills and productivity



When it comes to solving tickets, many agents spend their time trying to understand their customers’ situation and write the appropriate reply. Our slew of generative AI capabilities enhance agents’ productivity and skills so they can assist customers quickly and effectively.

For instance, generative AI can summarize a customer conversation for agents, saving them time and ultimately decreasing ticket resolution time. Agents can also confidently respond to customer queries with writing enhancement tools that help with response phrasing. They simply need to type a few words, and generative AI will expand on them to create a fully fleshed out reply. Agents can even adjust the tone of their response to make it more friendly or formal.

Generative AI for voice: Improve efficiency

Our last generative AI feature saves agents from needing to summarize calls, which can become rather time-consuming. This feature provides a full call transcript after every call, as well as a bulleted summary—helping agents reduce call wrap-up time and transition to their next task faster.

For retailers, especially during peak season, this feature is highly helpful for call center agents, who spend on average 17 percent of their time on wrap-up calls, according to Zendesk research. As a result, this feature boosts agent efficiency and productivity, empowering them to focus on assisting customers instead of on administrative tasks.

Embrace the future of customer service

The use of generative AI presents a leap forward in overhauling customer service experiences. Our latest features are set to leverage this potential, leading to improved agent productivity and enriched customer experiences. As we march toward a future where customer satisfaction is paramount, AI could well hold the key to unlocking unprecedented levels of agent efficiency and customer service excellence.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/generative-ai-guide/ Fri, 03 Nov 2023 20:38:00 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=640442 What seems like a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, humans existed without the internet. In just a few short decades, the internet went from existing in science fiction media to a common tool with over 5 billion users worldwide. Recent technological breakthroughs have introduced generative AI to the masses, putting it […]

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]]> What seems like a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, humans existed without the internet. In just a few short decades, the internet went from existing in science fiction media to a common tool with over 5 billion users worldwide. Recent technological breakthroughs have introduced generative AI to the masses, putting it on a faster track to popularity than the World Wide Web.

According to the Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2023, 65 percent of business leaders believe the AI they use is becoming more natural and human-like—and it’s only going to get better. As more businesses begin implementing generative AI to improve customer service and enhance the employee experience, it’s important to understand how to harness the power of this novel AI technology to its full potential.

Our comprehensive guide breaks down the types, applications, examples, benefits, and challenges of generative AI, so you can maximize your overall customer experience now and in the future.

Table of contents:

• What is generative AI?
• How does generative AI work?
• Who uses generative AI?
• Traditional AI vs. generative AI: What’s the difference?
• Types of generative AI models
• What are some popular generative AI applications?
• Benefits of generative AI
• Challenges with generative AI
• How to use generative AI for customer service
• Frequently asked questions

What is generative AI?

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is an AI-powered technology that uses extensive libraries of information to generate new things, like stories, pictures, videos, music, and software code.

For a more technical generative AI definition, Forrester describes it as “a set of technologies and techniques that leverage a very large corpus of data, including large language models (LLMs) like GPT-3, to generate new content.”

How does generative AI work?

Generative AI uses machine learning (ML) algorithms to analyze large data sets. That means you can feed artificial intelligence a bunch of existing information on a topic, so it can learn and find patterns and structures. Based on what it learns from this data, generative AI can create new, original content.

For example, you can ask ChatGPT—the popular text-to-text generative AI chatbot by OpenAI—to write a sonnet about how Luke Skywalker feels about Darth Vader being his father in Shakespearean iambic pentameter. ChatGPT will quickly gather relevant information on the internet about the Star Wars saga and William Shakespeare’s sonnets and instantly produce new content from what you’ve requested.

And yes, we actually asked ChatGPT this question. Here are the results:

“Upon the starry canvas of my fate,
A revelation dark did cast its shade,
In shadows deep, a truth I did berate,
My father, once a Jedi, now betrayed.

In crimson mask, he sought to rule the skies,
With heavy breath, he walked a twisted path,
Yet in his heart, a shred of good beliefs,
A conflict fierce, an inner war’s cruel math.

O father, kin by blood, but not by deed,
Thy presence haunts my dreams, my waking days,
A legacy of darkness, dark indeed,
But hope persists, a light in Sith’s malaise.

Though Vader’s grip on me is strong and tight,
My love, my faith, may yet redeem the knight.”

Who uses generative AI?

Businesses of all sizes—startups, small businesses, mid-sized businesses, and enterprises—use generative AI in different ways. Businesses may use it to streamline and enhance customer support, sales, marketing, IT, development, HR, and training teams. Some examples of generative AI use cases include:

• Enhancing the existing abilities of customer support agents with AI-powered assistance
• Analyzing large amounts of data for more accurate lead scoring and sales forecasting for sales teams
• Personalizing marketing communications
• Optimizing data center operations for IT departments
• Generating code for software developers
• Creating and updating internal content and documents for human relations (HR) departments
• Streamlining onboarding and agent training

These generative AI examples are just the tip of the iceberg. As generative AI becomes more mainstream, businesses will find more and better ways to implement the technology.

Traditional AI vs. generative AI: What’s the difference?

	Traditional AI	Generative AI
Objective	Task-specific and rule-based	Content generation
Learning	Uses predefined programming	Identifies patterns from large datasets
Output	Task-specific	New content or data samples

The difference between traditional AI and generative AI is that traditional AI uses machine learning, predefined rules, and programmed logic to perform specific tasks, whereas generative AI learns from large datasets to create human-like content. For example:

• Traditional AI can make ticketing systems more efficient by identifying the customer sentiment, intent, and language of service requests, automatically routing them to the right agent based on predetermined criteria (such as expertise, capabilities, and availability).
• Generative AI boosts agent productivity by providing intelligent writing tools, allowing teams to address requests more efficiently and provide consistent support.

Businesses can use both traditional and generative AI to analyze data. While traditional AI can make educated predictions based on the data, generative AI can create new data based on the provided datasets. Generative AI can also adapt to context and produce unique, creative content.

Generative AI vs. machine learning

The difference between machine learning and generative AI is that machine learning isn’t limited to generative tasks. Both types of AI learn from patterns found in large datasets and interactions, but machine learning makes predictions or classifications and doesn’t generate new content.

Types of generative AI models

Generative AI has various use cases, meaning there are many different types of generative models. Here are some of the most common types of generative AI models.

Generative adversarial networks

Generative adversarial networks (GANs) work by training two different learning computers (called neural networks) on the same datasets to generate increasingly more realistic content over time.

The two networks, called the “generator” and the “discriminator,” compete against one another, pushing each other to continuously create better content. Once the GAN receives the same information, the generator creates a data sample (like an image or text) based on the training data. The discriminator then analyzes what the generator created and determines if it’s real or generated data.

GANs are like two players competing in a game. Let’s use Star Wars droids R2-D2 and C-3PO as the competitors.

The game consists of R2-D2 (the generator) creating images of Ewoks, the Millennium Falcon, and other things from the Star Wars universe. C-3PO (the discriminator) examines these images and decides if they look real or fake, just like a Jedi inspecting a lightsaber to see if it’s genuine.

As they keep playing the game, R2-D2 gets better at making the images more realistic, based on C3PO’s feedback.

Transformers

Transformer-based generative AI models are neural networks that use deep learning architecture (algorithms to find patterns in large amounts of data) to predict new text based on sequential data. Transformers can learn context and “transform” one type of input into a different type of output to generate human-like text and answer questions.

Think about the auto-suggest feature on messaging apps. Say Han Solo wants to send Princess Leia a text message. As he starts to type, generative AI predicts the next word in his typing sequence and offers macros (suggested text) for him to quickly select so he doesn’t have to type out every word.

For example, Han might type, “May the” and generative AI might suggest, “force be with you.”

Variational autoencoders

Variational autoencoders (VAEs) are generative models that encode input data, simplify and optimize the data points, and store them in a hidden storage area called a latent space. When prompted, it pulls the data from the latent space and reconstructs the data to resemble its original form. VAEs often create generative AI images and text.

Imagine Yoda, a powerful Jedi master who can use the Force to transform images into scrolls of encrypted text, instantly transports them to a locked chest on the remote planet of Dagobah, and then transforms the scrolls back into the original image on demand.

Say you give Yoda a picture of Chewbacca. Yoda can turn it into a scroll and keep it secure in his chest on Dagobah. A few days later, you ask Yoda for the picture. He once again channels the Force to access the scroll and return it to its original form.

Flow-based models

Flow-based models take complex data distributions and transform them into simple distributions. This type of model is typically used for image generation.

Say young Anakin Skywalker has a set of building blocks and every block is a different color. If Anakin wants to arrange the blocks to create a pattern, he can move the blocks in any position, but he must ensure that he always has the same number of blocks in the pattern. A flow-based model enables Anakin to create new patterns or refine existing ones while ensuring that the Force—or number of blocks—is always in balance.

Recurrent neural networks

Recurrent neural networks (RNNs) are used to process and generate sequential data. Training an RNN on data sequences generates new sequences that resemble learned data. RNNs predict what comes next in a sequence based on what’s occurred in previous sequences. RNNs are the generative AI model for Siri and Google Voice search.

Imagine Princess Leia and Wicket the Ewok are playing catch with a ball in the forest of Endor. Each time Leia throws the ball, Wicket catches it effortlessly. Wicket catches the ball consistently because he’s learned to anticipate the ball’s path and predict where it will land based on all the previous throws (sequences).

[gated-cta-in-post]

What are some popular generative AI applications?

As we continue to learn more and understand the benefits of advanced AI for customer service, new generative AI applications are surfacing. Like the Skywalker lineage, these popular generative AI apps are the bluebloods of artificial intelligence software.

1. Zendesk AI

Best for: streamlining the customer service experience and enhancing the employee experience

Zendesk AI is a powerful tool that’s accessible to anyone. It sets up in minutes without the need for developers, heavy IT spending, or months of lead time. It’s designed for the entire service experience and trained on the best customer experience (CX) data—billions of data points from real customer interactions. It can also be customized, making it easy for businesses to apply AI how they prefer.

In addition to our core ML/AI capabilities, Zendesk AI delivers GenAI that includes:

• Generative AI for agents that supercharges agents’ skill sets.
• Generative AI for bots that enables generative replies by using existing knowledge from the customer help center for accurate, conversational responses. Agents can also adjust the bot personas to match the brand’s personality, tone, and voice.
• Generative AI for knowledge bases that expand content, turning bullet points or a single sentence into a full paragraph. Agents can also instantly shift the tone of the article to be friendlier or more formal with one click.
• Generative AI for Voice that provides agents with a call summary and stores a call transcript on the ticket. This helps agents significantly reduce call wrap-up time and seamlessly transition to their next task.

2. ChatGPT

Best for: creating written content, like articles, social media posts, emails, and software code

OpenAI’s popular foundational model ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer) uses natural language processing (NLP) to create conversational interactions. It’s essentially an AI-powered chatbot that specializes in providing instant responses to user questions, generating content, and acting as a virtual assistant.

3. DALL-E

Best for: producing brand assets like logos and marketing images

DALL-E is another application developed by OpenAI that generates images from text prompts. Users can enter text descriptions of a potential image and DALL-E will create a visual that matches the text. Users can ask DALL-E to produce visual representations of complex ideas or theories, making them easier to understand. It’s even used by healthcare professionals for high-quality medical imaging and radiology.

4. Bard

Best for: predictive analytics and identifying business trends

Google offers two generative AI models, PaLM, a multimodal model, and Google Bard. Bard is a conversational generative AI chatbot created by Google as a competitor to ChatGPT. It uses context-aware translation between languages, making it globally accessible. Users employ Bard for reporting and analytics, content generation, information on current events, language translation, and image surfacing.

5. Bing AI

Best for: troubleshooting problems and suggesting solutions for business issues

Microsoft has entered the chat. Bing AI is an AI-powered tool developed by Microsoft that utilizes Bing’s search engine to boost its machine learning capabilities. Users can integrate Bing AI with voice-activated devices, allowing them to leverage it as a voice assistant.

Benefits of generative AI

Generative AI offers numerous advantages, especially for customer service teams. Here are a few of the most common benefits.

Enhanced customer experience

With generative AI, your customer support teams can deliver an enhanced customer experience. Manage high volumes of requests during peak times with instant, automated answers to customer inquiries via generative replies, messaging tools, and chatbot software.

Generative AI allows for more natural, personalized conversations with accurate information. This results in a better customer experience, higher customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores, and customer loyalty. Generative AI also provides multilingual support, recognizing and adapting to languages for 24/7 global customer service.

Improved agent productivity and efficiency

Streamline workflows and make agents’ jobs easier with generative AI tools. Generative AI can handle simple tasks so agents can focus on more complex issues. Here are a few ways to leverage generative AI to boost agent productivity and efficiency:

• Ticket summaries: Generate a quick summary of ticket content so agents can understand the issue and respond faster.
• Advanced bots: Deflect tickets with bots that provide data-driven suggestions for instant, conversational support.
• Content creation: Automate and streamline the process of creating content so content owners don’t have to.

Zendesk, for example, offers generative AI in the unified, omnichannel Agent Workspace. In collaboration with OpenAI, Zendesk harnesses the power of generative AI to boost agent productivity by helping support teams create knowledge base content at scale. Generative AI can also summarize long tickets for agents and transform a brief reply to a customer’s request into a fully fleshed-out response in seconds.

Reduced support costs

AI in the workplace lets your customer support team do more with less. Generative AI helps save time and costs by deflecting tickets, streamlining workflows, and automating repetitive tasks. This means ticket queues are manageable and agents are free to focus on more complex issues, all while helping the same amount of, or more, customers.

Generative AI can also help management teams gather more meaningful insights into what types of customer issues and questions may need automation. GenAI can provide quick answers about which automation gaps exist and which would be the most beneficial to agents and business operations.

For example, it can flag if a high percentage of customers are reaching out about resetting their password or tracking their orders, so support teams can deflect these types of queries to a bot. Admins can then build these automations sooner rather than later, saving businesses time and money.

Challenges with generative AI

Generative AI can offer many benefits and help businesses navigate challenging times. But with all new technology, there may be some unexpected twists and turns. Here are a few things to consider when implementing generative AI.

Biased, outdated, or unreliable information

Generative AI systems create content based on data it’s been trained on, which could include biased, outdated, or unreliable data. It’s important to vet and validate data sources to confirm your generative AI application is pulling reliable information. Create processes and guidelines that allow you to track and remove biased data from your datasets, and monitor and review content outputs regularly to ensure information is factual and unbiased.

For example, Zendesk only makes AI available to customers after it passes rigorous quality checks. Each AI prediction or suggestion must exceed a confidence scoring threshold before being used to build automated processes.

Generative AI hallucinations

Generative AI applications are trained to provide the most reliable outputs to user commands. However, generative AI tools can sometimes produce blatantly wrong information or inaccurate results called “hallucinations.”

A hallucination is when the generative AI application provides false or irrelevant information unrelated to the dataset from which it was trained. Simply put, that means the AI model generated new content based on facts but added its own creative interpretation, resulting in distorted information. These instances do not occur often but could deliver misinformation or insensitive content.

Human replacement concerns

Though the purpose of generative AI technology is to enhance productivity and skills, employees may be wary that implementing it may lead to them being replaced. Generative AI helps automate tasks, but genuine human connection can’t be replicated and is a crucial element of customer service.

When consumers have issues or questions, they still want the option to speak with a human. According to a recent poll, 81 percent of consumers say that access to a live agent is critical to maintaining trust with a business when they have trouble with AI-powered customer support. Zendesk ensures there is always human oversight so the technology is being used properly and customers are receiving the level of service they expect.

How to use generative AI for customer service

Using AI for customer service makes it easy for your support team to create an exceptional customer experience with more human-like interactions. Here are a few ways to use generative AI for customer service.

Scale self-service

The opportunities to elevate your self-service resources are practically endless with generative AI. Here are just a couple of ways to use generative AI to scale self-service:

• Streamline and accelerate knowledge base content by automating help center article creation.
• Inspire creativity for help center content teams with suggestions and recommendations.
• Make customer interactions with bots more natural and conversational by using your knowledge base to craft their replies.

With Zendesk AI, for instance, you can adapt the tone of your help center articles to make them more friendly or formal. This ensures that the content resonates with your audience and maintains a cohesive tone across your knowledge base. You can also deploy bots to offer self-service options in areas where customers commonly ask for help.

Optimize bot performance

Generative replies use information from an existing knowledge base, so you don’t need to develop custom answers. This greatly accelerates and optimizes bot-building time, and it enhances the customer experience by improving the accuracy of responses.

Additionally, pre-trained bots use intent suggestions. This feature highlights the common questions customers are asking so admins can build answers for those intents, improving the bot’s overall performance. It also results in significant time savings and helps teams scale their bots with ease. You can even create a persona for your bots, giving them a consistent voice that reflects your brand personality.

Supercharge human agent abilities

Generative AI can extend the abilities of your customer service agents by performing tasks like ticket summaries. GenAI can quickly give agents a ticket recap so they don’t have to read the entire conversation to understand an issue. This is particularly beneficial for priority or escalated conversations that need swift action.

Generative AI can also be used to summarize call transcripts. For example, Zendesk offers Voice AI, which utilizes OpenAI to dictate and store a call transcript on the ticket. This allows calls to be fully searchable and easily findable.

For content owners, enhanced writing tools make it easy to produce help center content without the heavy lifting. With just a few bullet points, generative AI can expand the content into a full article, in the requested voice and tone.

Ease agent onboarding and training

The same features that enhance the agent experience can also accelerate onboarding and training for new hires. Generated ticket summaries provide new team members with the most relevant information in the conversation, lessening their learning time.

New agents can get help with response phrasing, too. Say a new agent still needs to learn the company’s return policy and wants help replying to a customer with the appropriate details. The agent can type a few words, and generative AI can predict the rest of the sentence, filling in the blanks with the right information. Agents can also highlight their responses and adjust the tone of the entire message.

With these generative AI tools, businesses reduce training time and get support agents up to speed more quickly.

Frequently asked questions

What’s the difference between machine learning and artificial intelligence?

The difference between machine learning and artificial intelligence is that machine learning models use algorithms to recognize data patterns and apply those results to future analysis, whereas AI can analyze and contextualize data for human-like responses and actions.

What kinds of output can a generative AI model produce?

Generative AI can produce text, images, sounds, music, code, predictive data, and more.

Will generative AI eliminate human jobs?

While it’s near impossible to predict the future, generative AI shouldn’t eliminate jobs but rather enhance human skills and reduce repetitive tasks, making employees’ jobs easier.

Is generative AI reliable?

As with any type of data collection, generative AI’s reliability depends on the data source. It’s important to train generative AI models on accurate, reputable sources with verifiable data so the output contains trusted and correct information.

How can I use generative AI to improve the customer experience?

You can leverage generative AI to provide personalized support; create and update engaging self-service content in your knowledge base; gather insights from large datasets to improve your products and services; and automate processes that enhance support agent skills so they can provide exceptional customer service with every interaction.

The future of generative AI

With all the buzz around generative AI, it’s easy to buy into the excitement. However, it’s critical to have a game plan so you can maximize the benefits of generative AI now and in the future.

Our guide to advanced AI for customer service can help you learn how to harness the power of AI. Implementing generative AI now can put you in the driver’s seat to take flight on an exciting journey. We’ll be the Chewbacca to your Han Solo. Join us on the Millennium Falcon, and let’s soar into hyperspace.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/ai-transforming-workplace-infographic/ Thu, 02 Nov 2023 20:03:35 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=640537 There’s widespread acknowledgment that AI will be a core component of great employee experiences moving forward. Teams are growing increasingly optimistic about AI’s potential to deliver quality employee support that’s faster and more cost-effective. This infographic shows how EX professionals are preparing for the rise of AI in the workplace and leveraging it to optimize […]

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]]> There’s widespread acknowledgment that AI will be a core component of great employee experiences moving forward. Teams are growing increasingly optimistic about AI’s potential to deliver quality employee support that’s faster and more cost-effective.

This infographic shows how EX professionals are preparing for the rise of AI in the workplace and leveraging it to optimize workflows, increase employee engagement, and get more value with fewer resources.

For additional insights, check out the Employee Experience Trends Report 2023.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/workforce-management/ Thu, 02 Nov 2023 17:12:20 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=640515 What is workforce management? Workforce management (WFM) is a set of processes and technologies a business can use to manage employees and resources, optimize productivity, and ensure the organization complies with laws and regulations. The overarching goal of WFM is to create as much efficiency as possible. Many people can attest to cooking a nostalgic […]

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]]>

What is workforce management?

Workforce management (WFM) is a set of processes and technologies a business can use to manage employees and resources, optimize productivity, and ensure the organization complies with laws and regulations. The overarching goal of WFM is to create as much efficiency as possible.

Many people can attest to cooking a nostalgic family recipe only to discover it isn’t quite how grandma used to make it, realizing later that it’s missing the secret ingredient—whether it’s a pinch of nutmeg, some lemon zest, or an extra can of cream of mushroom—that makes the dish so special.

For a business, workforce management can be the secret ingredient that transforms operations from satisfactory to spectacular.

WFM focuses on tasks like employee scheduling, payroll management, and short- and long-term goal development and impacts the overall employee experience. Read on to learn how you can add workforce management to your organization’s recipe for success.

• Why is workforce management important?
• Benefits of workforce management
• Components of workforce management
• Challenges of workforce management
• Example of workforce management
• Frequently asked questions
• Improve your WFM with Zendesk and Tymeshift

Why is workforce management important?

Workforce management is important because it can help expedite employee scheduling, future initiatives, and budgeting, acting as the key ingredient that drives organizations to be as efficient as possible.

With a successful WFM strategy, businesses can take actions in the short term that increase productivity immediately, like schedule adherence, automatic scheduling, and AI-powered workload forecasting—things that make a manager’s job easier and keep employees on track. Additionally, WFM can contribute to long-term goal setting and improvements with strategies that give historical data on your teams’ performance.

Benefits of workforce management

Workforce management can aid organizations in several ways. Below are some of the top benefits for businesses implementing WFM processes.

Cost reduction

Payroll is a large expense for most businesses. When businesses put every dollar to good use, they can reduce unnecessary costs. Through precise employee scheduling and accurate workforce forecasting, organizations can limit overstaffing and excessive overtime and ensure each employee operates as efficiently as possible.

Strategic planning

A good workforce management system gives insight into business trends and performance analytics, providing a springboard for optimizing strategies. With WFM, businesses can make sure they have the right number of employees working at the right time, analyze company trends related to performance (like revenue per employee), and build off other data to create long-term improvements. Furthermore, businesses can leverage WFM principles to plan for retirements and resignations so they always have a stream of top talent.

Improved productivity

WFM principles like workforce allocation and performance monitoring can optimize productivity and ensure employees are operating in the right role for their skill set. And, if an employee isn’t working efficiently, managers can easily identify training opportunities or other roles that may be a better fit for the employee. Additionally, employers can compare team-wide performance metrics against those of similar companies to determine whether they need to adjust their processes.

Enhanced employee satisfaction

Workforce management promotes balanced workloads and consistent schedules through processes like staffing forecasts, which ensure that team members have ample notice of their future work schedule and that there are always enough workers on a given shift. This brings predictability to employees’ lives, allowing them to achieve a better work-life balance while potentially reducing burnout.

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Components of workforce management

Every business is unique, and no two workforce management processes are identical. However, there are some core components that WFM solutions should include.

Staff forecasting and scheduling

Businesses need to accurately predict future workforce needs—too many employees at one time results in wasted labor budgets, while too few can impact efficiency and customer service levels. This is a universal requirement for successful operations, regardless of whether companies implement general WFM, call center workforce management, or a different industry-specific approach.

Finding that scheduling sweet spot can be difficult, however, as organizational trends, employee skill levels, and changing consumer preferences are all common factors that can impact staffing requirements. With workforce management, businesses can create accurate schedules time after time and find the perfect balance between efficiency and labor cost optimization.

Time and attendance tracking

Time and attendance tracking—monitoring and recording employees’ hours, time off, and, in certain cases, their productivity—is crucial for both hourly and salaried teams. This data is essential for calculating payroll, optimizing efficiency, and complying with labor laws and regulations. Additionally, teams can use WFM time tracking to enhance employee experience management and ensure timesheets are always accurate.

Real-time team management

Real-time team management allows businesses to monitor employee schedules and customer demand on an hourly basis. This enables teams to make on-the-fly adjustments to schedules and resources so operations are running as efficiently as possible. This key WFM component can also highlight training opportunities and process improvements to keep businesses operating at peak levels consistently.

Reporting and analytics

Workforce management can help businesses make strategic, data-driven decisions through reporting and analytics features. With the help of WFM software, organizations can gather information on employee performance, attendance, turnover rates, and other important metrics like revenue per employee and time to fill. Using this data, teams can identify areas of improvement, implement strategies, and set long-term goals.

Challenges of workforce management

Managing a workforce effectively isn’t always easy. Here are a few challenges to be aware of when conducting WFM.

Efficient communication

Reliable communication can make or break an organization. For businesses to be successful, all employees must align with WFM policies and company initiatives. This is easier said than done, and it can be difficult to achieve efficient company-wide communication without a concrete process, especially in the era of remote work.

Key tip: Effective WFM strategies and tools are crucial for fostering collaboration, bridging interdepartmental gaps, and ensuring all personnel are on the same page.

Staff and talent shortages

Business efficiency and profitability are dependent on the quality of its workforce. If an organization experiences a dip in workforce quality—such as staff and talent shortages—it can disrupt operations, affect performance, and create overworked and inefficient employees. This can happen when a business lacks a clear hiring plan, a healthy work-life balance, or growth opportunities—things that top employees need to feel fulfilled.

Key tip: Companies need to develop WFM strategies to train, empower, and retain top talent and have the right systems in place for smooth transitions if that talent leaves.

Emerging trends and technologies

Staying up to date with trends—like automation, AI chatbots, advanced analytics, and employee experience software—is crucial for businesses to remain relevant in the marketplace. If companies aren’t constantly evolving and keeping up with new technologies and processes to optimize their operations, they can quickly get left behind by the competition.

Key tip: Quality WFM processes can ensure organizations are always aware of emerging trends and tech that positively impact efficiency.

Example of workforce management

See how one company uses WFM software Tymeshift as its secret ingredient to improve operations.

Peek

Peek, an online booking platform for tours and activities, uses Tymeshift to consolidate and streamline its WFM tasks.

Before using Tymeshift, Peek compiled data into spreadsheets, manually entering performance figures and employee trends—a task that took a tremendous amount of time. Due to its unorganized data collection, the company often had inaccurate staff scheduling processes.

After the switch to Tymeshift, WFM productivity skyrocketed. Erik Jansen, support team supervisor at Peek, says, “I used to do about 15 hours of WFM before Tymeshift. I think that I really got it down to maybe an hour a day.”

Frequently asked questions

Finally, here are some frequently asked questions about workforce management.

What is the difference between HR and WFM?

While these concepts have overlapping features, the difference between HR and WFM is that HR (human resources) primarily focuses on optimizing the employee experience and creating a positive work environment. WFM also touches on employee satisfaction but mainly focuses on optimizing operations through data collection and the proper allocation of employees.

What are the responsibilities of a workforce manager?

A workforce manager’s main responsibility is to oversee a company’s productivity and make sure that employees, budgets, and more are effectively utilized.

What is workforce management software?

Workforce management software, sometimes known as WFM software, is a technology that assists an organization in managing its employees, optimizing operations, reducing labor costs, facilitating workforce planning, improving the customer experience, and more.

Improve your WFM with Zendesk and Tymeshift

Workforce management is a crucial business strategy that encompasses everything from employee scheduling to planning future initiatives. Organizations that know to put this secret ingredient into their organization’s recipe for success can withstand customer service dinner rushes and ensure long-term profitability.

Last year, we announced our acquisition of Tymeshift–a modern workforce management system designed just for Zendesk users. Tymeshift now serves as the fastest and easiest way to manage and optimize the performance of agents, delivering AI-powered demand forecasting, automatic scheduling, and real-time and historical reporting on team performance.

Start a free trial of Tymeshift today.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/paulettechafe-itleaders-podcast/ Wed, 01 Nov 2023 22:23:01 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=640507 More than ever, IT leaders are experiencing a greater level of responsibility: from taking charge of data security to implementing AI, these technology professionals play an increasingly vital role in how CX is delivered to customers. Zendesk’s Paulette Chafe, head of customer insights and thought leadership, has kept a close eye on these trends. She […]

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More than ever, IT leaders are experiencing a greater level of responsibility: from taking charge of data security to implementing AI, these technology professionals play an increasingly vital role in how CX is delivered to customers.

Zendesk’s Paulette Chafe, head of customer insights and thought leadership, has kept a close eye on these trends. She sat down to explore these issues with Conversations with Zendesk host Nicole Saunders, where they dove into the in-depth research that led to Zendesk’s IT leaders report.

As Chafe points out, IT leaders face an interconnected series of challenges that all affect the customer experience, whether that’s data security, AI, or the employee experience.





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“There’s definitely a dependency happening that they are interrelated. And I can look at the rank order of them and see how one feeds into the other,” Chafe said. “Things are morphing together, and it’’l be interesting to see when we repeat this study, how the priorities begin to shift.”

Stay tuned for the next episode of Conversations with Zendesk, which will feature Diane Lye, CIO of Rivian, who will discuss how the electric car manufacturer is leveraging data and technology to enhance service quality and expand globally.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/generative-ai-problems/ Tue, 31 Oct 2023 20:43:02 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=640428 In the year since generative AI became widely available, the world has changed enormously. As of February, ChatGPT set the record for the fastest-growing user base. Once a novelty, generative AI is now part of the baseline of different technologies. Even beyond technology, generative AI is asserting itself in finance, pharmaceuticals, and art. With generative […]

The post Avoid these 3 generative AI pitfalls—and what to do instead, according to IT leaders appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> In the year since generative AI became widely available, the world has changed enormously. As of February, ChatGPT set the record for the fastest-growing user base. Once a novelty, generative AI is now part of the baseline of different technologies. Even beyond technology, generative AI is asserting itself in finance, pharmaceuticals, and art.

With generative AI, there’s a strong sense of uncharted territory for how it can be used. It’s a truly exciting (and confusing) era, as technologies and processes we once felt to be evident are changing before our eyes.

IT leaders are looking for ways to incorporate generative AI into their own products. While some applications are obvious—customer service chatbots, for example—other use cases are more creative or abstract. In the 2023 Zendesk report for IT leaders, we found that 80 percent of IT leaders plan to increase budgets to accommodate generative AI over the next year, with 83 percent agreeing that generative AI “will unlock large operational efficiencies within the next two years.”

In 2023, these brands embraced the possibilities of generative AI

Companies have had a year to experiment with generative AI, with many finding ways to simplify their customer journeys and personalize the customer experience. With all the excitement, it can feel like businesses that are not investing in some sort of AI-powered experience are falling behind. But as brands innovate, there is a strong sense that nearly anything is possible.

• TripAdvisor launched Trips, an itinerary generator powered by AI to help travelers get instant personalized recommendations.
• Wendy’s piloted generative AI voice controls in certain drive-thrus in an attempt to automate and simplify the ordering process.
• Google is testing virtual try-ons for select brands in Search, allowing shoppers to visualize how clothing fits a variety of models with different body types and skin tones.
• Etcembly, a biotech firm, used a home-grown large language model (LLM) to create an immunotherapy drug.
• Spotify’s DJ provides music recommendations interspersed with a realistic AI-generated voice for a personalized listening experience.

While some brands can leverage data to create personalized, AI-augmented experiences or products, many businesses are behind the curve. In one case study of a business that was “blindsided” by the rapid spread of generative AI, Wired reported that it was because “consumers [are embracing] experimental but capable tools such as ChatGPT,” which caused the business to experience an unprecedented amount of churn in a very short amount of time.

They’re not alone. Generative AI is a disruptive force, from technology to art, and companies need to brace for its impact.

3 pitfalls to avoid in the generative AI space race, and what to look for instead

In the 2023 Zendesk report titled “IT leaders tackle new challenges with security, AI, and CX,” we identified three common pitfalls IT leaders should avoid in order to remain competitive in a quickly changing landscape.

1. Lack of direction and prioritization

Over half of the IT leaders surveyed in the report expressed concern that the AI landscape is changing quickly, affecting their ability to keep up with the competition.

A chief digital and information technology officer at an enterprise company said, “I’m interested in applying technology, but I’m uncertain about how to use generative AI in my industry.”

While the speed of change is overwhelming, what is certain is that most IT leaders see the potential for generative AI in CX: 83 percent of surveyed leaders believe that using generative AI across the customer journey will be more important over the next year.

Read more: Here’s how customer service teams are actually using AI

2. Poor data quality and underprepared tech stacks

IT leaders are worried about the quality of their data, with 60 percent of surveyed leaders reporting that their organization struggles to collect and label sufficient, high-quality data to train AI models effectively for automation. Just under half of survey respondents report concerns with implementing generative AI in their tech stack.

While some stand-out brands may be able to leverage their own data to create personalized customer experiences, the reality for most companies is that doing so might pose a privacy or security risk. By partnering with trusted vendors, businesses can implement generative AI into their customer service applications without risking violations of data privacy.

Read the report: Balancing data privacy and personalization in customer experience

3. Skill gaps in IT teams

A common sentiment found in the report is that some IT teams feel unprepared for the generative AI wave due to skill gaps in their teams.

“We’re not a huge company,” one chief information technology officer said. “I don’t have the resources on staff with data scientist skills. We want to know how we can scale with the staff we have.”

With 57 percent of IT leaders reporting skill gaps relating to emerging AI technologies, businesses with an edge on the competition are working with trusted, strategic partners to realize the potential of generative AI in their fields.

While generative AI may ordinarily require long lead times to set up, many solutions using generative AI can be ready to go out of the box. For example, companies can deploy generative AI bots trained on existing knowledge base material to deflect customer conversations from support agents.

Read more: The capabilities and limitations of ChatGPT for customer service

The rundown on AI for customer service

Today, the market is flooded with AI products and promises. But some processes are best left to the experts. Zendesk AI is built on billions of real customer service interactions, with tangible applications to improve the customer experience right in front of the customer and backstage, behind the curtain.

To learn more about generative AI in customer service, check out all of our offerings here.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/new-integrations-oct-2023/ Tue, 31 Oct 2023 13:49:21 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=640405 Here are the newest integrations from Zendesk to help your team provide top-quality experiences. Interactive Messaging Templates Interactive Messaging Templates (Support) (Paid) enables the creation and management of ‘Messaging Templates’ that allow agents to harness the power of these tools in messaging conversations at the press of a button. Create and manage ‘Messaging Templates’ via […]

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]]> Here are the newest integrations from Zendesk to help your team provide top-quality experiences.

Interactive Messaging Templates

Interactive Messaging Templates (Support) (Paid) enables the creation and management of ‘Messaging Templates’ that allow agents to harness the power of these tools in messaging conversations at the press of a button. Create and manage ‘Messaging Templates’ via the Admin Panel. View available templates directly in the ticket, with filtering capability built in to help find the perfect template quickly. Preview a template to ensure you know exactly what the end-user will see–no surprises.

Generative AI Voice Analytics

Generative AI Voice Analytics (Support) rapidly assesses the call with an AI-generated narrative summary of its progression. Sentiment analysis, developed with UK government backing specifically for how people talk rather than how they type, is applied to both the caller and the agent or agents as the call progresses. It provides a transcript with sentence punctuation separated between caller and agent(s) with a new line for each speaker’s turn. It applies to all inbound and outbound calls for a subscribed Talk Agent with no changes to their workflow. Insights are available to all Zendesk Support users, whether they’re subscribed Talk Agents or not, as all Zendesk Support users can see the Sentiment Analysis, Gen AI Narrative Summary, and Speaker Separated Transcription.

Setyl

Setyl (Support) is a cloud-based IT management platform that integrates across your IT landscape. Track assets and subscription renewals, improve on-and-off boarding processes, analyze spend and stay compliant, in one comprehensive platform. Real time reporting uses data from integrations to generate aggregate reports with detailed breakdowns for complete visibility on your spend. With connections to over 40 finance, HR, and IT tools–including Google and Microsoft–Setyl is quick to implement. Link your support tickets to Setyl assets, people, service accounts, apps, departments, locations, and legal entities.

Konnectify

Konnectify (Support) ensures your Zendesk experience is interconnected with other essential business systems. Konnectify empowers businesses to effortlessly access customer data, oversee support interactions, and even automate standard processes, all from within the familiar confines of the Zendesk environment. The outcome? Quicker solutions, amplified agent efficiency, and soaring customer satisfaction levels. Boasting an intuitive setup and a myriad of integrations, Konnectify is the indispensable ally for every Zendesk-centric support crew. Whether the aim is to streamline ticketing, bolster CRM functionalities, or harness the full power of Zendesk, Konnectify is the linchpin for peak efficiency.

Additional apps added in October:

• CXBOX by Demeter (Support) helps you upsell products while supporting your customers with a recommendation function. The integration brings forth the customer’s information and their orders to display on the app so agents can respond to tickets more effectively.
• PRDCT Customer Data (Support) displays additional information about ticket requesters, pulled from the PRDCT Customer Data Platform. The PRDCT Customer Data Platform combines all your client, prospect, and lead data together in one place, GDPR proof.
• Cordless (Support) automatically logs and syncs call history data, call transcripts, and recordings with Zendesk–including made or received calls, missed calls, and voicemails. You can also see AI summaries of conversations and links to call transcripts/recordings in your Zendesk tickets.
• Flip CX (Support) is Alexa-like Voice AI for commerce and retail brands. Flip automates 40 to 50 percent of customer service calls, including WISMO, returns, subscriptions, and more. Once the integration is set up, Flip will automatically create tickets in Zendesk for resolved calls and tickets for open calls so your team can effectively follow up to resolve caller requests.
• eZDesk Super Admin Tools (Support) lets you preview edits, test triggers, and analyze rules in your Zendesk environment. With eZDesk Super Admin Tools, preview your adjustments, and gauge their impact on the live agent environment seamlessly—ensuring no disruptions occur.
• VirtualAgent (Support) automates your ticketing management by means of a voice and text AI-based Virtual Agent. Automatically create tickets from interactions to solve simple issues or pass tickets along to live agents for more complex requests or interaction issues.
• PDF Print Export for Guide (Support) allows your agents to easily create beautiful, print-ready PDFs based on your knowledge base articles with only a few clicks. Select articles to export, customize your PDF, and download.
• Ticket Tagging AI by FreeText AI (Support) enables the auto-tagging of tickets and sentiment analysis using ChatGPT and LLMs. Automate the process of tagging tickets– topics, sentiment, emotion, and criticality–and get actionable customer insights 10 times faster.
• Field Service Manager (Support) allows you to manage field service jobs that you can assign to teams or technicians. The app allows you to create and edit jobs, assign jobs to teams or technicians, schedule jobs for a required date, and update ticket comments with the latest job information.
• Cely for Support (Support) and Sell (Sell) integrate Networth Telecom’s Cely call solution with Zendesk to allow management of all your calls directly from your Zendesk application with just one click. Control your calls from Zendesk, open the contact’s page, and identify your clients through the Cely interface.
• WooCommerce Connector by MorfDev (Support) allows you to connect your WooCommerce stores and display customer information on the Zendesk side. This will help to better search and verify information, as well as provide more effective support.
• PrestaShop Connector by MorfDev (Support) allows you to connect your PrestaShop stores and display customer information on the Zendesk side–helping to better search and verify information.
• Magento 2 Connector by MorfDev (Support) can connect your Magento 2 stores and display customer information on the Zendesk side. This will help to better search and verify information, as well as provide more effective support.
• Whatsapp Audio Player by Zenital (Support) lets you listen to Whatsapp Voice Notes without leaving the ticket. Save your agent’s time by avoiding downloading files and context-switching. Your agents won’t need to install or store potentially dangerous files or software on their computers.
• Intelly (Support) allows you to easily monitor and analyze your team’s performance in real time from any location. Stay informed, make data-driven decisions, and optimize your customer service operations with Intelly’s intuitive and user-friendly platform.
• Organization Notes (Support) lets you quickly display your organization notes using markdown while viewing support tickets or user profiles.
• Deltapath Talk for Support (Support) and Sell (Sell) are designed to streamline workflows and supercharge access to top-tier telephone services within Zendesk. Effortlessly make, receive, and transfer calls within Zendesk on any device with the installed app.
• Translate.com by Machine (Support) is a multilingual support ticket translation tool. Choose Professional Human Translation (60+ language pairs available) or Instant Machine Translation (more than 90+ language pairs), depending on your needs. More than 17,000 expert translators are available to handle your incoming and outgoing tickets.
• Notion (Support) is the connected workspace where better, faster work happens. Notion helps them create and share docs, manage projects, and organize knowledge–all in one place. You can preview live Zendesk tickets, evaluate their status, and check other key properties in Notion. You can also use database filters, views, rollups, and relations to create custom views of your projects.
• Intelly Agent Status (Support) tracks your agents support status in the Intelly App. Easily monitor and analyze your team’s performance in real time, from any location. No need to require your agents to set their status, this app tracks their status in the background so your agents can focus on what they do best, providing exceptional service.
• Postcall (Support) integrates with Zendesk Talk to automatically send customer satisfaction surveys by SMS. Create your surveys in Postcall, and then use information about each call to create different scenarios for when to send a survey.
• Witalker by Witbor (Support) lets you conduct mass messaging via WhatsApp. Now your messages can reach hundreds or even thousands of recipients with just a few clicks.
• ChatGPT Assistant by Adiacent (Support) captures conversation essence, analyzes tone, and suggests responses with touch. Provide an overview of the open ticket, suggest a ready-made response to the agent for the customer, check the sentiment of the ticket, or even communicate with ChatGPT through free text, guiding it to obtain specific responses or perform certain actions.
• FirstSupport AI Assistant (Support) is AI copilot GPT. Automate responses, summarize tickets, and tag assignments. Connect with your data sources–documents, websites, help center, Google Docs, and more. Set your brand voice for aligned responses and see draft responses for each ticket; reply in one click.
• AimHappy (Support) improves your customer service by understanding what makes your customers happy. Detect the happiness of your customers using AimHappy’s sentiment analysis tools. Observe the happiness of your customers over time with the sidebar graph and see a dashboard view of the sentiment of recent and unanswered tickets.
• Auto Ticket Merge (Support) consolidates multiple tickets from the same customer sent within a close timeframe, making your ticket handling swift and efficient. Upon a new ticket arrival, Auto Merge searches through your recent open tickets, merging relevant ones seamlessly.
• Messaging for Viber by DataFox (Support) lets you engage with your Viber users via Zendesk Suite (Sunshine Conversations). Send text, files, and images back to Viber users; add macros, triggers, tags to Viber tickets, and more with this handy integration.
• Profanity Checker (Support) lets you input words and phrases that you want to prevent your agents from using. If an agent uses the blocked words or phrases, a pop-up will notify them that the word or phrase is blocked. The response will not be sent until the blocked word or phrase is removed.
• Ticket Deleter (Support) enables bulk deletion of closed or solved tickets. Deletes tickets that were closed or solved in the period you define. You have the option for deleted tickets to appear in a Deleted tickets view for 30 days. After that time, they are automatically, permanently deleted.

To view the full list of incoming apps, follow our weekly release notes.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/deels-alex-bouaziz/ Mon, 30 Oct 2023 20:41:23 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=640416 Founded in 2019 as a simple solution for hiring freelancers and contractors internationally, Deel pivoted just a week before demo day. The company restructured its program and grew to over 1,900 employees, acquired 10,000 customers worldwide, and raised over $600 million. In this episode of Sit Down Startup, Deel co-founder and CEO Alex Bouaziz provides […]

The post Deel’s Alex Bouaziz on how to pivot with conviction appeared first on Zendesk.

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Founded in 2019 as a simple solution for hiring freelancers and contractors internationally, Deel pivoted just a week before demo day. The company restructured its program and grew to over 1,900 employees, acquired 10,000 customers worldwide, and raised over $600 million.

In this episode of Sit Down Startup, Deel co-founder and CEO Alex Bouaziz provides a behind-the-scenes look into the company’s success. He also shares his three key philosophies: time is money, be customer-centric, and put your hands in the mud.





Time is money: Move fast and see what sticks—your growth defines you

Initially, Deel was a payment infrastructure solution that allowed people to send and receive international payments. Growth was good but it could have been better. That’s when Bouaziz noticed the way that one customer was using the solution.

“They took the early concept we had which was bridging payments and contracts in one place,” he recalls. “The spark was bridging those two things together. When we saw that use case, we knew there was really something there.”

With one week to demo day, Bouaziz and his co-founder decided to pivot the company and restructure their program. “Everybody was like, ‘Okay, what do we need to do?’ They worked every day until 3 a.m. to shift it, and it really got us moving.”

Successfully pivoting a company in such a short period is an incredible achievement—something Bouaziz credits to his team and their speed.

He says, “Time is money. You don’t have a lot of that, so you need to move really fast and see what sticks. If you don’t have people with the right mindset to follow you into whatever execution needs to happen, you are going to be in trouble.”

Bouaziz adds that startups are defined by their growth. “If you are not growing, you are dead.”

Be customer-centric: Have strong customer empathy and work hard to maintain their appreciation for your product

With countless programs available in the market, Bouaziz believes that a company must continue to win its customers’ appreciation to maintain retention.

He says, “The cliché of being super close to your customer is not a cliché. What’s important is, can you build the right thing for them to pay for? If they are paying, can you maintain their appreciation for the product? Are you customer-centric enough to shift to the next thing that’s going to make them pay more or help them in the next cycle of their company?”

By putting their customers first, Bouaziz and his team can ensure their continued success.

Put your hands in the mud: You must be able to fully understand and do the job yourself before you hire other people

In Deel’s emerging days, Bouaziz and his co-founder worked on founder-led sales. They built the best practices so that when they scaled the company, their sales team could improve them. “If we can do it, a professional sales team can do it better,” Bouaziz says.

He and his co-founder take this approach when hiring managers. They believe management should be able and willing to fulfill the responsibilities of their team.

“In my experience, the best managers are the ones who can do the job and put their hands in the mud until they can scale their team. If you can’t put your hands in the mud, you are probably not the right person to lead that team.”

Bouaziz insists that this approach to hiring means that managers can empathize and help their staff complete tasks. “You want to avoid the people who give orders and walk away,” he says. “The people who are willing to roll up their sleeves and get the job done are the best people.”

The post Deel’s Alex Bouaziz on how to pivot with conviction appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/outreachs-manny-medina/ Fri, 27 Oct 2023 15:46:23 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=640399 When sales software company Outreach began in 2014, three people were making the amount of sales a team of 20 would. Today, the company has 1,000 employees worldwide and over 5,000 customers. In this episode, co-founder and CEO Manny Medina discusses how Outreach used customer feedback to improve offerings, the secret to expansion, and why […]

The post Outreach’s Manny Medina on why you should stay close to your customers appeared first on Zendesk.

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When sales software company Outreach began in 2014, three people were making the amount of sales a team of 20 would. Today, the company has 1,000 employees worldwide and over 5,000 customers.

In this episode, co-founder and CEO Manny Medina discusses how Outreach used customer feedback to improve offerings, the secret to expansion, and why he encourages employees to be high performers in and outside of the office.





Using feedback to make improvements

In the early days of Outreach, the team focused on how they could get more meetings with customers. “We optimized everything for meeting generation, and that allowed us to be really close to the customer,” Medina says. “There is a lot of talk about product-led growth, but that abstracts you from understanding your core user.”

The mission to understand their target customers led Medina and his team to take a proactive approach. “We were calling the customer nearly every week,” he recalls. “We would say, ‘Hey, why are you using Outreach? Then, we got feedback and we used that feedback to build the next bit of the product or continue to sell that value proposition.”

Medina states that developing a close relationship with customers has additional benefits.

“Staying close to the customer allows you to build pipeline, generate revenue, and know that you have product-market fit.”

Prioritizing customer retention before expansion

When it comes to expansion, Medina insists that the focus should primarily be on retaining existing customers and understanding their needs. “Expansion begins with retention and customer success,” he says. “We onboarded every customer by hand to make sure we understood their workflows because we sell workflows.”

Medina and his team were determined to know how each customer executed their work. He says, “Our workflow means that a human being is going to touch the software and get a result out of it. So, we made sure we understood the business process we were optimizing for.”

Outreach tracked each customer’s team activities and considered their performance. If they were not using the Outreach software or leveraging it to its full potential, Outreach took a proactive approach.

“We would call them and say, ‘What’s going on?’ Where do you get stuck?” Medina recalls. “We called it ‘uncomfortably close customer success.’ It was literally like we were watching you from behind so we could jump in and identify the problem. That allowed us to have a really high gross retention number.”

Once you have a high gross retention number, Medina says you can expand on it by asking happy customers for referrals.

Encouraging your employees to be high performers in and outside the organization

Some companies can be hesitant when it comes to employees having side hustles. They fear that side hustles will distract workers from their roles. Medina takes a different view: “What could be the objections? Are [the employees] working less? No, they are never working less. The people who are doing side hustles are usually the highest performing.”

In Medina’s experience, employees engage in side hustles because they are ambitious, and staying busy is intrinsic to their identity. “There is a saying, ‘If you want something done, you’ll give it to the busiest person.’ Busy minds are busy for a reason. You want to let it be busy because that makes it more effective.”

Medina is even comfortable with Outreach employees finding opportunities that will help with their professional development. “Even for my directs, I let them sit on boards,” he says. “‘Go see what the world looks like outside. Go learn of problems we haven’t had yet.’ That makes a better professional.”

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/atrium-pete-kazanjy/ Thu, 26 Oct 2023 21:22:33 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=640390 Atrium offers an AI sales management solution that helps sales organizations become more data-driven and efficient. It does so by continuously monitoring sales teams’ performance and alerting sales leaders and managers about any issues, so they can be addressed early. Pete Kazanjy, co-founder of Atrium, shares his tips on how to build a successful business […]

The post Revolutionizing sales with data: Atrium’s success with co-founder Pete Kazanjy appeared first on Zendesk.

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Atrium offers an AI sales management solution that helps sales organizations become more data-driven and efficient. It does so by continuously monitoring sales teams’ performance and alerting sales leaders and managers about any issues, so they can be addressed early.

Pete Kazanjy, co-founder of Atrium, shares his tips on how to build a successful business and discusses how he formed a 35,000-member sales community by creating top-tier content.





Achieving product-market fit

“In the second half of 2020 and in 2021, founders had a lot of wins,” says Kazanjy. “But then you come up on product or service renewal in 2022, and all of the sudden, now that interest rates are much higher, consumers ask themselves if your product or service is a critical must-have or not.”

For Kazanjy, ensuring that your product or service fits the current market is key. While many consumers were investing and purchasing his company’s new products in 2021, many of those products didn’t make the cut in the renewal cycle due to macroeconomic changes. You must evaluate your product to be sure it responds to and resolves a critical problem—this is necessary for success.

Quality over quantity

Be strategic when it comes to hiring, too. Kazanjy mentions this is a common mistake among young businesses.

“You need the right hiring profile,” he advises. “We had 10 SDRs [sales development representatives], and our opportunity creation was dramatically lower than when we had three SDRs.”

Having a hiring strategy not only helps companies remain cost-efficient, but also helps them manage the costs per employee.

Creating valuable content and community for sales leaders

Kavanzy manages the content for Atrium’s sales community, where he shares upcoming masterclasses and other forms of informational content with sales leaders and managers. “Having lots of that expert content available for folks and broadcasting it as much as possible has been very powerful for us,” says Kavanzy.

Being at the cutting edge of data software management for sales leaders and managers, the Atrium team documents their learnings and best practices for their audience, allowing them to deliver high-quality content to their community of 35,000 members.

Kavanzy also highlights the importance of creating evergreen content for your audience. “It can be effective because at any given point in time, somebody may have a different problem than they had previously,” he says. “For example, three months ago, I may not have cared about setting goals and managing goals, but now all of a sudden, I have 10 account executives instead of five, and I need to think about setting consistent goals … and I could really benefit from that content.”

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/protecting-customer-privacy/ Thu, 26 Oct 2023 19:58:25 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=640382 Recent technological advancements have empowered many organizations to finally offer the level of personalization most consumers want. According to our research, 61 percent of consumers say the faster a company is to offer personalized experiences, the more likely they are to purchase from them. From that same research, 66 percent of consumers are also willing […]

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]]> Recent technological advancements have empowered many organizations to finally offer the level of personalization most consumers want. According to our research, 61 percent of consumers say the faster a company is to offer personalized experiences, the more likely they are to purchase from them.

From that same research, 66 percent of consumers are also willing to share their data if it means getting more relevant and personalized experiences. However, with better personalization comes great risk.

With the majority of consumers (71%) willing to stop purchasing from a company if their data isn’t protected, organizations worldwide must invest in privacy and protection.

Companies need to ensure that the customer data they access and store stays safe—especially as cybersecurity crimes are at an all-time high. With the majority of consumers (71 percent) willing to stop purchasing from a company if their data isn’t protected, organizations all over the world must invest in privacy and protection.

The good news is that 63 percent of leaders reported that strengthening cybersecurity and data privacy measures within the next year is of high importance to them, while 60 percent said the same for enhancing customer experience (CX). To make this possible, CX and security teams must work together to ensure customer data stays private and secure. Here’s how.

Build a robust data privacy foundation

To build a strong security foundation that supports the privacy of customer data, there are general best practices that organizations—and particularly CX teams—should put in place. These include increasing password security for support agents by using, for instance, two-factor authentication (2FA), single sign-on (SSO), and password managers.

CX teams must also be aware of modern social engineering techniques, such as phishing emails, designed to steal sensitive customer data. Finally, because the data privacy and security landscape is constantly changing, teams should maintain a regular cadence of security and privacy training.

While these best practices are important, many businesses must go beyond them—especially those in the financial services, healthcare, and technology industries. For these companies, a higher level of data privacy and security is critical.

Use stronger encryption for increased security

With the rise of cybersecurity attacks, data encryption is increasingly essential for data security. Data encryption protects sensitive customer information by encoding it so it can’t be read or understood by unauthorized users.

To ensure data privacy, organizations should choose an encryption method that affords a high degree of control, such as bring-your-own-key (BYOK) encryption. This type of encryption limits data exposure by using multiple encryption keys to protect data while allowing the primary admin to rotate and revoke their keys as needed.

Limit what personal data you show and keep

The wide variety of data privacy regulations across regions and industries makes it challenging for businesses to consistently balance personalization and privacy. Having flexible yet powerful data privacy tools adapted to your unique needs can help.

For example, with advanced data retention policies, businesses can define which customer data they store and for how long. That way, businesses only keep the data they need. Within the healthcare industry, for instance, businesses need to retain patient interaction records for an extended time frame while deleting non-personal interactions more frequently. By setting up separate retention policies for these different types of data, healthcare providers can apply the right level of security for the right types of data.

While data retention policies help businesses delete records of customer interactions when necessary, companies must also ensure the privacy of the data they do keep. For example, CX agents need access to customer data to deliver personalized service—but not all agents require the same level of access. With tools like data masking, businesses can assign each agent the appropriate level of access to customer data based on their role. To manage customer data that isn’t used by agents, companies can lean on redaction tools to selectively delete personal data from customer conversations.

Get visibility into data access

To help ensure customer privacy, businesses need the ability to monitor whether data privacy is being respected. Maintaining a record of data access is critical to demonstrating compliance with data protection and privacy laws.

Access logs provide this capability by giving businesses a detailed record of access, including which agents searched for and viewed CX data, and when and where they accessed it. These logs can help businesses identify suspicious behavior, such as repeated searches for sensitive information like payment card details.

Businesses can also use access logs to proactively strengthen data privacy and protection. By reviewing access logs to see what data CX agents regularly need to do their jobs effectively, organizations can discern what data agents should see and not see. From there, organizations can update data retention and access policies accordingly.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/zendesk-ai-for-cx/ Wed, 25 Oct 2023 19:57:22 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=640306 Hear that? It’s the deafening buzz of AI chatter—chatter about AI and chatter about another awkward transcript from ChatGPT. It’s tempting for businesses to deploy technology like generative AI in a trend-induced panic, and we know it is better to deploy strategically with the customer and human CX professionals top of mind. Still, it can […]

The post Get ready for the future of AI in customer experience appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> Hear that? It’s the deafening buzz of AI chatter—chatter about AI and chatter about another awkward transcript from ChatGPT. It’s tempting for businesses to deploy technology like generative AI in a trend-induced panic, and we know it is better to deploy strategically with the customer and human CX professionals top of mind. Still, it can be difficult to know which AI innovation will burn out and which will be with us for the long term, across industries and job functions.

Zendesk has been in the customer service game for a long time, so we know a few things about keeping it customer-centric amid ever-louder hype. For CX and IT professionals, that means focusing on delivering an excellent customer experience. Maybe that means learning more about Zendesk AI, a technology created with the intelligence of billions of customer interactions. Or maybe that just means learning more about AI for CX: why you should care, why your boss should care, and more.

Ready for the future of CX?

Skill up for the latest to share in your next team meeting, presentation, or individual study (you go-getter, you).

Read

“How much does it cost?” and “what problems will it solve?” are top of mind for software vendor decision-makers. We’ve got the definitive playbook for controlling costs with AI, designed to equip you for those conversations about budget, process, team optimization, and, of course, the impact of AI on customer experience.

Generative AI is here to stay. And it’s up to every CX professional to learn how it can impact a customer’s experience with a brand, well before that visitor even thinks about needing customer service.

You can use ChatGPT for customer service, but you still need your human agents and admins to make it a great experience.

AI ethics are a safeguard against biases, privacy violations, and other missteps that can land companies in hot water. As AI evolves, leaders must learn how to use AI for CX ethically.

Watch





We’ve got you covered on how-to videos, including one on generative AI for agents. Spoiler alert—there’s technology that adjusts for tone on even your worst day, amid the biggest backlog of tickets. Check out and subscribe to the Zendesk AI YouTube playlist so you don’t miss a beat.

Meet Derek, MEBO, SCR33CH, and Serenit-E from the Help My AI series, a fun take on the serious pain points facing customers, agents, and businesses with hastily deployed—or just plain substandard—technology. At least one person on your team, in your life, or possibly even in your household can relate to these.

Listen

Zendesk is sponsoring the LinkedIn podcast, The Path. Hit the play button below to listen to a sponsored episode, featuring an interstitial interview with our CEO, Tom Eggemeier, about how Zendesk AI can help companies provide more intelligent experiences for their customers.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/zoominfo-henry-schuck/ Wed, 25 Oct 2023 16:57:43 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=640358 Over the past five years, ZoomInfo grew 10x to an $800 million run-rate business with more than 3,000 employees and 25,000 customers. ZoomInfo’s growth is incredible, especially considering its early beginnings in Henry Schuck’s law school dorm. The journey from dorm room to global business has been a remarkable one, driven by a strategic approach […]

The post Prioritizing go-to-market-fit and getting to $800M ARR with ZoomInfo CEO Henry Schuck appeared first on Zendesk.

]]>

Over the past five years, ZoomInfo grew 10x to an $800 million run-rate business with more than 3,000 employees and 25,000 customers. ZoomInfo’s growth is incredible, especially considering its early beginnings in Henry Schuck’s law school dorm. The journey from dorm room to global business has been a remarkable one, driven by a strategic approach and a commitment to innovation. In this episode, we delve deeper into some of the key strategies, problem-solving, and insights that propelled ZoomInfo to its current success.





Prioritize go-to-market-fit

From the beginning, Schuck and his team knew the importance of go-to-market-fit, a common thread among our founder guests.

ZoomInfo focused on email marketing that targeted its ideal customer profiles. The company initially sold data to IT decision-makers in mid-market companies, focusing on a narrow target group.

Schuck says, “Because we had a really tight grip on our ideal customer profile and who would buy our product and services, we are able to go out and in a really efficient way, attract leads and attract demand to the product.”

Schuck acted as a salesperson for the first six years, giving him key insight into the process of lead rotation.

“Whenever I talk to startup founders, I tell them, ‘Do not ignore go-to-market motions, you need to be in those meetings, running those meetings, running the sales process—there is no better learning than that,’” he says. “Understanding moments that are important all come from those six years of experience I had on the front line.”

Increase expansion with customer development reps (CDRs)

At ZoomInfo, innovation, problem-solving, and ensuring the right people are in the right roles prompted a new title: customer development rep (CDR). When Schuck realized one of the company’s most valued account managers was not realizing her full potential, it was time to take action. He paired her with a CDR and filled her empty calendar with customer-facing meetings.

“I want her to have three or four meetings a day with our customers because that is how we get the most leverage out of her, and that’s how we have the best relationship with our customer,” he explains.

The CDR is a team member in the account management organization. Their role is to contact customers and find opportunities to help the customer move forward, identifying where a customer can benefit from leveraging another ZoomInfo feature product. Once they find and surface opportunities, the CDR connects the customer and account manager to discuss the opportunities in front of them. Schuck says the existing CDR team at ZoomInfo is large and brings substantial value to the company.

Pay attention to prospect calls

Although Schuck is the CEO, he still keeps his ear to the ground when it comes to the company’s customers.

“I am still listening to Chorus calls,” says Schuck. “It’s probably the most impactful thing I do at the company.” Keeping tabs on Chorus calls allows Schuck to gain insight into customers’ perspectives on ZoomInfo’s competitors. When a teammate informs Schuck that a competitor is being mentioned frequently during calls, he can contextualize that information using his Chorus call data.

“One of the things we do objectively, so we don’t let emotion guide the product or go-to-market, is we actually track data inside of Chorus,” he says. “We have a time series graph for how often [competitors] are mentioned on customer calls, and so then we actually know if that is a thing we should be worried about.”

Listening to Chorus calls also allows Schuck to make informed decisions on ZoomInfo’s mergers and acquisitions. Since 2015, ZoomInfo has completed 12 M&A transactions. Chorus call data has been crucial to understanding key factors in new M&As.

“If we are going to buy a company that’s going to bring us into a new market, I am going to go and listen for how many times those competitors have shown up on those calls,” says Schuck.

Hundreds of thousands of hours of calls help Schuck understand the customer’s perspective about a certain market participant or a competitor in a space that they are currently not competing in but plan to.

Schuck’s top tips for success: Get product-market fit down, identify top talent early, put the right people in the right roles, and don’t stop listening to customer and market insights. Apply these tips, and maybe you’ll be the next $800 million business on the podcast.

The post Prioritizing go-to-market-fit and getting to $800M ARR with ZoomInfo CEO Henry Schuck appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/ai-for-employee-experience/ Wed, 25 Oct 2023 15:17:24 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=640326 What is AI for employee experience? AI for employee experience means leveraging artificial intelligence technology to improve all aspects of the employee journey, including onboarding, performance, development, support from internal service teams, and access to information to perform daily tasks. The key to running a successful business is creating an environment that fosters an exceptional […]

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]]>

What is AI for employee experience?

AI for employee experience means leveraging artificial intelligence technology to improve all aspects of the employee journey, including onboarding, performance, development, support from internal service teams, and access to information to perform daily tasks.

The key to running a successful business is creating an environment that fosters an exceptional employee experience (EX). When employees are happy, customers get better service, which improves customer satisfaction (CSAT) and, ultimately, your bottom line.

But when employees struggle to find relevant, reliable, and updated information, it makes it challenging for them to go about their day. They may also get bogged down with repetitive, time-consuming tasks that take time away from high-value work. All of this increases the risk of burnout and higher employee turnover.

Introducing AI into the workplace can modernize the employee experience by simplifying processes and automating workflows—creating an efficient work environment that boosts employee satisfaction and turns them into brand champions. Learn how to leverage AI for EX and start reaping the benefits.

More in this guide:

• 11 ways to use AI to improve the employee experience
• Types of AI-powered tools that boost the employee experience
• Pros and cons of introducing AI to employees
• Frequently asked questions

11 ways to use AI to improve the employee experience

You can’t deliver an excellent customer experience (CX) without an equally excellent employee experience. After all, everything starts with the people building your products and delivering your services. Here’s how you can make the employee experience better by using AI.

1. Enhance agents’ skills

Remember the scene in The Matrix where Neo plugs into the combat training program and excitedly learns different kinds of fighting styles? That’s what it’s like when you provide your agents with AI-powered tools.

By implementing AI with your IT help desk and HR help desk solutions, you can supercharge your agents’ skill sets. Here are a few examples of tools that help employees excel.

• AI-powered insights and recommendations help support agents understand employee needs and resolve issues faster.
• Generative AI enables agents to deliver empathetic, personalized replies while saving time, thanks to features that summarize tickets and adjust the tone of written responses.
• Similar tickets give agents contextual information so they can deliver quicker resolutions and more consistent service.

Additionally, customer service chatbots can deflect tickets by addressing basic queries and eliminating repetitive tasks, freeing up agents to handle issues where they can use their expertise. This empowers agents to become expert problem solvers so they can focus on the most high-value tasks.

How it works with Zendesk: Zendesk offers an AI-powered feature called Intelligence in the context panel. It’s an agent-facing sidebar that acts like a copilot, providing insights that show customer language, intent, and sentiment (positive, negative, neutral). It offers suggestions on how to effectively handle issues and even uses generative AI to assist with phrasing responses.

This feature also provides the agent with prewritten responses for faster replies and surfaces personalized article recommendations to share with customers at the right time in the conversation.

2. Manage more requests without adding headcount

When teams are struggling to keep up with customer requests, AI can help them manage them more effectively. Enhancing your IT or HR help desk software with advanced bots allows you to provide 24/7 employee support and empower employees to help themselves.

Advanced bots are pre-trained to understand employee intents and common issues, so they can resolve problems with natural, conversational support—often without involving an agent. That means AI handles a portion of requests and deflects tickets with self-service options, making queues more manageable.

3. Streamline workflows with intelligent routing

Routing tickets quickly and efficiently puts issues in the hands of the right agents for faster resolutions. Intelligent routing and triage—a feature that automatically categorizes incoming conversations based on customer intent, sentiment, and language—reduces manual sorting and prioritization of requests from across channels. AI includes important context with the conversation, too, so IT or HR support understands how to approach the interaction.

How it works with Zendesk: Premium department store retailer Liberty implemented Zendesk AI with intelligent routing to help sort and classify ticket requests. The time saved by AI allowed Liberty to focus more resources on quality service, coaching, logistics, and internal incentive programs.

4. Onboard new agents faster

Businesses can streamline employee onboarding by integrating AI into the process. AI chatbots guide new hires through routine customer service training programs and provide answers to frequently asked questions in real time. They can even create personalized training paths for new employees, accelerating their learning so they can start serving customers faster.

HR teams can also use AI to assess the progress and performance of new employees throughout their training. This helps management identify training gaps and refine the process.

5. Improve operational efficiency

AI can monitor and analyze processes and data to identify patterns and trends, make predictions, and suggest improvements to streamline operations. This deep reporting and analytics data allows decision-makers to provide better tools for employees that eliminate bottlenecks and make their jobs easier.

For example, AI reporting software can analyze historical data and highlight gaps in existing macros (prewritten responses). It can then suggest new or improved macros that admins can implement so agents can reply more quickly and effectively.

6. Surface internal knowledge and resources for easy employee access

Enhance your knowledge base with AI-powered systems that surface internal information and resources to employees. This improves efficiency and assists with decision-making.

Whether your employee wants HR documents or your IT agents need to access standard operating procedures, conversational AI bots can use natural language processing to deliver the relevant information. The bot uses machine learning to learn with each interaction, improving over time and increasingly offering personalized experiences.

7. Collect feedback and boost employee engagement

Regularly connecting with your employees and collecting feedback can help you keep a pulse on employee sentiment. With AI, you can analyze how employees are feeling through surveys, chat and messaging interactions, and other types of feedback to identify areas for improvement.

During and after onboarding, you can use AI to check in on trainees and gather insights on the training process, their interactions with coworkers, and their sentiments about the overall experience.

You can also use AI to create personalized training plans and career development recommendations. This enables businesses to invest in their employees and creates a positive company culture that celebrates employee value.

8. Manage and track team performance

AI-powered reporting and analytics can provide real-time data on agent performance, helping management identify strengths and improvement areas.

Use AI to gain a deeper understanding of how different teams interact with each other and identify data spread across different systems. This allows you to break down data silos, improve collaboration across departments, and better understand what you need to refine your internal customer service.

AI can also provide coaching to employees if they are underperforming or give proactive tips on boosting efficiency. Automating the process can help employees and managers avoid uncomfortable interactions and empower employees to proactively work on improving their metrics.

How it works with Zendesk: Zendesk integrates with communication tools like Slack to meet employees where they are with AI-powered self-service experiences.

With the Zendesk Bot for Slack integration, employees can get instant answers pulled directly from internal knowledge bases in the form of article recommendations or a response formulated with generative AI.

Learn more about how Slack and Zendesk are partnering to deliver AI-powered solutions to improve productivity.

9. Use predictive analysis to provide proactive support

Preventing agent burnout benefits employees and your business by reducing employee turnover. With predictive analytics, HR can use AI to identify early signs of agent burnout, address the issue with proactive support, and increase employee retention.

Just like you can use AI to understand when a customer is stuck on your website and may need assistance, you can use AI to determine when an employee needs support from your internal help desk, which can then proactively reach out with problem-solving resources to squash issues at the root.

10. Collaborate with AI-powered tools

Siloed data makes it challenging—if not impossible—for teams to provide consistent and effective support. AI-powered collaboration tools consolidate data and make it easier for teams to share knowledge and communicate with one another. These tools include virtual assistants that help schedule meetings, manage calendars, and coordinate projects.

11. Accelerate content creation

With the popularity of generative AI technology like ChatGPT, businesses are finding new ways to develop content. Generative AI can streamline the creation of new content and identify gaps in your knowledge base.

AI-powered content generators can assist HR in creating employee handbooks, training materials, and company policies. Additionally, you can use natural language generation tools for report automation and documentation.

Types of AI-powered tools that boost the employee experience

We’re only at the dawn of discovering AI’s benefits for businesses. While you may be aware of ways to use AI for customer service, you might be overlooking AI for EX. Here are a few types of AI-powered tools for employee experience.



Advanced bots

Unlike standard bots that require manual programming and training, advanced bots come pre-trained on intents (the reasons customers request support) and industry-specific topics. They can provide intelligent, automated internal customer service to enhance EX. By leveraging the most extensive database of intents specific to internal services, like HR and IT, bots can offer around-the-clock personalized support and accurate responses to employees.

AI-powered insights

AI can analyze large amounts of historical data, including employee interactions and feedback. This allows employee experience management teams to identify patterns and trends, pain points, or areas that need improvement, such as:

• Recurring issues with processes
• Complaints or tickets about tools
• Difficulty accessing relevant data or information

For example, AI might detect a recurring IT issue or specific HR questions that agents frequently handle.

Plus, AI-powered sentiment analysis tools can assess the emotional tone of employee interactions in real time. Agents can receive immediate feedback on whether an employee is satisfied, frustrated, or needing additional assistance. This enables agents to adapt their approach during the conversation to improve the employee’s experience.

Intelligent routing and triage

AI-powered routing and triage tools can automatically categorize and prioritize incoming employee requests based on intent, sentiment, and language. Skills-based routing automatically sends the request to the right agent based on workload, expertise, and availability.

Intelligent routing and triage offers these benefits:

• Reduces ticket handling time by 30 to 60 seconds
• Automates workflows
• Sends automated responses to customers
• Provides deeper reporting insights

Intelligent routing and triage also eliminate manual work and its associated costs. By removing mundane, time-consuming tasks, agents can focus their efforts on assignments that require their expertise.

AI-powered knowledge bases

AI can suggest and surface relevant knowledge base articles based on employee search queries, so they can readily access important documents and information. AI can also help agents find existing content in your knowledge base, allowing them to resolve employee issues faster. Additionally, it can identify gaps in content and flag and route a request for content experts to address.

Advanced, AI-powered knowledge management tools make it easier for users to create and update content, allowing teams to scale their help centers. For example, Zendesk has a feature that allows agents to plug in a few bullet points and generative AI can create a full article.

How it works with Zendesk: Zendesk offers Content Cues, an AI-powered feature that identifies which content best serves employees and suggests content to remove or improve in your knowledge base. It also uses AI to provide article recommendations inside tickets, flag outdated content, and generate new help center articles.

Generative AI

Generative AI can help boost the employee experience by producing and enhancing content, automating tasks, and assisting agents with daily activities.

Generative AI can also save employees time by crafting high-quality content, such as knowledge base articles, predictive reports, training materials, standard operating procedure (SOP) documents, and more. It can also tailor communications and recommendations to specific employees, creating an engaging and personalized employee experience.

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Pros and cons of introducing AI to employees

According to the Zendesk Employee Experience Trends Report 2023, 66 percent of EX professionals say AI and bot usage has evolved past simple deflection, which means AI is doing more to make employees’ jobs easier.

Although there are a lot of advantages to implementing AI, there are also a few challenges. Here are the pros and cons of AI in the workplace.

Pros of employee experience AI

Let’s start with the good stuff. Implementing AI in the workplace offers a wealth of benefits for employees and customers alike. Here are just a few:

• Makes ticket queues manageable during peak times with reliable, automatic answers
• Enables agents to use their expertise on more complex tasks
• Scales self-service for convenient, around-the-clock support
• Allows for more natural conversations with employees
• Levels up agent intelligence and skill sets, boosting efficiency and productivity

Cons of AI for employee experience

When implementing new technology, businesses need to consider the challenges it may bring, too. Employees may be wary because AI is new, and there’s still a lot to learn and understand. Here are some common concerns:

• Fear of job displacement
• Resistant to change
• Ethical concerns
• Privacy concerns
• Complex implementation

Reassuring employees that AI adds to their workplace experience and makes their jobs easier is important. AI is not there to replace employees but to make them more efficient with less effort. Once employees get used to AI in the workplace, they’ll wonder how they ever performed without it.

Frequently asked questions

How can technology be used to improve employee experience?

AI can streamline workflows, automate common tasks, provide personalized agent assistance, generate content, help with onboarding and training, and more. With AI, the sky’s the limit.

How will AI transform the workplace?

AI will essentially take the guesswork out of many processes, reduce human error, and enhance employee performance and efficiency.

Start with providing the right tools for EX

With the right AI tools, you can help your teams do more with less. Though we’re still in the infancy of the AI revolution, businesses already understand how the technology benefits employees and workplace culture.

Learn how businesses are implementing the best employee experience software and preparing for the launch of Zendesk AI for EX so they can refine their IT and HR employee experience.

The post 11 ways to use AI for a better employee experience appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/impact-of-ai/ Tue, 24 Oct 2023 14:03:49 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=640284 Artificial intelligence is transforming customer service by taking on simple, repetitive tasks and freeing up human agents for higher value work. Generative AI promises to push this transformation even further, with early iterations offering huge opportunities for customer-facing enterprises. But these technologies also carry risks. To explore how advances in technology will and already are […]

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]]> Artificial intelligence is transforming customer service by taking on simple, repetitive tasks and freeing up human agents for higher value work. Generative AI promises to push this transformation even further, with early iterations offering huge opportunities for customer-facing enterprises. But these technologies also carry risks.

To explore how advances in technology will and already are changing the way that customers interact with businesses, Economist Impact convened a roundtable discussion, sponsored by Zendesk on “Transforming customer service: the impact of AI.” Moderated by Guy Scriven, United States technology editor at the Economist, the session featured the following speakers:

• Adrian McDermott, chief technology officer, Zendesk
• Mohamed Abdelsadek, executive vice-president of data, insights and analytics,
  Mastercard
• Kate Leggett, vice-president and principal analyst, Forrester Research
• Jessica Moulton, senior partner, McKinsey

Read the top takeaways from the discussion here or view the on-demand webinar now.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/stay-cybersecurity-savvy/ Mon, 23 Oct 2023 14:03:43 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=640233 Cybersecurity is constantly in a state of flux. Threat intelligence analysts discover new ways to improve threat detection, and within months bad actors use the very same technology to circumvent monitoring and defense capabilities. However, each security incident is an opportunity to not only learn more about the changing threat landscape, but also to better […]

The post 5 facts to help you stay cybersecurity savvy appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> Cybersecurity is constantly in a state of flux. Threat intelligence analysts discover new ways to improve threat detection, and within months bad actors use the very same technology to circumvent monitoring and defense capabilities. However, each security incident is an opportunity to not only learn more about the changing threat landscape, but also to better understand potential vulnerabilities and how to strategically level up your defenses.

The infographic shows some of the most relevant and shocking security statistics of the last few years. It provides insight into the current state of cybersecurity and direct access to our Zendesk Suite Actionable Security Guide. This guide is designed to provide you with easy-to-follow recommendations for how to strengthen the security of your own instance from access controls to disaster recovery.

You can get more information about security, privacy, and compliance at Zendesk in our Trust Center.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/customer-service-plan/ Fri, 20 Oct 2023 19:18:05 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=640245 The right customer service plan is like the Infinity Gauntlet in the Marvel Universe. The Infinity Gauntlet is more than just a glove—it is the essential object designed to hold and harness the unlimited power of the six Infinity Stones. Similarly, a customer service plan captures and displays the crucial elements of customer service in […]

The post Customer service plan template, tips + how-to guide appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> The right customer service plan is like the Infinity Gauntlet in the Marvel Universe. The Infinity Gauntlet is more than just a glove—it is the essential object designed to hold and harness the unlimited power of the six Infinity Stones.

Similarly, a customer service plan captures and displays the crucial elements of customer service in a living document. The plan gives your business a blueprint to achieve your customer service goals. It also empowers customer service reps with the information they need to provide an exceptional customer experience (CX).

Delivering excellent customer service can drive revenue, increase customer retention, stimulate business growth, and improve customer satisfaction. But without a plan in place, it’s difficult for teams to align, making it challenging to provide great CX consistently.

Our guide provides tools and tips to help you create an effective customer service plan. We also offer a free template so you can tailor your customer service plan to fit your business like a glove.

• What is a customer service plan?
• Who uses a customer service plan?
• How to create a customer service plan in 8 steps
• Customer service plan examples
• Customer service plan benefits
• Best practices for creating a customer service plan
• Customer service plan template

What is a customer service plan?

A customer service plan is a detailed strategy guide that outlines how your business intends to deliver an exceptional customer experience consistently.

Simply put, a customer service plan serves as a roadmap for streamlining and strengthening customer support. It gives agents clear instructions, helps your business understand customer needs and where to allocate resources, and provides insights for continuous improvement. It benefits both businesses and customers:

• Customer service agents get a blueprint to follow when navigating interactions toward a successful resolution.
• Customers get a consistent experience every time they interact with your business, no matter where they are in the customer journey.

By helping you provide reliable, high-quality experiences, customer service plans enable you to enhance your relationships with customers, leading to loyal customers and brand advocates.

Who uses a customer service plan?

Businesses of any size, type, or industry can use a customer service plan to improve their customer experience.

• Startups use customer service plans to establish a foundation for building customer relationships and loyalty from day one.
• Small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) use customer service plans to improve customer satisfaction and meet customer needs while scaling their growth.
• Enterprises rely on customer service plans to maintain consistency across the entire business—like departments and locations.

Customer service plans are also a valuable tool for various roles within a company.

• Customer service representatives use the plan as a guide for handling customer interactions, understanding performance expectations, knowing escalation processes, and providing solutions.
• Managers, supervisors, and team leads use the plan to oversee the success of customer service strategies, find areas of improvement, and ensure that teams follow the guidelines and procedures.
• Senior leadership uses a customer service plan to spot trends, assess how well the business meets customer service goals, and determine whether customer expectations and needs are satisfied.
• Sales teams use customer service plans to build customer relationships, identify ways to help customer service teams provide better support, and find cross-selling and upselling opportunities that benefit the customer.
• Marketing teams use customer service plans to understand the target customer better, personalize messaging, and deliver brand consistency throughout the customer journey.
• Product development teams use customer service plans to identify areas of improvement for the product or service based on agent and customer feedback, reporting and analytics, and ticket information.
• Training teams use customer support plans to improve customer service training for new hires and refresher training for more seasoned customer support agents.

How to create a customer service plan in 8 steps

Now that you know what a customer service plan is and what it’s used for, let’s dive into how to build one of your own. The following steps detail the elements you need to develop a powerful plan and deliver exceptional CX. Once you download our customer service plan template below, you’ll already be familiar with the sections and ready to start creating.

1. Create customer personas to understand their needs and pain points

The first step in creating your customer service plan is to define your target customers and list their needs and pain points so you know how to serve them better.

Customer personas (or buyer personas) describe the different people who use your products and services. A customer persona includes:

• Demographics
• Personal information
• Needs and pain points
• Personal goals and motivations
• Preferred communication channels

Before diving into your customer persona, consider data and analytics from your current customers, review prior feedback and surveys, and interview current customer service agents as a starting point.

2. Outline your customer journey map

A customer journey map is a visual representation of every touchpoint throughout the customer lifecycle and the customer sentiment along the way.

A customer journey map includes steps such as:

• Awareness: how the customer discovered your brand, product, or service
• Interest: how the customer realized your product or service could help with their needs or pain points
• Conversion: the event that resulted in a purchase, like a sale, promotion, or new product rollout
• Retention: what your business does to support your customers’ needs post-purchase
• Loyalty: details about repeat business, referrals, customer feedback, and social listening

Additionally, each step should document the touchpoints, areas of interest, pain points, opportunities, and sentiment. This helps you identify where you’re successful and where you need to improve.

3. Align on customer service standards, goals, and success metrics

Delivering an exceptional customer experience starts with defining clear customer service standards, goals, and objectives and how you’ll measure success.

Many businesses set SMART goals to create their objectives. SMART is an acronym that details the five requirements each customer service goal must meet:

• Specific: Focus on one particular problem or area.
• Measurable: Define a clear method for measuring progress and gauging success.
• Achievable: Set a goal you can accomplish.
• Relevant: Choose a goal that applies to your customer service strategy and mission.
• Time-bound: Set deadlines and abide by them.

For example, you can use the SMART method to set a goal focused on customer satisfaction.

• Goal: Improve our CSAT score from 75 percent to 90 percent by the end of Q1 (March 31).

4. Document customer service workflows and processes

A customer service workflow is a sequence of actions for a particular task from initiation to completion. Creating consistent and repeatable workflows and processes boosts productivity and efficiency, reduces errors, provides actionable insights, and ultimately improves the customer experience. Workflows often contain the following steps:

• Initial contact: The first interaction concerning a customer issue or request.
• Triage: Assessing the issue, assigning priority, and routing the request.
• Resolution: The request is handled by an agent or addressed by self-service resources.
• Follow-up: The business checks in with the customer to ensure customer satisfaction.

Here is an example of a standard customer service interaction workflow:

1. A customer connects with a business through live chat to report an issue.
2. A chatbot greets the customer and offers self-service options, including help center articles and relevant FAQs.
3. The customer requests to speak with an agent.
4. A ticket is generated, and the conversation is seamlessly handed off to the best-suited agent to handle the interaction.
5. The agent personalizes the conversation based on the customer data and context collected by the bot.
6. The agent resolves the issue and closes the ticket.
7. A customer satisfaction (CSAT) survey is automatically sent to the customer to collect feedback about the interaction.

5. Establish customer feedback methods to amplify the Voice of the Customer

That leads to the next step: collecting feedback to amplify the Voice of the Customer. You must define how you will gather feedback so you can better understand the needs and pain points of customers. You can get feedback and input from sources like:

• Customer surveys, such as CSAT and NPS®
• Community forums
• Focus groups
• Social media posts
• Feedback forms
• Reporting and analytics
• Agent interviews
• Customer interactions
• Ticket data

Implementing customer feedback helps your business create customer-centric products, increases customer retention, and allows you to provide better support.

6. Assess your customer service tools, communication channels, and capabilities to find areas of improvement

Next, review your customer service objectives and list the tools needed to accomplish each one. Determine if the tools already exist in your text stack or if you need to add them.

Some common tools include:

• Ticketing system
• Communication channels
• Self-service resources
• AI and automation
• Reporting and analytics

7. Determine your knowledge management process and communication strategy for updates

Define your knowledge management process, where the documentation will be stored, how you will update it, and what documentation you need to serve the customer. A few examples include:

• Internal knowledge base software for employees
• Knowledge base software for customers and employees
• FAQ software
• Community forums

Then, determine how you’ll communicate updates, changes, or improvements both internally (for customer service teams) and externally (for your customers).

8. Measure and analyze the impact and success of your customer service plan

Establish baselines for your customer service metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) so you can analyze the impact and success of your plan. One crucial metric that can tell you how you’re performing—directly from the mouth of customers—is your CSAT, or customer satisfaction score. Set your sights on a CSAT score between 90 and 95 percent, an impressive yet attainable goal.

Finally, use the data you’ve collected and analyzed to improve your customer service action plan. Look for innovations, new technologies, and best practices that can push your business until you’re an industry leader in customer experience and employee experience.

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Customer service plan examples

Business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) companies both use customer service plans to enhance the customer experience and to provide guidelines for uniform interactions. Because their customer bases are different, their customers have unique customer service needs and preferences.

B2C companies have a customer base of individual consumers, whereas B2B companies deal with businesses. Here are examples of what a B2B and B2C customer service plan might look like.

Example 1: Customer service plan for B2C

A B2C customer service plan focuses on delivering fast, convenient, and personalized support. Here’s an example of some of the information needed for a B2C customer service plan:

Customer persona:

• Name: Kamala Khan
• Industry: Healthcare
• Goals: Improve customer satisfaction
• Pain points: Customer service team isn’t hitting KPIs
• Solutions: Add advanced reporting and analytics software

Customer journey map:

• Touchpoint: Heard about the product via social media ads
• Pain point: Limited budget
• Action: Ensure confirmation emails are automated
• Sentiment: Positive

Customer service goals and metrics:

• Goal: Improve customer satisfaction
• Metric: Achieve average CSAT score between 90 and 95 percent

Customer service tools:

• Feedback forms
• Reporting and analytics
• AI and chatbots

Example 2: Customer service plan for B2B

Because B2B companies serve other businesses, the B2B customer service plan might focus on building strong partnerships and tailoring support to meet the unique needs of each customer at scale.

Here is an example of a customer service plan for B2B:

Customer persona:

• Name: Oscorp Industries
• Industry: Engineering
• Goals: Streamline workflows without adding more staff
• Pain points: Ticket queues are backed up
• Solutions: Implement advanced AI and automation tools for enterprise

Customer journey map:

• Touchpoint: Learned about the product at a software conference
• Pain point: Needs software to integrate into their existing tech stack
• Action: Ensure confirmation emails are automated
• Sentiment: Positive

Customer service goals and metrics:

• Goal: Automate workflows, boost productivity, reduce operational costs
• Metric: Lower first contact resolution time and maintain a CSAT of 93 percent

Customer service tools:

• Zendesk AI
• Self-service portal
• Voice solution with IVR

Customer service plan benefits

Some businesses may define customer success differently than others, but the benefits of creating a customer service plan are universal. Common benefits include the ability to:

• Enhance the customer experience: Customer service plans create a uniform process so teams can deliver a consistent customer experience.
• Increase customer satisfaction: An effortless customer experience means a surge in CSAT scores, increased customer loyalty and retention, and less customer churn.
• Meet SLAs and OLAs consistently: An effective customer service plan boosts productivity and efficiency, so your business is more likely to meet service-level agreements (SLAs) for your customers and operations-level agreements (OLAs) for internal teams. Continuously meeting (or exceeding) these goals builds trust between you and your customers.
• Boost employee satisfaction: By defining clear goals and expectations and providing easy-to-follow processes and tools that streamline workflows, you will improve the employee experience. Additionally, continuously investing in your customer service reps through training, upskilling, and promoting an employee-centric culture breeds a positive environment that customers will notice.
• Reduce costs: An extension of the previous benefit, happy employees are less likely to leave, which means businesses will experience less employee churn. Retaining employees is less costly than hiring and training replacements.

Best practices for creating a customer service plan

Now that you know the benefits and basics of how to create a customer service plan, let’s take a look at some things to keep in mind as you start making your own. Follow these best practices to create an effective customer service plan.

• Invest in the right tools: The right software makes it easy for agents to deliver a top-tier customer experience every time. Zendesk, for instance, is built specifically for CX and offers key features—like a unified omnichannel workspace, collaboration tools, reporting and analytics, self-service, a robust knowledge base, intelligent triage, and AI and automation tools—so you can crush your customer service goals.
• Set attainable goals: It’s natural to want to set lofty goals, but it’s SMART (see what we did there?) to make them achievable. For example, setting a goal to reach a 100 percent customer retention rate in six months is admirable, but it’s unlikely you’ll be able to attain it. Set reachable goals and raise the ceiling a bit at a time.
• Collaborate with agents and collect employee feedback: Customer service agents are a valuable resource because they’re on the front lines interacting with customers daily. Pick their brains and tap into their wealth of information to create an elite customer service action plan.
• Meet customers where they are: Customers want fast, convenient service. Offering support on the various communication channels that they’re already using with friends and family creates an effortless experience that boosts customer satisfaction and reduces customer churn.
• Personalize your customer service: In the Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2023, 77 percent of business leaders say personalization leads to customer retention, and 66 percent believe it lowers acquisition costs.

Assemble your customer service plan

You’re now armed with the knowledge and elements you need to develop a customer service plan—that means it’s time to slip your hand into the gauntlet. Our free template will help you create a plan that enables your team of customer service superheroes to deliver an experience so good that it might spell “Endgame” for your competition.

Net Promoter, Net Promoter Score, and NPS are trademarks of NICE Satmetrix, Inc., Bain & Company, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.

The post Customer service plan template, tips + how-to guide appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/customer-success-plan/ Fri, 20 Oct 2023 16:52:42 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=640182 Your business is only as successful as your customers are. Yes, you read that right. When you make sure customers have what they need to succeed, you also win as a business. Customer success is comprised of four main pillars: building strong customer relationships, putting the customer first, providing value at every opportunity, and acting […]

The post How to create an effective customer success plan (+ a template) appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> Your business is only as successful as your customers are. Yes, you read that right. When you make sure customers have what they need to succeed, you also win as a business.

Customer success is comprised of four main pillars: building strong customer relationships, putting the customer first, providing value at every opportunity, and acting as the voice of the customer. In order for businesses to efficiently and systematically achieve the criteria above they should create customer success plans.

Customer success plans can boost customer satisfaction, improve customer retention, lead to future sales, create brand advocates, and increase customer lifetime value (CLV) for your business. Read on for more details about best practices, essential components, and a free, downloadable template.

• What is a customer success plan?
• Why is a customer success plan important?
• Elements of a customer success strategy plan
• How to create a customer success plan
• 3 must-see customer success plan examples
• Customer success plan best practices
• Customer success starts with a plan
• Free customer success plan template

What is a customer success plan?

A customer success plan is a strategic framework (document or visualization) that ensures a customer’s long-term success and satisfaction. It explains what customer success looks like at your organization and empowers your customer success teams by outlining goals and objectives, strategies, key activities, and resource allocation.

What is the purpose of a customer success plan?

The purpose of a customer success plan is to identify and align key activities required to support customer goals and objectives. To help meet these goals the plan would:

• Consider in-depth data about the target customer(s) including their goals, objectives, existing knowledge, knowledge gaps, and where they are in their journey.
• Use the in-depth customer knowledge to prescribe a series of prioritized opportunities that align with your products and services, and specific recommendations that will help them to meet their goals

In practice, this might look like an overview of service engagements, offers, targeted engagements, and more that align with customer goals and needs.

What is the difference between customer success and customer service?

Put simply, customer success is proactive support while customer service takes a reactive approach.

Customer success is a proactive and strategic approach that ensures customers achieve their goals and find value in the product or service they purchase.

Key characteristics of customer success:

• Proactive: Customer success teams actively engage with customers, anticipating their needs and providing assistance before issues arise.
• Relationship-driven: The focus is on building strong, long-term relationships with customers to foster loyalty and retention.
• Outcome-oriented: Customer success aims to understand the customer’s desired outcomes and helps them achieve these objectives with the product or service.
• Value-focused: The emphasis is on demonstrating the value of the product or service and how it can address the customer’s pain points effectively.

Customer service, on the other hand, is a reactive function that responds to customer inquiries, issues, and complaints. The primary goal of customer service is to address customer problems and provide solutions when customers encounter difficulties with the product or service.

Key characteristics of customer service:

• Reactive: Customer service teams respond to customer inquiries and issues as they arise.
• Issue resolution: The focus is on troubleshooting and resolving specific problems faced by customers.
• Transactional: Customer service interactions are often transactional and may not involve long-term relationship building.
• Support-focused: Customer service aims to assist customers in using the product or service effectively and solving immediate concerns.

Why is a customer success plan important?

A customer success plan ensures that there are data-driven strategies—and a plan for how to effectively use them—in place. If done correctly, a customer success plan can help:

• Reduce customer churn.
• Increase revenue through customer retention.
• Identify sales opportunities via cross-selling and upselling.
• Provide insights about customers.

Elements of a customer success strategy plan

Businesses can customize customer success plans to suit their unique needs and goals. However, you will find a few key elements in any plan.

A customer success plan typically contains:

• Customer profiles
• Specific goals and key performance indicators (KPIs)
• Important milestones and touchpoints
• Key tasks for each stage of the customer journey
• Strategies based on how soon a customer is likely to make a purchase and how much effort it will take for a sales representative to close the deal
• Notes on high-impact processes that can be replicated
• Guidelines for seamless internal handoffs

How to create a customer success plan

Now that you understand the importance of a customer success plan and know the key elements, let’s dive into our nine-step guide to creating an advantageous customer success plan.

1. Determine customer success team roles and responsibilities

Before you can carry out your customer success plan, you must hire a team of people with a customer-first mindset. These individuals will work together to enhance the customer experience and help customers attain their goals.

A few key positions you may consider hiring when building a customer success team include:

• Chief customer officer: Recruit customer success leaders, oversee customer service teams, advocate for cross-functional collaboration, orchestrate strategies to increase revenue and advocate for impactful product updates.
• Vice president of customer success: Lead the customer success team, launch customer goal achievement programs, provide strategy and technology recommendations, and balance customer needs with business goals.
• Director of customer success: Interact with customers to understand their needs, identify sales and success opportunities, monitor customer success performance, and create strategies for return on investment (ROI) and churn reduction.
• Customer success manager: Manage a team of customer success associates, educate the team about important goals and milestones, review customer data and feedback to identify sales and success opportunities, and promote product adoption and training.
• Customer success associate: Advise and train customers, build relationships with customers, offer resources, and pass along important feedback to the customer success manager.

If your budget can’t accommodate all these roles, determine what your business needs most—like strategists or customer-facing agents—and make hiring decisions accordingly.

2. Create a customer journey map

Customer journey maps help customer success teams identify critical touchpoints in the buyer’s journey. Using insights from the map, businesses can identify areas of sales and CX opportunities, outline strategies to increase sales and customer retention, identify the most important tasks at each stage, and plan timelines. Typically, a customer journey map will include these stages:

• Awareness
• Consideration
• Conversion
• Adoption
• Advocacy

With a clear understanding of the customer journey, let’s explore what success looks like at different stages.

3. Understand what success looks like at each stage of the customer journey

While customer success teams traditionally step in after the sales process, customer success is truly a cross-functional effort. Customer success teams should be well-acquainted with the customer journey and be aligned on what success looks like in the different stages of the journey.

Here are some examples of what success could look like at different stages of the customer journey:

• Conversion: Customers move seamlessly from sales to customer success after a sale is made to begin the onboarding process
• Retention: The customer renews their contract.
• Advocacy: Churn rates and referral metrics indicate improvements in CX since initial benchmarks were set.

After you’ve determined what success looks like at every stage you can leverage data to identify and implement impactful opportunities.

4. Use data to identify high-impact opportunities

Customer success plans require accurate data from all departments. When done correctly, businesses can identify high-impact customer strategies and processes, increase overall engagement, and set up A/B testing (or split testing) to determine which strategy updates are most effective

Here are examples of data you can leverage to get key insights and find high-impact opportunities:

• Interaction history and Customer Effort Scores to identify how much personal contact a specific customer needs to feel supported
• Customer service and agent performance data to help determine if there are any repetitive tasks or processes that businesses can automate
• Customer feedback and past support requests to help businesses understand which trainings and offerings will be most beneficial to customers

While keeping opportunities like these in mind, begin thinking about which interactions are vital to customer success and how you can streamline, automate, or improve those processes.

5. Outline processes for key moments in the sales journey

Here are some ways marketing, sales, and support teams can enhance CX and set customers up for success at each stage of the buyer journey.

• Awareness: The marketing team creates a positive first impression, educates customers about how your product can help them, and sets the foundation for future interactions.
• Consideration: Sales teams customize offers, product recommendations, and touchpoints.
• Conversion: The success team onboards new customers and demonstrates how to use products.
• Adoption: The customer success team provides additional training, sets up or configures the product, provides tools and guidance to help them get started, offers support, and upsells or cross-sells as needed.
• Advocacy: The customer success team requests customer feedback and reviews about the sales and adoption process, implements findings, and proactively checks in with the customer.

6. Track customer success metrics and set benchmarks

Decide how you will measure the performance of your customer success efforts by selecting metrics and setting benchmarks so you can regularly analyze data. Some top metrics customer success teams should keep tabs on include:

• Customer retention: Track the number of customers who make repeat purchases.
• Customer lifetime value (CLV): Calculate the total amount of money your business stands to generate from a single customer throughout their life cycle.
• Net Promoter Score® (NPS): Determine the percentage of customers who would recommend your business to others.
• Customer churn: Calculate the number of customers who stop doing business with you for any reason.
• Customer Effort Score (CES): Understand how much effort a customer must exert to receive an answer or a solution to the issue they’re experiencing from your support team.
• Monthly recurring revenue (MRR): Predict how much revenue your business will generate from all subscriptions over a month.

Check customer success plan performance at regular intervals to ensure that:

• Strategies are working tracking positively toward organizational goals
• Teams and individuals understand their responsibilities and are collaborating efficiently
• Frameworks for handoffs and data sharing are clear and still working as intended

7. Encourage collaboration between teams to achieve success at every stage

A good customer success strategy is created with the help of various departments to help customers achieve their desired outcomes. Here are a few examples of what this can look like:

• Sales and marketing can work together to understand customer needs and develop content that appeals to their target market.
• The success team can use information from the sales team to personalize customer experiences and proactively solve customer needs.
• Customer service can use the customer success team’s interaction history notes to determine which resources the customer already has access to and identify the best way to resolve issues.

As essential as cross-functional collaboration is for achieving customer success, it’s equally important for agents to have access to high-quality software that enables them to do their jobs with ease.

8. Equip your team with the right tools

It’s ideal to invest in customer service software and customer feedback software before you form a customer success team. Access to these tools can give your team a better picture of your customers and their experiences with your organization, which can influence your plan over time.

Some key functionalities of CSM software include keeping track of customer feedback, issues, requests, expectations, and data. Customer service software features make this possible with:

• A unified omnichannel workspace
• Customer lifecycle engagement tracking
• Workflow automations
• Customer lifecycle management
• Customer data capture
• Customer growth predictions

9. Collect customer feedback

Regularly assess customer feedback and incorporate key findings into the customer success plan. Feedback is beneficial because it often provides contextual details that data doesn’t, so there’s a lot less guesswork, ensuring you experience less guesswork when determining the most impactful updates.

Businesses can leverage customer feedback to improve their customer success plan in the following ways:

• Identifying pain points
• Determining when customers need more support
• Refreshing online resources
• Providing better training
• Improving the customer onboarding experience
• Personalizing messaging

Ultimately, customer feedback can help your business effectively gauge the performance of your customer success plan, the impact new software has on business, and overall sentiment.

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3 must-see customer success plan examples

There are different ways to structure your customer success plan, but remember to include the key components we discussed earlier.

Here are a few sample customer success plans for inspiration.

Customer success plan example #1: Onboarding

An onboarding-focused customer success plan will target customers in the adoption phase of the customer journey. It should include strategies based on company and customer goals. It’s also important to note who will contribute to this plan and what resources they can use as an aid to streamline the training process.

Section 1: Summary

• Goals and objectives
• Summary of impact on customers and business

Section 2: Customer journey map

• Overview of sales journey stages conversion and adoption
• List of important tasks and touchpoints

Section 3: Strategy

• Strategies by touchpoint
• Strategies by effort
• Strategies by data benchmarks and end goals

Section 4: Product adoption

• Training resources
• Onboarding process
• Important milestones

Section 5: Resource allocation

• Customer success team roles and responsibilities
• Performance metrics
• Goals and objectives
• Budget

Customer success plan example #2: Growth and expansion

A growth and expansion customer success plan focuses on tailoring opportunities to fulfill customer needs so they can derive deeper value from your product or service. To do this, success teams should realign with customers on their goals and begin considering additional products and services they can recommend to the customer.

Section 1: Summary

• Short- and long-term customer success goals
• Plans for account growth
• Company priorities and goals

Section 2: Onboarding

• Repeatable tasks and processes
• Important KPIs
• Learning and development initiatives

Section 3: Sales and marketing engagement action plan

• Messaging
• Tasks
• Touchpoints
• Guidelines for proactive support

Section 4: Success engagement action plan

• Messaging
• Tasks
• Touchpoints
• Guidelines for proactive support

Section 5: Reporting

• Customer success metrics
• Reporting schedule
• Customer health monitoring

Section 6: Revenue generators

• Cross-selling
• Upselling
• Promotions
• Pricing
• Value propositions

Customer success plan example #3: Approaching renewal

A customer success plan for renewals requires teams to fully understand the past while looking to the future. To maximize chances of retaining customers, determine if goals have been met, share takeaways and performance metrics, and develop a competitive plan of action for the contract cycle ahead.

Section 1: Overview

• Organizational goals
• Objectives
• Customer success goals

Section 2: Customer overview

• Customer segments
• Customer profiles
• Pain points and expectations
• Past complaints and resolutions
• Overall customer intent and sentiment
• Customer health monitoring process

Section 3: Performance

• Metrics, analytics, and KPIs
• Reporting schedule
• Performance benchmarks

Section 4: Customer journey stages and tasks

• Key tasks during the conversion or re-purchase stage
• Strategies for getting reviews and referrals during the advocacy stage

Section 5: Opportunities

• Strategy improvement and expansion
• Cross-selling and upselling

Section 6: Roles and responsibilities

• Overview of contributing departments
• Organizational chart
• Job descriptions and responsibilities

Customer success plan best practices

Now that you know the basics of developing a customer success plan, here are a few best practices to keep in mind as you create and implement it.

1. Ensure goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (S.M.A.R.T.).
2. Use data to create strategies for specific customer segments, sales journey stages, and customer needs.
3. Clearly define who is responsible for which task and the desired outcome.
4. Determine which repeatable tasks are essential and automate them.
5. Increase sales by building trust and customer relationships rather than jumping to a hard sell.
6. Share data and collaborate with other teams.
7. Outline a clear customer experience design to guide future interactions.

Customer success starts with a plan

At the end of the day, customer success starts with a plan. Not only should approaches to different scenarios and customer segments be tailored, but your whole team should be aligned on the plan to deliver consistent excellence.

If you’d like more guidance while creating your customer success plan, download our free customer success plan template below to develop your robust plan. Also, see how Zendesk can help your team cultivate positive customer experiences at every touchpoint.

Net Promoter, Net Promoter Score, and NPS are trademarks of NICE Satmetrix, Inc., Bain & Company, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.

The post How to create an effective customer success plan (+ a template) appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/jeremykingsley-economist-podcast/ Thu, 19 Oct 2023 20:52:14 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=640193 As businesses rush to tap generative AI’s vast potential to transform the customer experience, analysts watching this modern-day gold rush have responded with both optimism and caution. For every new business opportunity unveiled by AI comes very real concerns about a host of issues: data privacy and security, transparency about decision-making, and of course, job […]

The post Experimenting with AI responsibly and transparently with Economist Impact’s Jeremy Kingsley appeared first on Zendesk.

]]>

As businesses rush to tap generative AI’s vast potential to transform the customer experience, analysts watching this modern-day gold rush have responded with both optimism and caution. For every new business opportunity unveiled by AI comes very real concerns about a host of issues: data privacy and security, transparency about decision-making, and of course, job security.

In this latest episode of the Conversations with Zendesk podcast, host Nicole Saunders was joined by Jeremy Kingsley, global lead of strategic foresight at Economist Impact, who shed light on AI’s potential to revamp healthcare and education, financial services’ early adoption of the technology, and the ethical and regulatory challenges that business leaders and nations must confront.

As Kingsley argues that businesses that tackle possible inherent bias in their AI and communicate openly with their consumers will put themselves in a strong position to both build customer loyalty and stay on the right side of regulators.





Subscribe to Conversations with Zendesk

Stay up to date on the latest episodes on your favorite podcast platform such as Spotify, Apple, YouTube, and Stitcher, or return to the Zendesk blog for new episodes every two weeks.

“Companies need to be transparent about their use of AI and disclose when AI is making decisions,” Kingsley said.

Meanwhile, as AI automates tasks once performed by humans, the onus is on companies to ensure the technology works for all, and that jobs evolve accordingly, Kingsley said.

Stay tuned for the next episode of Conversations with Zendesk (November 1), which will feature Zendesk’s Paulette Chafe, head of customer insights and thought leadership, who will talk about Zendesk’s research about IT leaders’ growing role in shaping customer and employee experiences.

The post Experimenting with AI responsibly and transparently with Economist Impact’s Jeremy Kingsley appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/help-my-ai/ Thu, 19 Oct 2023 17:53:53 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=640157 Meet Derek Smart businesses are integrating AI-powered bots into their customer experience platforms to provide exceptional service across all channels. The rest of them are using technology like Derek, and they desperately need help. Meet MEBO Innovative companies want AI that empowers support agents to be more productive. What they don’t want is MEBO—AI that […]

The post Help my AI! appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> Meet Derek

Smart businesses are integrating AI-powered bots into their customer experience platforms to provide exceptional service across all channels. The rest of them are using technology like Derek, and they desperately need help.





Meet MEBO

Innovative companies want AI that empowers support agents to be more productive. What they don’t want is MEBO—AI that doesn’t know how to be helpful.





Meet SCR33CH

AI is everywhere these days, but not all AI can handle customer service. Some companies get stuck with technology like SCR33CH.





Meet Serenit-E

Businesses need powerful AI that works from day one without extra developers, heavy IT spend, or months of lead time. What they don’t need is Serenit-E.





The solution: Zendesk

No more babysitting your bots. Only Zendesk AI is built on billions of real customer service interactions. It understands customer experience, which means you unlock the power of personalized support from day one, without any extra work—or extra help from these characters.




Check out Zendesk’s YouTube channel for more AI content.

The post Help my AI! appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/service-desk-chatbot/ Thu, 19 Oct 2023 15:52:55 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=640092 What is a service desk chatbot? A service desk chatbot can provide 24/7 support to employees and customers, quickly answering various queries, from internal IT requests to customer questions. Additionally, bots can help live agents by gathering important information related to the customer’s issue upfront, saving agents time and boosting their productivity. In business, helping […]

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What is a service desk chatbot?

A service desk chatbot can provide 24/7 support to employees and customers, quickly answering various queries, from internal IT requests to customer questions. Additionally, bots can help live agents by gathering important information related to the customer’s issue upfront, saving agents time and boosting their productivity.

In business, helping to fix a customer or employee issue is kind of like solving a mystery. First, a customer or employee presents you with a problem. Then, you gather clues in order to solve the mystery, finding a solution for everyone involved. And to solve these mysteries quickly and efficiently, put a service desk chatbot on the case.

Think of your service desk chatbot as your lead detective—it quickly responds to the scene, gathers clues, and uses the information to find the solution, taking your service desk experience to the next level.

And like any good detective, a chatbot will bring in the right experts whenever a mystery requires extra help, ensuring a fast and smooth resolution for customers and employees alike.

In this guide, we’ll cover why service desk chatbots are important, their use cases, their benefits, and how they can be valuable to your support and IT teams.

• Why is a service desk chatbot important?
• Use cases for service desk chatbots
• Benefits of using a service desk chatbot
• Boost employee and customer satisfaction using service desk chatbots

Why is a service desk chatbot important?

A service desk chatbot is important because it is a valuable extension of your support team. By using artificial intelligence (AI), a service desk chatbot acts as a virtual agent and elevates the service and help desk experience. Whether an employee needs to report a tech issue or a customer is having some trouble with your product, a chatbot can quickly answer their questions and direct them toward a solution, improving the customer and employee experience (EX).

These fast resolution times are important, as 72 percent of customers want immediate service, according to the Zendesk Customer Experience (CX) Trends Report 2023.

By implementing a service or help desk chatbot with service desk software, you can provide immediate service to customers and employees, improving support interactions and keeping your internal operations running smoothly.

Use cases for service desk chatbots

Much like a member of your team, service and help desk chatbots can help your business with multiple things, from AI-powered customer service to proactive messaging. Let’s look at some common use cases for service desk chatbots.

Answering customer and employee questions 24/7

A service desk chatbot allows your business to provide 24/7 support to employees and customers, even when your agents are off the clock. For example, an IT service desk chatbot can help an employee troubleshoot a tech issue with your IT department or direct a customer to a self-service option like a knowledge base.

Deploying a service desk chatbot designed for 24/7 support helps deflect tickets and frees up your agents while allowing customers and employees to get help on their own time.

“Bots handle all of your repetitive questions and tasks, meaning your agents are freed up to focus on the complex issues that require a human touch. When agents are needed, bots can intelligently route conversations to the right team with all the useful context from the conversation.”

–Lauren Hakim, Group Product Marketing Manager at Zendesk

Collecting key information upfront

Service and help desk chatbots can collect important information upfront, such as an individual’s email, location, order number, and other details related to the issue. Bots can use these details to automatically routing customers and provide valuable context to the correct agent with the help of AI. This allows the agent to quickly provide support without asking repetitive questions, helping save time and improve agent productivity.

Offering multilingual support

Your customer base likely extends to countries where English isn’t the primary language. And even if your business doesn’t operate globally, you’re likely dealing with customers who speak another language. (There are over 350 languages spoken in U.S. households.) Plus, 71 percent of consumers believe it’s “very” or “extremely” important that businesses promote and support their products in customers’ native language.

Service and help desk chatbots can help you provide multilingual customer (or employee) support by automatically translating information and transferring service requests to support agents who speak that language. This can help enhance both the employee and customer experience, allowing employees and customers to communicate effectively across languages and the globe.

Providing proactive messaging

While service desk chatbots respond to messages, chatbots can also engage individuals, contacting them first, in real time, with proactive messaging. For example, a support chatbot can automatically suggest self-service resources based on user behavior. Additionally, a chatbot can help increase customer engagement with custom greetings and targeted messages based on past interactions.

“Bots can help you get ahead of customer asks by reaching out with meaningful, timely, and personalized interactions that drive engagement and retention and increase sales and conversion rates.”

–Lauren Hakim, Group Product Marketing Manager at Zendesk

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Benefits of using a service desk chatbot

After reviewing common use cases for service desk chatbots, you might wonder how using one can benefit your business. Read along to learn more about the benefits of implementing a chatbot with help desk software and how it can help your employees and customers.

Save time and reduce support costs

Service desk chatbots can help your agents save time and reduce support costs by automatically fielding and answering questions from customers and internal team members. This helps free up your support team, allowing them to spend their time tackling the issues that matter most, leaving repetitive tasks, like troubleshooting tech issues and performing password resets, for your chatbot.

“Bots are a super cost-effective way to manage [a] high volume of support requests because they can serve more customers without the business having to add agents or additional costs.”

–Lauren Hakim, Group Product Marketing Manager at Zendesk

Enable support capacity to scale

Adding a service or help desk bot to your support arsenal is like increasing the size of your support team overnight. No matter the time of day, your service desk chatbots are working behind the scenes to reduce ticket volume and serve more customers and employees.

Plus, using chatbots for customer service enables your business to help multiple people simultaneously, allowing you to solve issues at scale without hiring additional human agents.

Increase customer and employee satisfaction

Using a chatbot for support can also increase customer and employee satisfaction, as it helps you better meet their needs. According to our CX Trends Report, 70 percent of consumers want conversational AI experiences. On top of that, 66 percent want support interactions that don’t interrupt whatever they are doing.

With service and help desk chatbots, you can provide just that, enabling your customers and employees to get help that best serves them, all while providing a positive experience and boosting satisfaction.

“Bots can deliver instant answers 24/7 across your service channels. Your customers get personalized support without having to wait, leading to higher satisfaction rates and increased loyalty.”

–Lauren Hakim, Group Product Marketing Manager at Zendesk

Boost employee and customer satisfaction using service desk chatbots


Now that you know the benefits of AI chatbots and how a service desk chatbot can improve your employee and customer experience, it’s time to get started.

Our end-to-end customer service and employee experience software is built with CX in mind and designed to scale, ensuring you deliver meaningful support no matter how fast you grow. Try Zendesk for free and solve customer and employee mysteries on day one.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/data-privacy-security-report/ Wed, 18 Oct 2023 23:34:18 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=639054 Your phone buzzes with an email notification. Subject line: Important information about a recent security incident. Sounds familiar, right? Unfortunately, security incidents are more and more common, which means many companies are leaning on trust to galvanize their customer relationships. Trust is the cornerstone of customer relationships, but in today’s changing data privacy and security […]

The post The IT dilemma: Balancing data privacy and personalization in customer experience appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> Your phone buzzes with an email notification. Subject line: Important information about a recent security incident.

Sounds familiar, right? Unfortunately, security incidents are more and more common, which means many companies are leaning on trust to galvanize their customer relationships. Trust is the cornerstone of customer relationships, but in today’s changing data privacy and security landscape, it’s hard to earn and easy to lose.

Research shows that trust is at odds with consumer expectations of personalization

Companies and platforms collect more personal data than ever, and consumers expect this data to stay safe in the face of evolving security threats. Simultaneously, government and industry compliance standards are constantly developing. This makes it challenging to balance privacy and security while working to enhance the customer experience—even more so for companies in highly regulated sectors, companies handling lots of sensitive customer data, or companies following their own strict privacy and security standards.

Zendesk’s 2023 report, The IT Dilemma: Balancing Data Privacy and Personalization in Customer Experience, highlights these conflicting priorities. In the report, 66 percent of surveyed IT leaders say data privacy and protection regulations limit their personalization efforts significantly.

Despite these challenges, companies with the right tools and partners in place can thrive in this changing landscape, meeting their customers’ need for greater privacy and security while building greater customer trust and satisfaction along the way.

Learn more about Zendesk advanced data privacy and protection

In this report

Here are three ways businesses can proactively maintain customer trust amidst the changing data privacy sphere.

1. Remove personal data from customer conversations

Redacting personal data from customer conversations can be a critical first step in protecting customer privacy.

Customer conversations contain a wealth of information that can be used to personalize the customer experience—think details like purchase history or previously closed tickets. The key is determining which personal information is relevant and which information is not. This includes data like credit cards, social security numbers, and passwords from support conversations.

Once businesses know which personal information isn’t needed to deliver customer experiences, they can use redaction tools to selectively and permanently delete those details from customer conversations. With advances in AI, this process is becoming smarter and easier to automate.

2. Enable agents to access only the customer data they need

Redaction can help protect personal information that CX professionals don’t need access to, but what about the data they do need?

To provide personalized customer experiences, support agents need access to customer information. For example, to better understand a customer’s needs, they might search through past conversations for relevant insights.

The complexity here is that not all CX professionals require the same level of access to customer data. According to the information security principle of least privilege, CX team members should only be able to access the information they need to do their jobs effectively. If one team member relies on specific personal data to service customers while another agent does not, only the first agent should have access to that information.

Beyond maintaining access and permission controls, businesses can use advanced capabilities like data masking to surface or hide customer data based on employee role.

3. Delete outdated customer data your business no longer needs

Eventually, even the most relevant customer data becomes unnecessary for businesses to hold. Think of customer service data stored in platforms years after a service transaction was completed. For maximum customer privacy, this kind of outdated data should be deleted regularly. To do this, flexible tools to enforce data retention policies that delete the data they don’t need while keeping the data they do.

This is particularly crucial for businesses under data retention regulations, whereby personal data must be deleted if it’s no longer needed or if a customer requests its removal.

By enforcing data retention policies, businesses can stay on top of regional and industry-based regulations while keeping customer data safe. CX tools that allow businesses to customize where, when, and which data is deleted can accommodate this flexibility.

Learn more about data privacy and protection in CX

Building customer trust amidst a dynamic data privacy landscape can be a challenge. But with the right strategies and tools in place, businesses can deliver the most trusted customer experiences while safeguarding their business, elevating customer privacy, and strengthening data security at scale. Discover additional insights in our free report.

The post The IT dilemma: Balancing data privacy and personalization in customer experience appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/chatbot-persona/ Wed, 18 Oct 2023 17:04:31 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=640038 What is a chatbot persona? A chatbot persona is a chatbot’s personality, including its voice, tone, and behavior. A chatbot persona is an extension of a brand’s identity and can transform the chatbot experience from boring and robotic to exciting and engaging. A chatbot without a chatbot persona is like a car without a radio. […]

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What is a chatbot persona?

A chatbot persona is a chatbot’s personality, including its voice, tone, and behavior. A chatbot persona is an extension of a brand’s identity and can transform the chatbot experience from boring and robotic to exciting and engaging.

A chatbot without a chatbot persona is like a car without a radio. Sure, it may be able to get you to your destination, but it won’t be as memorable or as enjoyable of an experience.

In this guide, we’ll break down the benefits of using a chatbot persona, its key components, where to use it, popular examples, and how to create one that fits your brand.

• Benefits of using chatbot personas
• Key components of a chatbot persona
• Where to apply a chatbot persona
• How to create a chatbot persona
• Chatbot persona examples
• Best practices for maintaining a chatbot persona
• Frequently asked questions
• Build a chatbot for your business with Zendesk

Benefits of using chatbot personas

Whether you’re interviewing potential new hires, going on a first date, or making small talk at the airport, a stand-out personality can go a long way. The same goes for chatbots for businesses. Follow along to learn more about the benefits of using a chatbot persona to level up your customer service.

Improves customer experience

Even though chatbots are known for providing fast, 24/7 support, it doesn’t mean you want your customers to feel like they’re talking to a robot. Implementing a chatbot persona can produce more natural-sounding conversations, adding personality and a feeling of emotional connection between your customers and your business, ultimately helping to improve the customer experience (CX).

Additionally, consumers are excited about AI-powered chatbots. According to the Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2023, 73 percent of people believe that AI will improve customer service quality.

Extends brand identity

Chatbot personas extend your brand identity, allowing you to provide consistent, quality AI customer service across channels. By implementing a bot persona, your chatbot will reinforce your brand identity—whether answering a customer question or initiating the conversation through proactive customer service.

Additionally, chatbot personas can help extend your brand identity across the globe. For example, Zendesk chatbots use artificial intelligence to understand customer support questions in nearly two dozen languages, allowing your chatbot to be a global ambassador for your brand and its identity.

Saves admin and agent hours

While you may think the benefits of AI chatbots are most noticeable for customers, implementing a chatbot persona can also save your admins and agents time. Setting a standard chatbot persona for all conversations eliminates the time-consuming process of manually inputting how you want your chatbot to behave during different types of interactions.

For example, with Zendesk, admins can automatically apply a consistent persona across all bot-generated responses, whether it’s a welcome message or a technical FAQ. Additionally, admins can do this without coding, making it the quickest way to implement a bot persona.

“Zendesk makes it easy to build bots and create dynamic conversation flows that guide customers to a resolution. There is no coding or developers needed, so you can build a bot in minutes.”
Lauren Hakim, Group Product Marketing Manager at Zendesk

Key components of a chatbot persona

While the personality of a chatbot can vary greatly depending on the company it represents, most chatbot personas follow a similar recipe for success. To ensure your chatbot personality has all of the necessary ingredients, keep these key components in mind:

• Name: When naming your chatbot, select a name that is memorable and a good fit for your brand.
• Visual representation: Whether your chatbot is a ticket-resolving cartoon dog or a robot in a tuxedo, adding a visual representation can help your customers experience an emotional connection.
• Tone of voice: Depending on what your business does, you may have your chatbot sound professional, playful, or friendly. In any event, be sure your chatbot represents your brand by using the right tone of voice.
• Backstory: Adding a backstory and meaning to your chatbot can help make your chatbot relatable and unforgettable. For example, you can make your chatbot for an educational supply store a retired history teacher who is equally as experienced as they are lovable.
• Behavior: Enabling your chatbot to utilize customer and contextual data to provide personalized customer service can help make the experience more engaging for your customers. For example, your chatbot can greet the customer by name and use existing data to ask them relevant questions about a recent order.

By including these key components, you can put your best foot forward and create a chatbot that provides your customers with an enjoyable customer service experience.

Where to apply a chatbot persona

Now that you know what a chatbot persona is and how it can positively impact your business, you may wonder where to use one. Simply put, you can apply a chatbot personality anywhere a chatbot is present. Common examples of where to apply a chatbot persona include:

• Customer support: Using a chatbot can help your business provide 24/7 live chat, answering customer questions and freeing your agents to tackle more important issues. Whether you want your chatbot to be playful, friendly, or professional, applying a persona can help your business deliver support in a voice and tone that matches your brand.
• Internal communication: Not only can AI chatbots help your customers, but also your employees. With employee experience software like Zendesk, employees can engage with a chatbot to quickly surface relevant information to help provide fast resolutions for customers. By keeping your chatbot personality consistent for internal and external use, your business can provide a cohesive communication experience for everyone.
• Social media: If your business has a social media presence, you’ll also want to deploy your chatbot (and its persona) there. With a customer service solution like Zendesk, businesses can connect their chatbots to Facebook and X (formerly known as Twitter) using Messenger for business and X Business. By setting up these connections, your chatbot can extend your brand identity across social media, helping your customers from their platform of choice.
• Sales and marketing: You’ll also want to implement a chatbot persona when you use an AI chatbot for sales. Chatbots can proactively interact with customers as they enter the sales funnel, asking questions and capturing information to help generate leads. By applying the desired chatbot persona, you can help ensure your chatbot is an effective and helpful asset to your sales team.

“Bots can help you get ahead of customer asks by reaching out with meaningful, timely, and personalized interactions that drive engagement and retention and increase sales and conversion rates.”
Lauren Hakim, Group Product Marketing Manager at Zendesk

No matter your chatbot use case, applying a persona can help take your chatbot experience to the next level, making communication and collaboration fun, engaging, and aligned with your overall brand.

How to create a chatbot persona

With an understanding of what an AI persona is and how it can benefit your business, it’s time to give your chatbot a makeover. Follow these step-by-step instructions to help you create the perfect persona for your business and customers.

1. Identify your audience

First, you’ll want to identify who your chatbot will be communicating with. To help determine the demographic of your audience, you might consider asking yourself the following questions:

• How old are my customers?
• Where do they live?
• What do they do for a living?
• What are their needs?
• What are their problems?
• What are their goals?

By answering these questions, you can tailor your chatbot’s personality to better resonate with your audience and boost customer engagement.

For example, if your business sells party supplies to parents, your chatbot might be fun, friendly, and upbeat. On the other hand, if you sell accounting software to business executives, you may want your chatbot to sound more professional.

2. Consider your brand values

In addition to your audience, consider your brand values when creating your chatbot persona. Much like hiring a new customer service representative, you’ll want to select a persona that aligns with your brand. If your company’s core values include kindness and positivity, you’ll want your chatbot to behave accordingly.

That way, whether a customer is speaking to a live agent or a chatbot, you know they are experiencing your brand’s values firsthand. If your chatbot does not fit your brand persona, it may make chatbot communication a less cohesive experience for your customers.

3. Establish a name and identity

To take your bot personality to the next level, you’ll want to create a name and an identity to add a human touch and help your chatbot stand out from the crowd. For example, the visual identity of your chatbot could be an avatar or mascot that matches your brand image.

Keeping a consistent visual identity and name wherever you deploy your chatbot, will make it easier for your target audience to know when they are talking to your chatbot—and where to find it on your page. On top of that, a name and visual identity can add to the user experience and make your customers feel like they are emotionally connecting with your chatbot.

4. Create a unique voice

Next, you’ll want to make sure your chatbot’s tone and voice fit your brand. That way, when users speak with your chatbot, it sounds like an extension of your customer service team rather than a bland, personality-less robot. This will help make chatbot conversations more engaging and let your chatbot stand out.

To do this, you’ll want to focus specifically on:

• Vocabulary
• Phrasing
• Tone

When creating a unique voice for your chatbot, make sure you match other aspects of your brand, such as your website, marketing materials, and how your support and sales team talks about your products or services. This can ensure your customers experience a seamless conversational experience if a conversation moves from your chatbot to a live agent.

5. Develop personalized interactions

According to our CX Trends Report, 59 percent of consumers believe businesses should use customer data to deliver personalized customer support interactions.

By developing a chatbot persona that uses customer data to help enhance the communication experience, you can deliver engaging and personalized interactions that can help your customers emotionally connect with your chatbot and, in turn, your business.

You can think of this as the cashier at your favorite bagel shop. As soon as you walk in, they greet you by name and ask if you want your usual order. In the same way, a chatbot can use existing data to know the customer’s name, order history, and previous pain points without asking the customer time-consuming questions.

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Chatbot persona examples

With popular AI tools like ChatGPT and Bard making headlines, many popular businesses are beginning to implement AI chatbots to stay up to date and improve their CX.

And consumers are ready for it, with 73 percent expecting more interactions with AI in their everyday lives, according to our CX Trends Report. With personas ranging from friendly to playful to professional, let’s look at some popular chatbots and their unique personality traits.

Lush’s NA Bot

Lush is a cosmetics retailer that specializes in fresh handmade cosmetics. To help answer customer questions with ease, Lush provided its customers with its friendly Lush NA Bot. The Lush NA Bot is immediately available when you enter the Lush website, allowing customers to ask questions after clicking on the Lush NA Bot icon on the bottom right corner of the page.

Key trait: The helpful Lush NA Bot is visually represented by a smiling chat
bubble icon.

Key trait: The helpful Lush NA Bot is visually represented by a smiling chat bubble icon.

Capital.com’s chatbot

Capital.com is an online trading platform for investors. Ready to answer any customer questions is Capital.com’s bot. The chatbot that is eager to solve customer questions. To summon it, investors can click on the chat bubble icon on the bottom right corner of the website.

Key trait: Capital’s chatbot can use emojis in its correspondence, making for a personalized experience.

Best practices for maintaining a chatbot persona

Now that you’ve developed the perfect chatbot sidekick for your business, the next step is maintaining it. Like most things, your business can change over time. To help your chatbot keep up with the evolution of your brand, follow these chatbot persona maintenance best practices.

Stay consistent

When it comes to your chatbot persona, consistency is key. To maintain consistency, set guidelines for your chatbot’s tone, voice, behavior, and visual identity, no matter the use case. That way, whether your customers are learning about your chatbot through marketing materials or are engaging with it for the tenth time, they know what to expect.

Adapt to user feedback

While consistency is important, it doesn’t mean your chatbot persona is set in stone. For example, if your customers say your chatbot’s visual identity is unappealing, you’ll want to fix it. Additionally, if your customers say your chatbot is too playful, you might consider adjusting to a more formal tone. With Zendesk, you can automatically transform the tone of your chatbot using Tone Shift, allowing you to make the change once and reap the benefits anywhere your chatbot is used.

To better meet customer needs and understand what your customers think about your chatbot, be sure to offer opportunities for your customers to leave feedback to help you refine your chatbot experience.

Perform regular updates

With valuable data and customer feedback, it’s time to perform regular updates to ensure your chatbot is evolving with your business. If your company rebrands and adopts a more playful brand identity, you want your chatbot to do the same.

Additionally, if your company begins offering new products or services, be sure your chatbot is kept up to speed, just as you would with a member of your sales or support team. This can help ensure your customers receive the most up-to-date information, whether they’re browsing your website, talking to a customer support agent, or chatting with your chatbot.

Prioritize AI ethics

While implementing a chatbot persona, you’ll want to prioritize the ethics of AI in CX. And much of this starts with the team training your AI. For instance, hiring diverse teams to provide varying perspectives when implementing and testing your chatbot. Additionally, assess the data your AI technology feeds off of to ensure it isn’t regurgitating any biased information that could lead to an unsatisfactory experience for your customers.

Frequently asked questions

Are you still scratching your head about chatbot personas? Read along to learn the answers to some common questions about chatbot personalities.

Can chatbots have a personality?

Yes, chatbots can have a personality. While the personality of a chatbot can vary based on the company it represents, some common chatbot persona examples include:

• Friendly
• Playful
• Professional

When should I create a chatbot persona?

Ideally, you should create your chatbot persona during the planning stage of implementing a chatbot. With Zendesk, users can choose from one of three personas: friendly, playful, and professional. After deciding your desired persona, you can set it once and it will automatically take effect anywhere customers use it, with no coding required, saving you time and money.

Why is a chatbot persona important?

A chatbot persona is important as it extends your brand identity, fosters emotional connections, and ensures a seamless communication experience across your business. This helps you deliver memorable, helpful, and enjoyable chatbot interactions and improve CX.

Build a chatbot for your business with Zendesk

Like the perfect playlist for a long road trip, chatbot personas can take your chatbot experience to the next level, whether striking a playful, friendly, or professional tone. With Zendesk, you can deploy a chatbot for customer service with your desired persona in minutes and automatically apply the persona to all chatbot communication, from personalized greetings to generative replies.

This allows your business to quickly and easily provide consistent and meaningful conversational AI support across channels—no coding required.

The post Chatbot persona: What it is + how to create one appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/chatgpt-for-customer-service/ Tue, 17 Oct 2023 17:21:39 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=640017 ChatGPT is an impressive conversational AI (artificial intelligence) chatbot by OpenAI that launched in 2022. Since its release, users worldwide have been using the tool to write, code, and find answers to general questions. But can OpenAI API or ChatGPT be used for customer service? In this article, we’ll answer that question, explain the capabilities […]

The post ChatGPT for customer service: Capabilities and limitations appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> ChatGPT is an impressive conversational AI (artificial intelligence) chatbot by OpenAI that launched in 2022. Since its release, users worldwide have been using the tool to write, code, and find answers to general questions. But can OpenAI API or ChatGPT be used for customer service?

In this article, we’ll answer that question, explain the capabilities of OpenAI’s large language model (LLM), and provide best practices for using the OpenAI API for customer service.

• What is ChatGPT?
• Can businesses use ChatGPT for customer service?
• How to use the OpenAI API for customer support
• Frequently asked questions
• OpenAI and Zendesk

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer) is an AI chatbot with a conversational user interface, enabling the tool to mimic human communication.

Cognitive technology, such as artificial intelligence (AI), natural language understanding (NLU), machine learning (ML), and natural language processing (NLP), train the bot to understand context and human language patterns. It can then reply to inputs with human-like dialogue. See additional information about this technology in these in-depth guides:

• Deep learning and machine learning
• Conversational AI

ChatGPT overview

Release date: November 30, 2022
Developer: OpenAI
Engines: GPT-3.5 and GPT-4
Knowledge cutoff: September 2021 for GPT-3.5 and
no cutoff for GPT-4 (with a third-party plug-in)

Upon ChatGPT’s release, the bot was primarily a tool for general research, education, and creativity. Now, businesses are finding ways to use the bot for internal processes to help their employees work more efficiently.

Customer-first AI service providers like Zendesk use OpenAI’s API to enhance generative AI features and help agents streamline internal tasks. By leveraging solutions that use OpenAI’s LLM, businesses can bring generative AI to the forefront of agent tools for helping with content summarization, building a knowledge base and macros (pre written responses), expanding agent responses, and more.

Can businesses use ChatGPT for customer service?

ChatGPT wasn’t built as a customer service tool and isn’t ready to interact with customers—at least for now. As a result, we would not recommend using ChatGPT for customer support at this time.

However, many customer support teams are using ChatGPT internally. Here are a few examples of how they can help agents as well as customer service leaders be more productive:

• Edit and translate help center articles.
• Suggest customer service interview questions for the hiring process.
• Help write questions for customer surveys.
• Polish team meeting notes.
• Provide insight for agents responding to customer reviews.
• Recap Zoom calls with customers through transcript and action item summaries.

Note: Privacy concerns should be top of mind, especially when using ChatGPT solutions for customer interactions.

What are some limitations of using ChatGPT for customer support?

ChatGPT does have several limitations for customer service. Many of these are key reasons businesses should only use the chatbot internally for now.

For instance, the chatbot sometimes:

• “Hallucinates,” or makes up fictitious information and presents it as fact
• Makes logic and reasoning errors
• Poses potential security issues when fed customer information
• Is unable to answer highly specific or niche questions
• Offers unintentionally biased or discriminatory responses that may harm your brand’s reputation

Though ChatGPT has a knowledge base cutoff of September 2021, there are plug-ins you can use to crawl the web. However, these plug-ins are only available through the paid version and integrate with third parties. ChatGPT has a web crawler on the horizon, GPTbot, but websites can choose to block it.

This may be minor in some industries, but ChatGPT may be unable to keep up with business and customer needs in rapidly evolving fields like tech and medicine.

How OpenAI’s API can improve customer support

Although ChatGPT has made outstanding strides in generative AI, it isn’t a good fit for customer service on its own. Fortunately, businesses can still leverage the powers of OpenAI’s large language models by looking for a customer service solution that integrates with the OpenAI API.

Before we dive in, let’s first answer an important question: What’s an API? An application programming interface (API) is a set of programming protocols that helps two or more programs talk with each other. In short: An API is responsible for how your business shares information and streamlines your processes.

According to the Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2023, business leaders say that improving agent workflows is the fifth-most popular use of AI in their workplace. With a superpowered customer service software that uses OpenAI’s API at your disposal, you can enhance your workflows in the following ways.

Deliver faster support to customers

Businesses with an automation-first strategy can use OpenAI’s API with their customer service software to deliver faster human support to their customers through ticket summarization. For example, if a customer submits a long message about a product issue, the agent would receive a summary of its main points to speed up average resolution time.

Beyond the capabilities that OpenAI itself enables, using a customer service solution like Zendesk can unlock even more AI capabilities for faster responses, including tasks like:

• Revealing the customer’s intent and sentiment
• Directing agents toward possible solutions

As mentioned, this enhanced customer support experience will significantly improve your time-to-ticket resolution.

Improve agent productivity

Your customers will know when they receive a run-of-the-mill reply, which may negatively affect their CX. People often associate automation with canned responses, but support agents can leverage the generative AI tools to enhance the quality of their replies and customer-facing ticket comments without spending too much time writing a custom reply for every customer.

Agents can do this by asking the software to:

• Expand replies by adding conversational context and creating a customer-ready response. For example, if an agent wants to say “One sec,” AI can expand the reply to say “Please give me a moment as I look for a solution.”
• Change the tone to be more friendly or formal, depending on the customer.

Elevate knowledge management

With OpenAI’s API, businesses can level up their help center and knowledge management capabilities. For example, the API builds on the proprietary system of Zendesk to scan inbound support requests for trending and common customer problems for missing support articles. If support teams notice a specific customer problem is trending, they can leverage the Zendesk and OpenAI API integration to instantly create and edit a help center article. Chatbots can then leverage it for future customer queries.

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Frequently asked questions

Below, we answer the most common questions about using ChatGPT for customer service.

What are large language models?

A large language model is an AI system that uses deep learning and copious amounts of data to imitate human intelligence. LLMs allow chatbots to accurately comprehend and reply to prompts.

What is the future of ChatGPT and customer service?

Though ChatGPT is adept at enhancing internal processes for customer service agents, it’s unlikely that it will replace human agents completely. Human empathy and understanding, particularly in delicate or complex situations, will likely remain crucial. However, a combination of AI and human customer service is likely to become the norm, with AI handling simpler queries and humans stepping in when necessary.

What are the capabilities of ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is a vast AI chatbot with several capabilities, including:

• Creating content
• Editing for grammar and syntax
• Writing code
• Helping with brainstorming
• Simplifying complicated concepts
• Carrying conversational context from one prompt to the next
• Translating other languages

What are the different ChatGPT models?

OpenAI has developed several versions of the ChatGPT model over time, each with improvements and refinements. The following are some of the different versions:

GPT-1: The first in the series, GPT-1 had 117 million parameters. OpenAI first trained it in June 2018.

GPT-2: Released in February 2019, GPT-2 was a substantial improvement with 1.5 billion parameters. It was not initially released in its full form due to concerns about potential misuse.

GPT-3: Released in June 2020, GPT-3 took another significant leap with 175 billion parameters, making it one of the most powerful language models to date.

GPT-3.5-Turbo: It’s similar in capability to GPT-3, but it’s fine-tuned further to provide a better user experience in single-turn tasks and multi-turn conversations.

Meanwhile, GPT-4 is the premium version of ChatGPT. It can do everything that 3.5 can do, as well as:

• Allow its users to create tools
• Offer a longer memory of 64,000 words
• Pull the most recent data from the Internet
• Understand complex inputs
• Accept image prompts

Remember that each subsequent version is essentially a continuation of the same approach. They are trained on a broad range of internet text but don’t know specifics about which documents were in their training set or have access to any private or proprietary information.

OpenAI and Zendesk

Through the Zendesk collaboration with OpenAI, we use generative AI capabilities coupled with decades of CX data to improve the customer experience. Though Zendesk already offered an out-of-the-box CX solution, our existing capabilities and ability to scale are only enhanced by further enhanced AI-powered features, like:

• Macro creation
• Expanding replies
• Summarizing content
• Knowledge base management

The post ChatGPT for customer service: Capabilities and limitations appeared first on Zendesk.

]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/customer-success-playbook/ Fri, 13 Oct 2023 16:31:18 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=639932 The most successful sports teams have reliable playbooks—which use tested strategies to improve a team’s chances for success—that coaches and athletes can reference for nearly every situation. So too can businesses create their own playbook and implement it into their customer success strategy. Customer success playbooks provide step-by-step instructions that outline the best practices for […]

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]]> The most successful sports teams have reliable playbooks—which use tested strategies to improve a team’s chances for success—that coaches and athletes can reference for nearly every situation. So too can businesses create their own playbook and implement it into their customer success strategy.

Customer success playbooks provide step-by-step instructions that outline the best practices for achieving specific goals. Businesses can use them to onboard new customers, troubleshoot problems, and upsell products or services. Read on to learn how to get the most out of playbooks.

• What is a customer success playbook?
• What’s in a customer success playbook?
• Types of customer success playbooks
• How to build a customer success playbook
• Customer success playbook examples

What is a customer success playbook?

Customer success playbooks are a collection of prescribed actions, or “plays,” employees can follow to drive an intended outcome with a customer. These plays can be reactive or proactive, helping the employee take initiative or respond appropriately in specific situations.

Customer success playbooks are not one-size-fits-all resources and can vary based on each business’ needs. One business can have multiple playbooks that address a range of customer interactions. Each playbook should provide targeted guidance to specific scenarios so that customer success teams align with their organization’s expectations. The result of having a comprehensive set of playbooks is greater accountability within departments and a simple way to measure the results of customer interactions.

What’s in a customer success playbook?

The details of your customer success playbooks will change based on the use case, but each will follow a similar structure. Some important components of playbooks include:

• Objectives: the desired outcome the playbook should achieve.
• Team responsibilities: the tasks that each team or team member must carry out.
• Reference materials: scripts and knowledge base resources team members can reference during the customer conversation.
• Step-by-step instructions: detailed actions that keep team members tracking toward their goal.

The more robust you make your customer success playbooks, the more success your employees can have when they engage with customers.

Types of customer success playbooks

You can tailor a customer success playbook for nearly every customer interaction. Popular playbooks address:

• Low engagement: applies to customer accounts with low or decreased activity.
• Product feedback: helps agents pull constructive feedback from customers.
• Account escalation: directs agents on communicating that prices are increasing.
• Upselling: provides strategies for presenting new products or upgraded services to customers.
• Onboard stall: guides agents on following up with prospects during the customer onboarding phase when progress slows.

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How to build a customer success playbook

Regardless of the type of customer success playbook you want to create, you can follow the same general process. Here are five steps to create a playbook.

1. Map the customer journey and identify pain points

Creating a customer journey map is a pivotal step in crafting an effective customer success playbook. Identify customer touchpoints and challenges they might encounter by visualizing each milestone of the customer’s interaction with a product or service. Recognizing these pain points allows businesses to proactively develop solutions and strategies that ensure customers feel supported and valued at every touchpoint.

This deep understanding of the customer experience allows you to create targeted employee actions to customer issues, enhances product adoption, and fosters long-term loyalty. A well-mapped customer journey is the foundation of a successful playbook, ensuring that you precisely anticipate and meet your customers’ needs.

2. Define your end goals

Defining your goals for each playbook communicates your expectations to your employees and makes it possible to gauge their success. To do this effectively, customer success managers (CSMs) must understand their mission, vision, and the value they aim to deliver. You can also gather insights directly from customers, discerning their aspirations, challenges, and what success looks like to them.

By merging these two perspectives, organizations can craft clear and measurable objectives that resonate with their brand’s promise and the customer’s needs. These well-defined goals serve as the guiding light for the playbook, ensuring that every strategy and action aims to achieve tangible, meaningful results for the customer.

3. Segment your target customers

Segmenting target customers helps tailor a customer success playbook to address diverse needs. Begin by analyzing customer data and looking for patterns in behavior, product usage, industry type, company size, and other relevant metrics. This analysis will reveal distinct customer groups with unique challenges, goals, and preferences.

Once you identify these segments, you can craft specialized strategies for each, ensuring that the playbook’s interventions are contextually relevant and resonate with the specific needs of each segment. This granular approach improves the customer experience and ensures you allocate resources efficiently, maximizing impact and driving sustainable growth.

4. Create resources for employee guidance

The resources you provide your employees help them execute their tasks quickly. Start by identifying the most common challenges and questions your customers face. From there, develop a mix of pre-built content that’s readily available for your employees to reference, such as:

• Email templates.
• Call scripts.
• An internal knowledge base.

For more productive customer interactions, consider crafting competitor battle cards and case studies showcasing success stories. Regularly solicit employee feedback on these resources to ensure they remain relevant, and always be on the lookout for emerging needs that warrant new tools or content in your playbook.

5. Assign team member roles

Assigning team member roles is pivotal to ensuring a cohesive and effective strategy. Begin by assessing each team member’s strengths, expertise, and experiences. Align these customer service skills with the specific tasks required, such as:

• Content creation.
• Data analysis.
• Customer engagement.
• Strategy formulation.

For instance, a team member with excellent communication skills could handle customer feedback sessions. Clearly define each role’s responsibilities and expectations to prevent overlapping workflows and ensure that all aspects of the playbook are covered. Regular check-ins and collaborative sessions ensure everyone is aligned, fostering a unified approach that capitalizes on each team member’s strengths.

Customer success playbook examples

You’ll need to highly customize your playbook for it to be properly oriented to the customer and achieve its desired impact. However, you can use these customer success playbook examples for inspiration as you get started.

Customer relationship kickoff playbook example

The goal: A customer relationship kickoff playbook, also known as partnership kickoff, helps businesses start on the right foot with their new clients.

How it achieves the goal: The example above begins by outlining the broad steps and identifying the desired goals. It also establishes a timeframe for how long the relationship kickoff should take, accounting for the special needs of each plan.

The playbook then breaks down each step into action items that the customer service (CS) team is responsible for. It includes directives for what information the CS team must provide the customer and what questions they should ask. The relationship kickoff playbook also identifies the next steps the customer can expect after the onboarding process.

Customer health score playbook example

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The goal: A customer health score playbook helps identify early signs of customer churn.

How it achieves the goal: The example above provides a structure for gauging the overall well-being and potential longevity of a customer relationship. It details the specific metrics and indicators, such as product usage frequency, support ticket volume, feedback scores, and renewal rates, used to calculate the health score.

The playbook must also define the weight and significance of each metric, ensuring a balanced and holistic view of customer health. It should offer guidelines on interpreting scores, detailing clear thresholds for “at-risk” versus “healthy” customers. Actionable strategies for addressing various health score scenarios are integral to the effectiveness of the playbook, from nurturing thriving relationships to intervening with potentially dissatisfied customers.

Customer quarterly business review playbook example

The goal: A quarterly business review (QBR) playbook should provide a comprehensive framework for customer success teams to evaluate, strategize, and strengthen client relationships while a contract is current.

How it achieves the goal: The example above includes clear guidelines on data collection and analysis, highlighting key performance indicators, usage metrics, and customer feedback from the past quarter.

The playbook example above also outlines the series of customer touchpoints leading up to the meeting, like confirming the meeting time and sharing information with the customer beforehand. Additionally, this playbook includes a request for a customer testimonial. Customer feedback, like testimonials, can be used to understand the value customers see in your partnership. You can then share their story with future prospects as evidence for your claims.

Customer contract renewal playbook example

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The goal: A contract renewal playbook helps CS teams navigate the complexities of the renewal process.

How it achieves the goal: The example above fosters a deeper understanding of customer needs and preferences, enabling tailored engagement strategies that enhance customer loyalty. A contract renewal playbook fortifies the relationship between a business and its customers, sustaining the customer life cycle.

The example establishes the steps a sales team must complete during the renewal process. Some of the critical guidance includes what to research in preparation for the renewal, how to contact the customer, and what to share with them.

Boosting customer success efforts

Customer success playbooks are invaluable tools for creating a consistent and productive customer experience. They encapsulate the essence of proactive customer engagement, ensuring that every interaction adds value and cements trust. Remember, a well-crafted playbook is more than just a guide, it’s a company’s commitment to its customers.

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]]> https://www.zendesk.com/blog/ai-ethics-in-cx/ Mon, 09 Oct 2023 20:30:38 +0000 https://www.zendesk.com/?p=639488 The Ethics of AI in CX include: Developing ethical AI guidelines Teaching customer service agents the code of AI ethics Opting for transparency and explainability Informing customers when they’re interacting with an AI chatbot Building chatbots that are contextual and use-case specific Rating AI against your own biases When it comes to the customer experience […]

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The Ethics of AI in CX include:

• Developing ethical AI guidelines
• Teaching customer service agents the code of AI ethics
• Opting for transparency and explainability
• Informing customers when they’re interacting with an AI chatbot
• Building chatbots that are contextual and use-case specific
• Rating AI against your own biases

When it comes to the customer experience (CX), consumers are ready for artificial intelligence (AI).

According to the Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2023, 73 percent of consumers expect more interactions with AI in their daily lives and believe it will improve customer service quality.

Like Spider-Man uses his spidey senses for good, businesses can use AI to improve their customer experience. But as we know, “With great power comes great responsibility”—businesses and individuals must commit to prioritizing the ethics of AI in CX to create a safe and positive experience for all.

To learn more about the ethics of AI in CX, you’ll need to understand the basics: what AI ethics means, ethical considerations to keep in mind, and how to ethically implement AI across your CX.

Table of contents:

• What are AI ethics?
• Important AI considerations for CX leaders
• 6 tips for using AI ethically for CX
• Frequently asked questions
• Couple AI and agents to strike an ethical balance

What are AI ethics?

AI ethics is a term that describes a collection of moral principles that shapes the responsible development, deployment, and use of AI technologies. As AI becomes more prominent in products, services, and everyday life, organizations should establish policies to ensure they use AI properly.

AI ethics are also encouraged nationally. In October 2022, The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights as an ethical framework for using AI in the U.S.

The Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights contains five principles that the OSTP believes every American should be entitled to, including:

• Safe and effective systems: AI systems should be safe and effective.
• Algorithmic discrimination protections: AI algorithms should prioritize fairness and equity and must not contribute to discrimination in any way.
• Data privacy: AI systems should include built-in protections to safeguard data.
• Notice and explanation: Businesses should inform users whenever they use an AI system.
• Human alternatives, consideration, and fallback: Users should be able to opt out of using an AI system and receive help from a person when applicable.

Whether at a national or organizational level, prioritizing AI ethics can help ensure the safety of businesses and individuals. This allows for the responsible design and use of AI while minimizing any unintended negative consequences.

The impact of AI ethics on CX

From AI chatbots to customer experience software, businesses turn to AI technology to enhance CX. When doing so, it is crucial to keep the ethics of AI in mind. According to IBM, 85 percent of consumers believe it is important for businesses to consider ethics when using AI technology.

Failure to do so may lead to unexpected consequences. For example, if you aren’t transparent about how your AI technology collects and uses customer data, you may lose customer trust, turning your customer service superheroes into devious supervillains.

On the other hand, ethical use of AI can transform how service teams work, providing your customers with immersive and efficient customer service interactions. According to our CX Trends Report, 74 percent of consumers believe AI will improve customer service efficiency.

Important AI considerations for CX leaders

As a business leader, you’ve likely considered implementing AI to improve your customer experience. And you’re not alone—72 percent of business leaders are making it a priority to expand AI across the customer experience in the coming year, according to our CX Trends Report. To ensure your business uses AI for good, keep the following questions top of mind.

How can we optimize operations and productivity while maintaining empathetic customer experiences?

Businesses can use AI to optimize their operations and deliver valuable, empathetic customer experiences by reducing wait times and providing 24/7 support. However, if this is done incorrectly, AI can lead to less empathetic customer interactions and poorer experiences. To avoid this, treat AI as a sidekick to your support agents rather than a robot designed to replace them. For example:

• Businesses can build customer empathy by providing fast and effective resolutions. AI bots can immediately answer questions and route customers to live agents when needed. In some instances, AI chatbots can completely resolve a customer’s issue without involving an agent. This reduces customer wait times and frees up your agents, allowing them to save the day elsewhere.
• Similarly, AI-enabled customer service software can give your live agents the pertinent information they need to quickly solve issues with an empathetic human touch.
• AI can also help your human agents adapt on the fly by automatically suggesting helpful articles based on real-time customer messages. That way, your agents can spend more time assisting customers and less time manually sorting through resources.

Businesses can also maintain empathy by leveraging customer data to provide personalized experiences (which most customers prefer).

59% of consumers believe businesses should use customer data to personalize their customer support experiences. Source: The Zendesk CX Trends Report 2023

If you use AI without prioritizing empathetic connections, fast resolutions, and personalized experiences, you could make your customers feel uncared for and ready to leave. In our CX Trends Report, 66 percent of consumers state that a bad support interaction can ruin their day, and 73 percent will switch to a competitor if the problem continues.

How can we allow for a diverse set of viewpoints?

It’s also important to be sure you allow for varying perspectives. If you don’t, you could end up with AI technology that amplifies racial, sexist, or ageist biases. For example:

• Steven T. Piantadosi, head of the computation and language department at the University of California, Berkeley, got ChatGPT to write code that stated only white or Asian men could make good scientists.
• Studies show that an AI lending platform charged higher interest rates and loan fees to individuals who attended historically Black and Latino colleges than those who went to New York University.

Businesses need to hire diverse teams and test algorithms on diverse groups—or they’ll get unsettling outcomes that magnify hidden prejudices of a monocultural workforce. Additionally, businesses can test against biases by:

• Continually monitoring AI interactions for biases
• Assessing the data their AI technology feeds off of for biased information
• Conducting third-party audits
• Using AI bias detection tools

Fortunately, testing against AI biases is becoming more common, and it is even a legal requirement in some areas. In 2023, New York City passed a law that requires businesses using automatic employment decision tools to pass a third-party audit proving the AI system is free of racist or sexist bias.

Can our AI software protect customer privacy and security?

When using AI, customer privacy and security should be a top priority. This includes obtaining consent and implementing data security best practices to help prevent the abuse, theft, or loss of customer data. Research any AI technology before you use it to ensure it provides sufficient cybersecurity measures (depending on where you operate). This could include maintaining your compliance with things like:

• General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR): GDPR is a data privacy and security law passed by the European Union (EU) to help protect the data of people in the EU.
• California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA): CCPA grants California consumers data privacy, including the right to opt out of the sale and sharing of personal data.
• Canada Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA): PIPEDA ensures that private-sector organizations obtain consent before collecting or using the data of Canadian consumers.
• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA): HIPAA is a federal law designed to prevent sensitive health information from being shared without a patient’s consent. Companies in the healthcare industry must be sure they maintain HIPAA compliance while using AI.

Using AI technology that complies with security standards relevant to your geographic location and industry can help protect both the data of your company and your customer base.

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6 tips for using AI ethically for CX

Now that you understand ethics in AI and its importance in the CX world, it’s time for you to use artificial intelligence as a customer service superpower. For those ready to empower their super team of agents with AI, we’ve gathered six tips to help you avoid ethical issues along the way.

1. Develop ethical AI guidelines

One of the best ways to ensure you’re using AI ethically for CX is to develop an AI code of ethics for regulating AI use. These guidelines may vary depending on your use of AI but generally include:

• Adhering to data privacy regulations
• Prioritizing transparency
• Ensuring fairness, diversity, and inclusion
• Giving users the freedom to opt out of AI interactions
• Committing to continual testing and auditing

With your ethics of automation guidelines set for your business, stakeholders can use them as a guiding light when implementing AI across your CX.

2. Teach customer service agents the code of AI ethics

After creating your AI guidelines, be sure to educate your employees about the ethical concerns of using AI for CX—and remember, machines rely on the information we give them.

“They’re just regurgitating what’s already there,” says Mikey Fischer, who developed a system that translates natural language into code and recently completed his Ph.D. in computer science at Stanford University, specializing in AI and natural language processing.

According to Fischer, that’s why it’s important to keep a human in the loop to evaluate for AI bias even after testing a system, making sure it works for specific users and looking at individual use cases instead of global demographics.

It also helps to have a fallback system so customers can contact a real person if they encounter something unexpected or inaccurate.

3. Opt for transparency and explainability

No matter what a business is using AI for, there must be transparency into how companies operate in regards to AI and explainability—which means understanding why an AI system made a certain decision.

“Companies that are transparent with technology or make it open access tend to get into fewer issues,” says Fischer. “Businesses get into trouble with AI when they over-promise or hide things, not necessarily because the technology isn’t perfect—everyone understands there are limitations to technology.”

Just like companies are transparent about pricing or business values, they can be open about AI, like what their technology can and can’t do and the internal processes around it. This also means being honest when something goes wrong.

4. Inform customers when they’re interacting with an AI chatbot

Transparent businesses also ensure customers know when they’re interacting with AI, according to Fischer. For instance, the “B.O.T law” requires companies to inform consumers in California when they’re talking to a chatbot instead of a human.

That way, a customer never has to second-guess whether or not they are talking to a chatbot or a customer service agent. This is becoming increasingly important, as 65 percent of business leaders believe that the AI technology they use is becoming more human-like (according to our CX Trends Report).

5. Build chatbots that are contextual and use-case specific

Businesses can reduce bias by creating AI technology that is contextually relevant and use-case specific.

“When AI is set for a task that’s too broad, there is no way for it to be unbiased because a lot of what is ethical is contextually relevant,” Fischer says. “When we’re all forced into a monoculture of technology, it’s not really possible for it to hit all the nuances of a given demographic or whoever the AI is trying to serve.”

Examples of domain-specific chatbots—chatbots set for a specific task—include Bank of America’s Erica, which helps clients manage their finances, and The World Health Organization’s WhatsApp bot, which provides users with reliable information about COVID-19.

“It’s about being user- and use-case specific, so the chatbot has enough context to give it the ability to be ethical,” says Fischer. “If it has a specific task, the user and the system have more of the melding of the minds.”

6. Rate AI against your own biases

AI technology learns from the number of inputs we give it, learning from the world the way it is or has been, not as it should be. As a result, we pass on our biases—conscious or unconscious.

“There is no such thing as an unbiased system,” Fischer explains. “AI is always based on some definition of fairness that it’s trying to optimize for, and there are many definitions of what fair means.”

The example Fischer gives is a chatbot for creditworthiness. Do you define creditworthiness as someone more likely to repay a loan or optimize it to maximize profit?

And even when we think we’ve programmed AI without bias, it can learn prejudices we may not realize we have.

“AI systems have millions of parameters, and sometimes it’s not immediately clear to a human the reason why a decision was made,” says Fischer. “Even the most careful parents can produce a child that is far from what they expected.”

For example, a bank might find that its creditworthiness algorithm has a racial bias and remove race as an input. However, the algorithm can statistically deduce race from other factors, like geographical location or where someone went to college.

“It’s hard to fully remove discriminating factors,” Fischer explains. That’s why, as people responsible for building the AI experiences of the future, we need to rate chatbots against our own biases.

Frequently asked questions

How does AI help CX?

AI can help improve CX in various ways. For example, AI chatbots can provide customers with shorter wait times and 24/7 customer support. Additionally, automated ticketing systems can help increase support agent productivity and save your team members time.

What is the ethical issue of bias in AI?

The ethical issue of bias in AI is that AI technology is susceptible to amplifying biases based on the world around it.

“For instance, someone mathematically measured sexism in a data set that was associating ‘nurse’ with female and ‘doctor’ with male,” says Fischer.

AI can learn good and bad things, but it depends on what it’s fed. This puts the onus on businesses to create and use it to become more accountable and operate carefully and with empathy.

What are the ethics of OpenAI?

OpenAI, an AI company most known for ChatGPT, has a public Charter that spells out its guiding principles for the ethical development and deployment of AI technology. The company also published its product safety standards, which include principles like minimizing harm and building trust.

Empower agents with ethical AI

While using AI for customer service can enhance the customer experience and streamline your support processes, it’s critical to do so responsibly and ethically by maintaining empathy, diversity, and privacy.

By empowering human agents with AI, you can extend your agents’ abilities and provide meaningful automated customer support while boosting productivity, increasing customer satisfaction, and saving time and money.

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