December 16, 2015

The Evolution Of Customer Service

By Jennifer Klostermann

Customer Service Evolution

Much of the work that goes into developing sustainable businesses revolves around customer satisfaction. From utilizing beacons to gather customer information to accessing and exploiting Big Data for suitable product development and marketing, the ultimate provision of customer service can make or break a business. About eight years ago Zendesk was launched offering practical and customizable customer service tools and strategies.

Zendesk

Located in San Francisco with over 1,000 employees, Zendesk is a publicly listed company boasting a unique business approach. Says SVP Marcus Bragg, “As the company has grown, and particularly post-IPO, it has changed somewhat and lost some of its zaniness. But it’s still a fun place, we may have gone from t-shirts to colored shirts and blazers, but there’s certainly still no suits around the place.” With over 60,000 customers and revenues of $55 million in the last quarter, it’s difficult to envision the jaunty startup that developed into what is today a leading provider of customer service support.

Advanced Voice

In keeping with the belief that “Better customer service starts with better communication”, Zendesk provides email, social media, voice, and chat services to organizations wishing to streamline their customer support with tools like triggers, ticket views, and automation. And they’ve now made Advanced Voice, a superior version of their phone support offering that’s directly embedded into their cloud-based contact center, generally available

With promises of quick and easy setup, Zendesk customers are able to access a free trial that requires no additional equipment and allows the making and receiving of calls from one multichannel support environment. As stated in Forrester’s recent report, Contact Centers Must Go Digital or Die, “Consumers are increasingly impatient and want quick answers to their questions. They use self-service channels as a first point-of-contact and escalate the more complex questions to live agents. This means that live agent interactions are increasingly important in building customer relationships.” Zendesk insists that Advanced Voice will make customer contact centers more accessible for a broad range of organizations.

Included in the new Advanced Voice offering is multi-level interactive voice response, correctly routing customers to the relevant agent or department, and offering recorded responses for FAQs. And warm transfer technology ensures smooth handoffs, quicker resolution times while limiting repetition. Zendesk’s latest product additionally provides real-time dashboards allowing monitoring and adaptation of queue and agency activity; Customizable auto-agent wrap-up time giving agents the ability to complete conversation related work without interruption from new calls; Tracking and measuring of operational efficiencies with call data in Zendesk; And scheduling features enabling the assignment of specific business hours to individual phone numbers for global organizations that need to accommodate worldwide operating hours.

Though the channels of customer interaction continue to increase and improve, telephonic conversations provide intimate contact between customers and organization. Says Ryan Nichols, General Manager of Zendesk Voice, “Our vision is to help companies move from thinking about phone support as an obligation to thinking about voice as an opportunity to engage customers in a highly personal way.

By Jennifer Klostermann

Jennifer Klostermann

Jennifer Klostermann is an experienced writer with a Bachelor of Arts degree majoring in writing and performance arts. She has studied further in both the design and mechanical engineering fields, and worked in a variety of areas including market research, business and IT management, and engineering. An avid technophile, Jen is intrigued by all the latest innovations and trending advances, and is happiest immersed in technology.
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