5 ways to get the most out of your Zendesk Suite plan.

Being part of the contact center industry for almost 2 decades now, one thing that we consistently see and does not change is the frustrating practice from companies of paying thousands of dollars for a helpdesk software that they never fully take advantage of.

In the era of automations, if your operation is still filling seats with people to answer the age-old questions “Where’s my order?” or “I want to know my statement balance”, it pains me to say YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG! It doesn’t matter whether you’re a startup with 3 customer service reps or a Fortune 500 company employing 700 agents, doing this is a flat-out prehistoric practice.

Nowadays the features available in the vast majority of help desk software can be incredibly helpful to take care of the most difficult aspects of client inquiries to the customer service teams . When using these properly you can provide faster service to your customers, and avoid agent burnout as they will not be doing the same task over and over again, among other benefits that are obvious to anyone that is well-versed in the difficulties of the customer service department.

Something I believe that we can all agree on is that Zendesk is one of the most popular customer service software in the world as of now. With that in mind, and given our experience in using it, we thought it would be beneficial for everyone to provide a reminder of all this powerful tool has to offer, especially if you already have it and haven’t squeezed all the advantages out of it.

1. All contact channels under one hood

Let’s say that you’re a company that wants to be as accessible as possible to customers and you decide to provide customer support through multiple channels. That might lead you to think “I’m going to have to spend a lot of money and time on learning and operating a lot of systems.” NOT WITH ZENDESK!

This customer service software can integrate live website chat, email, phone, and the most popular social media channels, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and many more, all in one screen that works seamlessly across all of them.

2. Use those shortcuts

One of the worst problems the Customer Service industry faces is the burnout of reps causing high irritation levels that end up impacting the business. One of the reasons for this condition is that customer service agents keep having conversations about the same repetitive problems or requests that customers tend to have, especially in the e-commerce industry. Just imagine having to answer “Where’s my order?” 100 times a week.

Zendesk can do the heavy lifting on those questions so that the customer service team can focus on problems that do require more complex decision-making and keep them challenged. There are many features in Zendesk that can lead you to automate as much of your process and conversations as possible such as the use of Macros, Answer Bot, Automations, Triggers, and more.

The trick to taking maximum advantage of these features is to create the correct workflows to fit your business needs and industry. These solutions don’t just help your customer service agents, but also your company, usually reducing costs around the 30% mark while improving the customer experience due to faster resolutions.

3. Whatsapp as a customer service tool

We didn’t include this as just another channel to use given this one, in particular, this tool has become a big differentiator amongst help desk software given that Whatsapp is the world’s most popular instant messaging app. Not all help desks have this integration and those that do tend to have it through third-party solutions and are not directly embedded in the platform and can slow down the support team.

Being able to offer Customer Service through an application that has around 2 billion users worldwide and which is usually used to have personal conversations with family and friends gives a feeling of familiarity to customers. This sentiment can be used to allow more casual and productive conversations with your agents, ultimately this will upgrade your customer retention and it will seem as personalized service.

One of the reasons that we hear from customers as to why they like this type of solution, whether it be through Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, or other instant messaging platforms, is due to the asynchronous nature of this type of conversation. It allows them to deal with customer support at their own pace, without having to feel rushed of dealing with all the possible problems right on the spot. I don’t know about you, but it makes sense to us.

It’s important to know though that in order for this to work, you would need to setup a Whatsapp Business account first with Meta. Once that is finished, Zendesk support can help you the rest of the way so you can start using it to your company’s advantage.

4. Collaborate with other teams without leaving Zendesk

When you need to get work done, the last thing you want to do is switch back and forth between a bunch of different apps, sending screenshots through different communication channels to let other teams know what you’re doing or need help with.

With Zendesk you can collaborate with other teams, within the company or outside of it, without ever having to leave your workspace, by easily adding notes and comments to tickets and sharing those tickets with other Zendesk users through a simple click. And if the teams you’re collaborating with don’t have an account, you can always integrate your company’s IM application, such as Slack or Microsoft Teams, or forward tickets via email by setting up workflows that allow you to share this information in a quick and painless way.

Ever found an agent dealing with a technical issue that is way above their pay grade and they have to ask the customer to accept a follow-up later in the week because you need to get the problem to the engineers so they can solve it and then have to wait for them to answer back? In Zendesk, you can quickly share the information with the right person in the company so they can give you an answer ASAP, helping the agent not have to carry that ticket along for days on end and give the best customer service and wow the clients with quick resolution times.

5. Integrations are the name of the game

With popularity comes integrations, and Zendesk integrates like crazy with many other applications because of it. This provides insane value to users of both sides allowing productivity to increase exponentially as the least amount of systems that a person has to use to resolve a problem, the more they can use the time to focus on solving them in a customer-centric friendly experience.

We could spend days explaining the many different integrations Zendesk allows, which are roughly 1000+ at this point, but not everyone would be interested in all. Because of this Zendesk provides a comprehensive index of all integrations by categories that allows you to quickly find your favorite CRM, quoting manager, market, and lead generation software, among many others. Take a dive into the search engine and start dreaming of the possibilities all these integrations have to offer.

Need help from Zendesk experienced agents?

Zendesk offers a lot of features and benefits that can be extremely helpful for businesses, but it can be tough to know how to make the most of them all. Our customer service experts are ready to help you tackle all of those incoming tickets while they assist you to optimize your Zendesk platform to provide the best customer experience possible. We specialize in customer service tools such as this platform so you can increase customer satisfaction.

We are always one click away from a quick demo to show you how we can put our decades of experience into the fieldwork for you, both to offer world-class support and to improve your tool’s efficiency. Thanks for reading and catch you on the next post!