Zendesk & CBOT Partnership: Global Giant Empowers its Service with CBOT’s AI Technology
The value created by the use of technology-powered new models for customer service is increasing everyday. The new model that emerged particularly after 2017 is based on the cooperation of human and AI (artificial intelligence), in other words the hybrid use of live chat and chatbots, to enhance the customer experience while diminishing the operational costs. Being a global giant in customer management software field, Zendesk is one of the leading companies that is aware of this ideal model and offers it to its customers by building partnerships with conversational AI companies at a global scale. Zendesk, with a customer base of 1,000 companies in Turkey, started to offer this service to its customers in Turkey and the neighboring region with the power of CBOT’s AI technology as of June 2020. Thanks to the integration between CBOT and Zendesk Chat, it is now very easy for the companies that already use Zendesk, to integrate CBOT’s AI-based chatbots to their systems.
Recently, customer experience is at the heart of competition for many sectors where products and services are similar and price is not a distinctive feature. Companies that can improve their customer experience without losing their cost perspective increase their competitiveness. The concept of customer experience is quite extensive and complex, it is not just the adventure your customers have while using your products and services; customer support and customer service are also part of this experience. This field is being reshaped with the technological developments, increasing cost focus and rising customer expectations. Previously, we used to use only call centers, maybe even before, we had wrote letters to companies. Then, web sites, e-mail and sms were added to these channels. Subsequently, the concept of live support, which came with mobile applications and the rise of messaging, took the experience a step further. Finally, chatbots, a rising trend with the developments in artificial intelligence, have reached a level that will destructively change the traditional service model in customer service. In this new world, customer service is far beyond traditional models, and powered by chatbots and AI technologies such as machine learning, and natural language processing. Gartner predicts that by 2025, 80% of customer service organizations will have abandoned native mobile apps in favor of messaging for a better customer experience. These messaging based services will involve AI-based virtual assistants to response the customers automatically. Zendesk is a world giant that provides such a customer service software to many companies of all sectors and sizes on a global scale.
Let’s get to know Zendesk a bit more.
Who is Zendesk?
Zendesk is a global customer service, sales and customer engagement software platform with 6,000 employees and 160,000 customers in more than 160 countries. It aims to support companies to improve their customer management. Zendesk software has been developed in a strong, flexible and scalable structure to meet the needs of companies of different scales. Listed on the New York Stock Exchange, the company is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
Background
- 2007 – Founded in 2007 in Copenhagen, Denmark by Mikkel Svane, Morten Primdahl, and Alexander Aghassipour, who had experience in customer service software.
- 2008 – Received US$500,000 in seed funding from angel investor Christoph Janz.
- 2009 – Moved to San Francisco, after receiving a $6 million series B funding from Charles River Ventures and Benchmark Capital,
- 2014 – Acquired Zopim Technologies Pte Ltd, a Singapore-based provider of live chat software, which eventually became Zopim Premium Live Chat.
- 2014 – Became a publicly traded company, with an IPO price of $9 per share.
- 2015 – Acquired We Are Cloud SAS for $45.0 million, the maker of BIME Analytics software.
What does Zendesk offer?
Zendesk offers products for support and sales by approaching the issue of customer management with a holistic perspective.
Customer support products
Support Suite product stands out with its omni-channel feature. In other words, with this product, customer interaction on many platforms such as email, text, voice channels and even social media can be managed through a single platform. Another feature is that the customer service team can easily use the platform, quickly access information about the customer using all data sources, and it is all possible with no coding. Support Suite also provides representatives with a flexible workspace. Thanks to this feature, representatives can customize the support platform to fit their needs, for this, again, no coding is required. The tools on the platform can be plugged into different environments like Slack. For example, when a representative responds to a customer, he can get help from colleagues with different expertises. The platform also enables monitoring and reporting of all customer service operations.
Other products for customer service are Support (Customer Support Software), Guide (Help Desk Software), Chat (Live Chat Software) ve Talk (Call Center Software).
Sales Products
Important features of the Sales Suite product are the ability to use template emails that enable fast sales actions and increase efficiency and to access all kinds of functions through a single interface without any need to switch between interfaces. Another feature is that the representatives can easily build target customer lists from the database. In addition, sales representatives can follow all the dialogue with prospects and be looped in the conversation at the exact moment when there is a sales opportunity or tag the contact as a sales target.
The other products in this category are Sales CRM (Sales Management Software), Explore (Analytics & Reporting Software), Gather (Community Forum Software), Connect (Proactive Campaigns Software).
Zendesk Platforms
Besides these products, Zendesk offers 3 different platforms to the companies:
Zendesk defines the Sunshine platform as an open and flexible CRM platform native to AWS.
Sunshine Conversations is the messaging software that enables the customers to reach the company from whichever channel they prefer and the companies to manage customer messages coming from these different channels through a single interface.
Thanks to Marketplace, another platform that Zendesk offers, companies can easily access many solutions and applications that will strengthen their customer service. Zendesk offers one-stop-shop for all kinds of solutions that can add value for the companies.
Which companies use Zendesk’s products?
Companies of all sectors and scales can use Zendesk products. Among 160,000 Zendesk customers in more than 160 countries, there are giant companies such as Uber, AirBnb, DailyMotion, Vimeo, EverNote, Udemy, Tesco, Starling Bank and Slack.
What is Zendesk Chat?
Zendesk Chat is a live support platform used for customer support. Companies can easily interact with their customers with a messaging box they add to their websites, answer their questions, and receive feedback. Web sites are generally interfaces with one-way communication through which only companies can send messages to the visitors, but thanks to a live support function, this interface can also become a platform where the visitors can transmit their message to the company as well. This interaction is of great value in terms of obtaining customer data, getting feedback on products and services, and better understanding the customer and his/her expectations.
Thanks to Zendesk Chat, customers can get instant answers to their questions. Companies can automatically offer help by chatting to a visitor who needs help, by tracking his/her journey on the website or by measuring the time spent on it. With this product, customer support representatives can chat with more than one customer simultaneously.
All conversations made by customer representatives can be monitored and analyzed, and companies can take the necessary actions by easily identifying their weaknesses and strengths.
What kind of a customer service model can bu built by Zendesk Chat?
McKinsey argues in a study that change in customer service has two dimensions: (1) understanding the level of complexity of transactions and evaluating them on this axis (2) finding the right balance for human interaction and automation for these transactions. The main finding from the interviews with 500 customer service managers is that a model based on meeting low value-added questions, transactions and requests with automated digital channels; and high value added and complex ones with channels such as call center and live support that includes human interaction and judgement will stand out. Half of the executives interviewed stated that investing in new technologies in the field of customer service in the next 5 years will be within their strategic priorities, and approximately 60% of them express that self-service channels will gain importance.
What are the customer expectations in terms of customer service?
The most important expectation regarding the customer in customer service is fast, accurate and personalized service. Communication mode shifts from phone call to messaging. The global rise of messaging is no longer denied. Whatever platform it is, people spend more time on messaging platforms than social media platforms. Individuals want to communicate with companies, get answers to their questions and solve their issues through messaging. This method is faster and more reliable for many customers. Every second the customer waits on any channel to get support takes him / her away from the company and increases the likelihood of switching. According to Zendesk‘s Customer Experience Trends Report (Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2020), long waiting times are the main reason a customer has a bad customer service perception.
A live chat model based on human-AI collaboration with Zendesk Chat and chatbot
160,000 companies worldwide use Zendesk live support system in customer service. Zendesk Chat both meets the messaging-oriented expectations of the customers and at the same time it is the most suitable channel for automation in customer service. When Zendesk Chat is integrated with AI-based chatbots and empowered with the possibilities of conversational AI, a higher quality and efficiency in customer relations is ensured.
Considering that 80% of the questions and requests received by Zendesk Chat are frequently repeated ones, live support representatives can be positioned together with an automated systems such as a chatbot. This not only improves the experience and meets the customer’s expectation for speed, accuracy and personalized service, but also brings companies using Zendesk closer to their cost optimization goals as a more efficient model. The customer who gets an instant answer to his / her question with a chatbot can connect to the live support representative through the Zendesk Chat platform at any moment for more complex questions. However, it is important to ensure that this transition is very natural, simple and seamless. In addition, another value that Zendesk Chat – chatbot collaboration model creates is that it allows companies to save their live support representatives from the routine, repeated and simple questions and to enable them to focus on more complex issues that require human touch and judgement.
Zendesk Chat is integrated to CBOT and powered by its AI technologies
CBOT’s AI-based chatbots have been used by many companies from different sectors and scales. As CBOT, we have presented this model based on human-AI interaction to some of the companies we work with and we have seen the value it creates. Particularly in sectors such as e-commerce, retail, telecom, airlines, tourism, internet services and finance, where customer interaction is very intense but questions are concentrated within a few types, the value of automated customer service may affect even the main financial figures.
Thanks to the cooperation of Zendesk with CBOT, it is possible to offer such a value to Zendesk users from all sectors and scales and make them meet with AI technology.
Within the framework of Zendesk-CBOT partnership, it is now easier to deliver our pre-built chatbots to companies for many different sectors and different use cases. Zendesk customers can now easily integrate their customer service software into CBOT’s chatbots. Companies will be able to provide this customer service through any channel preferred by their customers.
For example, let’s consider a company that uses CBOT’s chatbot integrated with Zendesk Chat. When this company includes its WhatsApp Business account in the Zendesk Chat system, it will meet its customers with an AI-based chatbot developed by CBOT on WhatsApp, and the customer will have the option to continue the chat with a customer representatives at any moment again through WhatsApp. The customer representative will review and consider the client’s conversation with chatbot, and will give the most appropriate answer based on this information. As CBOT’s chatbot can be integrated with the company’s WhatsApp Business, it is possible to build such a model on WhatsApp, the most widely used messaging platform in Turkey, and answer customer queries without forcing them to switch their platform, which is a part of daily life. In Turkey, we aim to promote together the human-AI partnership model particularly in the e-commerce, retail, internet services, technology and tourism sectors.
An outstanding success story based on CBOT & Zendesk partnership: Getir
Getir, founded in 2015, is a retail tech startup that became a unicorn in 2021. Getir has a unique rapid delivery service model at the global scale, operating in Europe and in the USA. CBOT provided a customer service model for Getir in partnership with Zendesk, that handles hundreds of thousands of messages daily. In this model the virtual assistant is defined as an agent in Zendesk Chat and welcomes the customer queries. The assistant works hand-in-hand with the human agents in Zendesk Chat. It has the option to handover the queries that are supposed to be solved by a human agent. The system became very successful in a short period of time, in terms of customer experience and efficiency. 63% of customer queries are resolved by the virtual assistant (Getir Support) successfully without a human hanover.
To learn more the use case, please check out the success story.
How will Zendesk customers integrate CBOT to their systems?
Companies that currently support their customers’ requests through the Zendesk Chat software will now be able to automatically handover these answers to a chatbot, reduce response times to a few seconds and manage their costs in customer support better. This will have a direct positive reflection on customer satisfaction as well.
As CBOT, we have gained experience for many sectors and use cases after over 70 projects that we have developed. Therefore, in many different sectors, we can ensure that customer requests are answered by artificial intelligence with a very short time to market. Thanks to the partnership, Zendesk customers will be able to benefit from it as well.
Conclusion
With the great technological developments we have experienced in recent years, it is not possible to keep our business patterns the same. Customers always expect faster, more accurate and more personalized services powered by technology. We clearly see this expectation the the field of customer service. Currently, companies are looking for ways to strengthen customer service with artificial intelligence technologies and to provide better service with automated systems such as chatbots.
Improving customer experience and increasing efficiency is on the agenda of not only large enterprises but also medium and small companies. Therefore, it is also important for these companies to provide high quality service to their customers by using technology and to stay efficient as their business scales. We observe intensely that AI-based chatbots, which started to be implemented by the leadership of banks, large enterprises, retail giants, are now demanded by medium and small-scale companies and are desired to be positioned in customer service.
We think that Zendesk-CBOT partnership is a crucial step in providing the value of technology to the companies and we believe that more companies will easily meet AI technologies and make their customers’ lives easier through them.
If you want to get more detailed information about live chat and chatbot hybrid model, please contact us.