Teams | Collaboration | Customer Service | Project Management

We’re closing out July with some great new apps.

A common misconception is that chatbots are intended to solve 100% of problems and completely replace human agents. This is not the case. At this time, chatbots are most useful for solving the repetitive interactions that humans don’t need to spend time on—which allows humans to focus on the high priority case drivers where they’re needed most. There’s a time and place to offer support with a chatbot versus a human.

Working with customers from far away poses a few questions for support agents: will the channel they’re working leave the customer better than they were before? If it’s an email correspondence, will the text make sense? If they’re giving instructions over the phone, will the customer be able to follow along?

I recently had a rough customer service interaction. There was an issue in compensation on a returned order, and when I interacted with the support team across email and live chat (a few back-and-forths) it was clear that they were missing information from prior interactions. I ended up having exchanges with multiple agents, and it seemed like a new ticket was being opened each time we talked—could it be? As a consumer, it was incredibly frustrating.

If you have a large support team, it can be difficult to maintain complex workflows. In an ideal world, your team would be able to streamline tickets to the people who know how to handle them best—that way there’s no time wasted juggling different types of tickets.

Zendesk plus some great new apps are a recipe for a great cocktail. Maybe not as good as an old fashioned…

LONDON–June 7, 2018–As part of its continued growth in the enterprise market, Zendesk, Inc. (NYSE: ZEN) today launched new collaboration and workflow tools designed to help large companies respond to customer needs quickly and easily.

In the world of ecommerce consumer decisions are made in seconds. Whether it’s a first impression, purchasing decision, or change of heart—seconds can make or break a customer outcome. It’s no coincidence that within seconds of making a buying decision, I can complete the purchasing process online. With the click of a button, voice command, or automated subscription—I can’t spend my money any faster or easier.

Just the other day, as I was scrolling through my never-ending reading list, I stumbled upon an article on customer experience which made me raise my eyebrows. If it weren’t for two of my three mischievous puppies picking a fight over a dirty sock, I would have probably emailed the author.

Getting the right information to or from the right people in a large organization is easier said than done. True collaboration, the workflow gold standard for scaling companies, can sometimes seem like a pipe dream. To fill the gaps, many of us are inclined to include people via forwarding emails or cc’ing people on them—at times, over-including people to a fault.