If you’re wondering which Zendesk features you and your CX team should leverage this year, you’re in the right place. Zendesk is one of the most popular customer service software solutions on the market, offering everything from workforce management tools to robust ticketing technology.
The platform features exceptional cloud-based tools designed for both sales and service teams. Plus, it’s highly flexible, with countless integrations and add-ons available to help you streamline common workflows.
Powered by AWS, Zendesk can help companies improve customer experiences, employee engagement, and performance. The question is, which Zendesk features are the most valuable to today’s customer-facing teams?
The Top Zendesk Features Worth Exploring Today
Often compared to the likes of HubSpot, Freshdesk, and HelpScout, Zendesk is an all-in-one customer service platform intended to serve a wide range of business types. The Zendesk platform covers a range of use cases, from Zendesk Support for handing support operations to Zendesk Chat for conversational assistance and the Sunshine platform.
Here are just some of our favorite Zendesk features for CX leaders.
1. Sunshine Conversations
Like many market-leading CX companies, Zendesk has begun investing heavily in the potential of generative AI. Many Zendesk features now include generative AI capabilities. For instance, there are automatic summarization tools to help users rapidly draw insights from conversations. You can also create personalized messaging experiences for customers using Sunshine Conversations.
Sunshine Conversations can integrate with your existing business tools to ensure agents and consumers can access responses to questions based on your current data. You can proactively engage customers on your site, introduce third-party bots for automating specific tasks (like taking payments), and even support internal helpdesks with step-by-step guidance.
The solution is straightforward to use and features a single API, which can connect with your existing technologies, minimizing coding complexity.
2. Zendesk features: Customizable workflows
Notably, Zendesk doesn’t just provide companies with tools to enhance the customer experience. It also ensures employees can customize their own workflows and dashboards according to their needs. This leads to higher levels of productivity and employee satisfaction.
For instance, you can tailor the Zendesk experience or agent user interface using the “code configuration tools” in the admin center. Users can also allow agents to build their apps and workflows. You can also arrange all support requests using custom views.
This helps companies to keep their employees focused on the right priorities. For instance, in Zendesk Chat, users can decide how to organize their chat requests according to customer priority and other factors. You can also add crucial customer data from CRMs and other tools to agent workspaces.
3. Workflow Automation and Routing
With Zendesk features for automation, companies can simplify and streamline various tasks. You can set up automated intelligent routing strategies. This allows Zendesk to assess the specific needs of each customer submitting a request so their query is assigned to the right agent.
It’s also possible to automate processes like collecting information about a customer, validating and scoring leads, and tracking employee activity. Users can set up email and task sequences to automatically engage leads through a range of sales channels. You can also:
- Build trigger-based actions to automate sales workflows
- Create email and task sequences for sales and customer service
- Use power dialler tools to connect with leads automatically
- Send bulk emails to a list of filtered contacts
- Instantly log and record calls and conversations
4. Unified Customer Views
To deliver unforgettable, personalized experiences to consumers across every channel, businesses need the right insights into their target audience. Fortunately, Zendesk features many tools to help you comprehensively map and understand the customer journey.
The Zendesk conversational CRM allows companies to build comprehensive customer profiles, tracking every action a customer or agent takes. You can easily monitor discussions and connect data from every touchpoint for excellent CX visibility.
Zendesk supports APIs to unify customer information across the buyer journey, showing insights into order details, loyalty status, web activity, and more. You can even use customized objects to track things like customer subscriptions. Plus, users can create reports from their unified data to help with everything from audience segmentation to forecasting.
The Zendesk Sunshine platform includes built-in security measures to ensure you’re adhering to privacy and security requirements in your industry, too.
5. Zendesk Features for Advanced Analytics
Speaking of analytics, Zendesk features some of the most intuitive and robust reporting tools in the market. The reporting dashboard in the platform provides visibility into every interaction and channel so you can get a clear view of your business performance.
There’s support for both real-time insights and historical data. Plus, Zendesk offers the opportunity to create custom dashboards or charts or use pre-built templates. There are thousands of ways to customize your reports using point-and-click tools. You can also share reports with teammates and schedule report updates based on your needs.
Zendesk offers everything from accurate forecasting capabilities for sales teams to pipeline analysis tools and data visualizations.
6. Intelligent Knowledgebase Builder
Zendesk’s bot creation tools, now powered by generative AI, offer a fantastic way for companies to provide personalized self-service experiences to users. However, bots aren’t the only tool you can use to empower customers through Zendesk.
The platform also comes with robust help center software, allowing users to build their knowledge bases and educational resources for customers and agents. You can use Zendesk insights to find out what common issues your customers face, then create branded knowledgebase articles using the convenient building tools.
You can even create multiple help centers catering to different audiences or regions. Zendesk even offers AI tools to translate content into 40 other languages. Plus, with content blocks, you can create, manage, and update content across multiple help centers and articles simultaneously.
7. Zendesk Features for Agent Support
When it comes to self-service tools and bots, many companies focus on the value these solutions can bring to customers. However, Zendesk encourages businesses to think about improving agent efficiency with AI and automation.
For instance, the new generative AI virtual agent tools in Zendesk allow companies to create bots that support their staff through every customer interaction. You can create agents that rapidly summarize messages and conversations for agents and suggest next-best-action steps.
These bots can also automatically pull information from various resources to help agents understand customer intent, language, and sentiment. AI systems can also show agents critical insights from a conversation, ticket summaries, and how similar tickets have been resolved. You can even give your agents personalized article recommendations to share with customers in real time.
8. Zendesk Mobile Apps
As the contact center and sales team have continued to evolve, thanks to the rise of hybrid and remote work, few team members are always connected to a desk. Fortunately, Zendesk features intuitive mobile versions of its tools, specially designed for employees on the go.
These mobile apps allow users to complete various tasks on the move. For instance, you can sort through, filter, and search for specific tickets and requests. Users can also receive alerts when tickets are published or modified and assign tasks to other team members.
You can also use the mobile app to interact with customers through Zendesk chat and the Zendesk phone features. Like the desktop versions of the apps, mobile experiences can also be tailored and customized with workflows, apps, and automation.
9. The Zendesk Marketplace
While many Zendesk features can help boost your team’s productivity and enhance your CX scores, one of the best things about the platform is its flexibility. As mentioned above, Zendesk doesn’t just connect with CRMs and customer data systems.
The platform can also be integrated with other business tools using pre-built connectors, APIs, and more. Zendesk works seamlessly with solutions like MailChimp for automated email marketing, Salesforce for sales teams, and even e-commerce platforms like Shopify.
After implementing your integrations, you can use the “Sunshine” platform to create workflows that connect the apps your teams already use, reducing the need to jump between tabs. Zendesk even has a vast partner network filled with specialists who can help configure the ideal experience for your users.
The Top Zendesk Features for CX Teams
All of the Zendesk features mentioned above are excellent for improving the productivity and efficiency of customer service and sales teams. With Zendesk, companies can streamline and enhance customer connections at every buyer journey stage, increasing sales and loyalty.
Plus, you can unify your data from multiple environments, gain powerful insights to drive business growth, and customize your Zendesk experience to your needs. As the company continues to invest in more intuitive tools for AI and automation, the Zendesk platform will only continue to deliver greater value to businesses of all sizes.
If you’re already using Zendesk for CX or planning on adopting the platform, check out all of the powerful features outlined above.
