Zendesk has expanded its partnership with Microsoft to enhance employee services for smaller businesses.
By integrating Microsoft 365 products into the software company’s platform, Zendesk customers can access Agent 365 capabilities for intelligent productivity.
In turn, Microsoft has implemented Zendesk Agent within 365, allowing its customers to access tools to enhance service productivity and workflow efficiency.
Craig Flower, Chief Information Officer at Zendesk, highlighted how the partnership expansion would improve Zendesk’s ability to deliver a superior customer experience.
“Our collaboration with Microsoft on Agent 365 and Zendesk Agent for Microsoft 365 Copilot is a pivotal moment for Zendesk,” he explained.
“This collaboration not only solidifies our position as a leader in enterprise AI automation but also ensures that Zendesk remains at the forefront of the evolving digital worker landscape.
“By integrating with Agent 365 and Microsoft 365 Copilot, we are empowering our customers with both autonomous and streamlined support capabilities, optimizing operations, and ultimately delivering a more efficient and reliable employee experience within Microsoft 365.”
Improving Service Experience
This partnership aims to upgrade small business experiences by implementing both tools to generate tailored needs.
By establishing Microsoft Agent 365 within Zendesk’s platform, the AI offers autonomous ticket management support for Zendesk’s customers for reduced human intervention.
These capabilities include ticket creation, handling, status monitoring, and communication management within Microsoft’s environment to ensure data governance requirements are met.
This allows human service agents to shift away from constantly reviewing routine queries and return to high-demand, complex tasks.
In return, Zendesk Agent has been integrated into Microsoft 365 Copilot to support its core apps with ticketing capabilities, such as ticket submissions, status monitoring, and following up tasks without the need to switch tools.
Similar to the first integration, this capability is managed within Microsoft’s environment, resulting in limited friction for tool management and deployment.
As a result of the integration, agents can experience direct AI-assisted support in several routine task areas, resulting in higher responsiveness, resolution, and reduced waiting times.
This AI integration allows smaller businesses to elevate their service demands to the level of any well-established company, including delivering higher productivity and service levels.
By implementing these tools directly within a business, teams can manage their workflows effectively without agent intervention.
Furthermore, both tools offer customers secure and compliance management for handling adoption risk within a governed ecosystem.
Targeting The Small Business Market
The integration follows a similar trend in recent months of larger vendors trying to dominate the small enterprise customer corner by offering tailored products and services to fit their needs.
Earlier in November, Zoom had secured its commitment to providing service capabilities to companies of various sizes with simple, straightforward tools to enhance their businesses.
The communications giant notes how businesses with smaller teams require different demands than larger ones, forcing some to juggle various workloads across the board to keep up with demand.
This means vendors will need to personalize their tools and approaches to cover more ground and advance these smaller businesses to the industry standard.
This has been a well-documented issue in the CX industry, as various companies have recently eliminated support for enterprise customers that don’t meet their size standards.
Unfortunately, some customer enterprises that are unable to provide businesses with desirable profit results may be asked to cancel their subscription if the company can no longer provide the services needed or intend to solely focus on its largest customers.
However, companies such as Microsoft and Zendesk have offered support for this neglected market, supplying these customers with both tools to elevate their teams while prioritizing their unique requirements.
Srini Raghavan, Corporate Vice President for Microsoft Copilot and Agent Ecosystem, explained how the tool collaboration will offer these enterprise customers support across a range of business needs, and allow them to elevate their issue resolutions even at their current capacity.
He said, “AI is transforming how organizations deliver employee service, and Microsoft’s collaboration with Zendesk is leading that change by enabling a new era of intelligent support.
“We’re combining the power of Microsoft 365 Copilot’s intelligence with Zendesk’s modern service platform, enabling employees to resolve IT, HR, and Finance issues seamlessly within the tools they use every day.”
