Or, “Why we use Zendesk”, as not all helpdesk applications are created equal.
Zendesk is the hub of our Peerless WordPress support service, every single technical support issue, internal or external, is pushed through it.
And, in 2016, that was 4,500 support tickets with 10,000 interactions. And we hit 99.6% client satisfaction. We’re mightily impressed with that, and yet we still strive to improve on our service offering.
We are one the top-rated support organisations in the world (comfortably inside the top 5%), and we are proud of our strong service culture. We think many WordPress agencies seem to miss the point, focusing on “building something” rather than helping meet long-term business needs.
We find clients are less interested in a “technical sign-off” than a long-term service-based relationship geared to providing business value. With great service at the heart of everything we do, it is vital we partner with the right technology and service companies, and Zendesk provides us that partnership we, and our clients, need in spades.
Not surprisingly, client service generates a lot of data, communications. That’s a big lump of workflow management, and Zendesk gives us, and our clients:
- One place to log everything, makes life so simple and collaborative.
- Independent auditing of our performance giving clear insight of how well we are doing.
- Beautifully clear and clean communications channel. No horrible email threads.
- Access via email, twitter, calls and direct-access client’s choose where and when.
- Integrates with client’s and supplier’s helpdesk systems via an API, better tying everything together.
- Super-fast, efficient, escalation and dispute resolution. We are human, and do drop the ball sometimes – how we resolve the issues, openly, makes a powerful client-focused statement.
- Device and location independence. Our team are based in locations across the UK and North American. Zendesk works beautifully on tablet, smartphone and conventional PC and laptops.
Almost everything we do goes through Zendesk, and we keep an extensive history covering 10’s of thousands of interactions, questions, issues and resolutions so we can quickly pinpoint recurring issues, whether they are global or client specific. Zendesk is our go-to knowledge base for resolving anything!
Where possible, we keep the tickets conversational in nature – it allows everyone to see the context of the issue, and how it effects how clients. It does mean some tickets run to dozens of interactions, and we believe strongly that great communication is at the heart of great client service.
Will we use Zendesk forever? Probably not, but we have no plans to change in the short and medium term. We do, however, keep a close eye out on what’s coming down the track. But, in the meantime, cheers to Zendesk for the last 5 years!
