Zendesk

Zendesk

Type of business	Public
Traded as	NYSE: ZEN
Headquarters	San Francisco, California
Key people	Mikkel Svane Alexander Aghassipour Morten Primdahl
Revenue	US$208.77 million (2015)
Employees	1,400
Website	www.zendesk.com
Launched	2007 (2007)

Zendesk Inc. is an American customer service software company based in San Francisco, California. Zendesk provides a cloud-based customer support platform which allows quicker and easier interaction between businesses and customers.^[1] Zendesk has offices worldwide in London, Madison, Taguig (Manila), Copenhagen, Dublin, Tokyo, Montpellier, Berlin, Melbourne, Singapore, and Sao Paulo.^[2] It is listed on the New York Stock Exchange with the symbol ZEN and is a constituent of the Russell 2000 Index.^[3] Founded in 2007, the company now has over 1,400 employees and serves 75,000 paid customers in 150 countries and territories.^[4]

History

Zendesk was founded in 2007 by Mikkel Svane, Morten Primdahl, and Alexander Aghassipour. The company was started in a loft located in Copenhagen, Denmark.^[5] The three used their background in customer service programs to create an alternative that would be easier to use for customer tracking and incident reporting .^[6] In June 2008, the firm received $500,000 in seed funding,^[7] followed in 2009 by a $6 million series B funding from Charles River Ventures and Benchmark Capital,^[8] That year, the company moved to San Francisco.

In April 2014, Zendesk acquired Zopim Technologies Pte Ltd, a Singapore-based provider of live chat software.^[9] The firm would eventually turn this software into Zopim Premium Live Chat.^[10] In May 2014, Zendesk became a publicly-traded company, debuting with an IPO price of $9 per share.^[11] On October 13, 2015, the firm acquired We Are Cloud SAS for $45.0 million.^[12] We Are Cloud is the maker of BIME Analytics software, the technology that Zendesk now uses for its customer data platform.^[13]

Products and Technology

Zendesk

Zendesk’s primary product is a cloud-based customer service and support ticketing platform that handles customer calls, emails, and other tech support inquiries without needing physical help center equipment.^[14] Because the software is cloud-based, a customer service representative can respond to clients through different phone numbers and email addresses all on the same interface. In addition, customers can contact the business directly through the company’s website or app, making the help process both easier and quicker. The software is written in Ruby on Rails, and is notable for its ability to integrate with dozens of content management systems, customer relationship management tools, and web apps.^[15][16] The platform is available for mobile and tablet.^[17] In 2011 the firm founded the Networked Help Desk initiative to create an open standard for sharing information between separate customer support applications.^[18] In December 2013, the firm announced integrations with SurveyMonkey and MailChimp to support the launch of surveys and email campaigns from within Zendesk.^[19]

Help Center

Help Center is a self-service tool, allowing companies to set up knowledge bases, online communities, and self-service portals for customers.^[20] This entices users to start community discussions and crowdsource ideas as customers post questions.^[21]

Embeddables

Embeddables allows companies to build customer support functions into mobile and web applications.^[22] This includes a mobile Software Development Kit, which lets companies offer self-service via Help Center. Embeddables lets users create support tickets or chat with a Help Center representative in real-time through the user’s preferred mobile apps or online sites. This eliminates the need to leave the app for a third-party help center.^[23] Embeddables marks an industry shift for customer service, as the tech support process can now be part of the native experience on the site or application.^[24]

Satisfaction Prediction

In 2015, Zendesk rolled out Satisfaction Prediction, which is the first machine learning predictive analytics feature specifically made to measure customer satisfaction.^[25] Satisfaction Prediction takes historical customer interaction data to find which occurrences are most likely to lead to a negative customer experience. These negative experiences are defined via surveys while the customer journey events are diagnosed through artificial intelligence.^[26] When new customer service tickets arise, Satisfaction Prediction analyzes the customer signals and compares them to existing data. In doing this, Satisfaction Prediction can intelligently estimate the user’s overall satisfaction and allow companies to proactively identify customers that may be dissatisfied.^[27]

Talk

Talk is a cloud-based call center software that can immediately get customers in touch with a company representative via any Internet-connected device.^[28] Talk allows businesses to create phone numbers and forward calls to customer representatives’ devices, forgoing the need for physical call centers.^[29] Advanced Voice, the latest iteration of Zendesk’s Voice software, also uses interactive voice response technology to correctly route customers to the relevant agent or department.^[30]

Zendesk Chat

Following the acquisition of Zopim Technologies Pte Ltd in April 2014, Zendesk announced Zopim Premium in April 2015. Zopim Premium is an advanced version of Zendesk’s live chat software, allowing larger teams to communicate with customers in real-time.^[31] Zopim also features workforce management tools, where team leaders can track chat agents’ performance and productivity.^[32]

BIME

After Zendesk acquired We Are Cloud SAS, the company announced that BIME Analytics would be the core technology powering Zendesk’s customer data platform.^[33] BIME aggregates data from multiple sources (including CSV, Microsoft Excel, Bigquery, Intercom, Google Analytics, and Salesforce) to enhance Zendesk’s data-driven business intelligence.^[34]

Relate

Relate is Zendesk’s online publication, featuring editorial content dedicated customer service and business relationships.^[35] Relate has also been adopted as the branding name for Zendesk conferences, which specialize in customer service case studies, brand relationships and engagement, and industry changes.^[36][37]

Accolades

• 2016 – White Mountain ranked Zendesk 1st on its list of Most Innovative business tools in Property Management and Real Estate
• 2016 – FastCompany ranked Zendesk 5th on its list of Most Innovative Companies in Enterprise Software^[38]
• 2016 – Svane included in the Inc. Founders 40 list^[39]
• 2015 – Winner of the Most Innovative Use of Big Data at the UK Cloud Awards^[40]
• 2015 – Svane, Primdahl, and Aghassipour were included in the Business Insider Silicon Valley 100^[41]
• 2015 – Svane was included in Inc. Magazine’s Top 40 CEOs to watch^[42]
• 2015 – Zendesk ranked first among Bay Area technology companies for highest percentage of women holding director roles and high-paying positions^[43]
• 2015 – Rachel Delacour, CEO of BIME Analytics, won the Silver Stevie Award for Female Entrepreneur of the Year for Business Products with 11 or more employees^[44]

Philanthropy

Zendesk Neighbor Foundation

Zendesk’s headquarters is located in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco and has made several philanthropic initiatives and charitable donations to the area. The Zendesk Neighbor Foundation, a nonprofit organization started by Zendesk, launched $1 million in funding for local charities working on social issues.^[45] In 2015, Zendesk Neighbor Foundation donated $100,000 to St. Anthony’s Tenderloin Technology Lab.^[46] Since then, the Zendesk Neighbor Foundation has also expanded to the communities of Melbourne,^[47] London,^[48] and Madison,^[49] where the company has made $100,000+ donations per community to Boys and Girls Clubs, public libraries, employment workshops, Autism organizations, and other local non-profits.

Link-SF, Copenhelp and Link-Dane

Aside from monetary contributions, Zendesk has also used its technology to develop Link-SF. Link-SF is an app that helps homeless people find shelter, food, medical care, technology access, and hygiene services.^[50][51][52] Subsequent to Link SF, Zendesk launched two similar apps: Copenhelp (for Copenhagen)^[53] and Link-Dane (for Madison, Wisconsin).^[54]

References