Zendesk Moves into a New Suite and New Markets: The 2021 CRM Conversation Starters

Zendesk has been providing customer service software since its early days and just last year launched Sales Suite, a fully integrated solution that automatically tracks all sales-related activities to provide sellers with context and insight. Sales Suite includes Zendesk Sell, Chat, Reach, and Voice and allows companies to access multiple channels, such as email, texting, and voice; speak with prospects directly on the website and convert them to a lead from a single interface; and give access to prospecting and data enrichment powered by Clearbit to personalize the sales dashboard.

Recent moves have transformed the San Francisco-based company into a full-featured CRM vendor, providing software-as-a-service products related to customer support, sales, and customer communications.

Now, the company, which was founded in 2007 in Denmark, is bringing those capabilities to a wider range of new platforms. One of the more imaginative applications it launched this year has been in gaming, made possible by a technology partnership with Unity, a platform provider for creating and operating real-time 3-D content. Zendesk integrated customer support functionality that can be set up in minutes directly within some of today’s most popular games. Players will be able to access help centers for instant answers, and when more support is required, agents can answer questions within Zendesk. There are also customization options, such as user-branded interfaces and tailored support fields unique to the game.

“Zendesk provides a seamless transition between the game and support, whether customers are leveraging help center content to get answers on their own or contacting support agents. The one-on-one conversation makes the experience much more user-friendly and personal, plus it is easier for our agents to follow the communication history of our players,” said Alper Kiliç, game development manager at Gamegos, in a statement at the time of the release.

Zendesk also within the past year launched Explore Enterprise within its CRM platform, enabling companies to analyze and share real-time data and act on trends detected. Explore Enterprise provides instant insight across Zendesk products, including Support, Talk, Chat, Sell, and Guide.

Zendesk was already one of the leading providers of support for WhatsApp, Instagram, and similar social media and messaging apps, and this year it built on that leadership position with its introduction in February of a comprehensive messaging solution as part of the new Zendesk Suite, which brings together all of Zendesk’s service capabilities, including messaging, into one complete offering.

Zendesk’s messaging tools are designed to help companies have continuous, convenient, and personalized conversations, whether customers want to text, chat, reach out over WhatsApp, and more. Companies can now provide connected conversational experiences across web, mobile, and social channels. Zendesk’s messaging solution also offers advanced capabilities, including proactive notifications, specialized third-party bot integrations, and the ability for customers to transact directly within the conversation when browsing products, reserving seats, or making payments.

By evolving the new suite to include its comprehensive messaging solutions, Zendesk is arming businesses with technology to meet their customers’ needs, setting teams up for success with a unified agent workspace, and keeping businesses in sync with an open and flexible platform.

The company this year also announced partner integrations with Unbabel, mParticle, AVOXI, Haptik, WhatsApp, Instagram, UJET, Yext, PandaDoc, Monday.com, Sprout Social, TouchPoint, Zoom Video Communications, Microsoft Teams, and Slack.