When phone calls where the predominate method of contact, it was essential for customer service reps to acquire soft skills that would help them better understand what the customer needed and help them solve their problem. Phone is still the preferred method of contact for many customers. It is important to your customers that provide multi-channel support, but it is equally important for your reps to understand each of these channel and develop skills for  email, chat, and social media.

We recently published Customer Service Skills you Need in 2013, a guide to giving your customers the best possible service but making the most of what each channel has to offer. Below is just a taste:

• Phone – smiling can “translate” through the phone, causing your voice to sound friendly and warm.  Remember to smile when it’s appropriate. Mirror your customer and get them to a place where they can smile with you. Don’t lay it on too thick at inappropriate times

• Support tickets and email – inject personality into responses by empowering your agents to use their own voice and approach

• Chat – Handling multiple tickets at once can be a great time saver, but only take on what you can handle. If your customers are waiting more than a minute or two between responses, then you’re effectively putting them on hold

• Social media – Publicly acknowledge that you’re following up with a customer who has contacted you via social media, even if they’ve already joined you in a private ticket. It’s important to close the loop. Once the situation is satisfied, thank them publicly for working through the issue with you.

Read the full guide: Customer service skills you need in 2013

The post Customer service skills for new tech appeared first on Zendesk.

A few months ago, Zendesk took an “across the board” look at our security capabilities, including the features in our product, the effectiveness of our key processes, the depth and breadth of our security organization, and the design of our security architecture. This effort, combining insights from senior management, engineering, product management, IT, and contracted third-party consulting and audit organizations, created a security to-do list. Here are some of the many security improvements we’ve made as a result.

People
Security governance and leadership is important to Zendesk’s management team. As such, I recently joined Zendesk to lead the security function. My primary focus is to further enhance our security program to ensure that we are being absolutely diligent in protecting customers and data.

Our team—a dedicated group of security engineers—is deeply experienced in such areas as penetration testing, security architecture, application and network security, and security monitoring. Additionally, we are augmented by qualified third parties who assist in security audits and discrete projects.

While security vulnerabilities can and will be exploited, people are often targeted first. According to the most recent Verizon Breach Report, “95% of all state-affiliated espionage attacks relied on phishing in some way – even the most targeted and malicious attacks often rely on relatively simple techniques.”  To address this threat, we’ve created several programs to enhance security awareness across various levels of the company, from training new employees in security fundamentals to a bi-monthly meeting of the Security Steering Committee to discuss the security roadmap, drive improvements, and address concerns.

Technology
Over the past few months, we’ve continued to develop our new data centers. At the same time, we’ve invested heavily in our security architecture, including enhanced intrusion detection capabilities, enhanced layer 7 firewalls—providing deeper stateful inspection—and enhanced traffic scrubbing capabilities, allowing us to more quickly mitigate DDOS attacks.

Process
Process is the glue enabling the repeatable and expected use of technology by people. Security processes allow for more consistent and reliable controls, ultimately providing a greater level of data protection. In March, we performed a full security audit of our product and infrastructure. Over the last few months we’ve developed and enhanced our many security processes, such as quarterly third-party security audits and a Responsible Disclosure Policy, giving researchers an avenue to safely test and notify us of vulnerabilities.

Product
We’ve dedicated the past few months to a product “security timeout” to bolster the security features in our product. While we have already launched a number of features to help you better secure your Zendesk environment, in the coming months, you will see many more. Stay tuned for more details this summer.

Like in chess, where it is important to not rely on one approach to be successful, an effective security program employs multiple layers. At Zendesk we take security seriously and will continue to grow, develop, and adapt our program to identify and address the latest threats. Likewise, we will continue to listen to your feedback to ensure that our product’s features are meeting your business and security needs.

Ryan joined Zendesk in April as vice president of security. He’s spent more than a decade working in the security field, most recently as  the information security officer and head of IT at Engine Yard and previously at eBay and PwC.

Read more about Zendesk security

The post Making the right moves for security appeared first on Zendesk.

The latest tip of the week focuses on tracking customers who submit multiple tickets with Advanced Analytics which are available to our Plus and Enterprise customers.

This tip comes to us from Todd Zabel, global customer support manager for Hearsay Social and a Zendesk Community Moderator.

Head to the forums to learn how to track customers how submit multiple tickets

The post Community tip: track repeat ticket submitters appeared first on Zendesk.

Formal surveys and anecdotal stories reveal that we’re increasingly obsessed with beginning our days by hopping online to see what’s happening both in our social networks and at work. To see how our morning routines are getting a tech boost, check out our latest infographic.

And because the “bed office” is a global phenomenon, we’re happy to announce that the Zendesk iOS app (for iPhone and iPad) is now available in 14 languages: German, French, Japanese, Portuguese, English, English (U.K.), Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Danish, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and Korean. Now Zendesk admins and agents around the world can support their customers without crawling out of bed.

Use the code below to re-use this graphic

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<img title=”Top o’ the morning to ya: morning tablet and phone usage” alt=”Top o’ the morning to ya: morning tablet and phone usage” src=”http://cdn.zendesk.com/images/blog-photos-new/Infographic-Morning-Mobile-Phone-Usage.jpg” width=”615″ />
<pre><em>Image originally posted on <a href=”http://www.zendesk.com/blog/great-customer-service-starts”>Zengage, The Zendesk Blog</a></em>[/html]

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The trick is just letting your customers know how!

The latest tip of the week will show you how addressing bad satisfaction ratings and giving your customers the option of changing their minds can help you turn a negative into a positive.

Head to the forums to learn more

The post Tip of the week: changing bad satisfaction ratings to good appeared first on Zendesk.

Zen U. is now in session and coming to a city near you. Our next four stops are: Dallas, Austin, Toronto, and Chicago. Register for class and join the fun. Your degree in customer happiness awaits! (Take a look at the full schedule for more dates.)

Check out this photo from Zen U. San Francisco:

And here’s what recent attendees are saying about Zen U.:

“Zen U. was an environment where questions were appreciated, where I could talk easily with other people in customer service, where I could observe but also learn, and share my ideas as well. I really enjoyed coming to Zen U. and I can’t wait to come back again!”
-Allison Sasscer, FindTheBest.com

“I came to Zen U. because I was very interested in learning about Zendesk’s best practices. I use Zendesk to track all of our customer interactions and I want to make sure I know how to best use the system. I learned today that Zendesk offers a knowledge base with in-context help, and that’s something that I really need to do my job better.” -Christina Porter, Zuora

At Zen U., you might learn a handy tip or trick that will enable you to use Zendesk even better. The hot tip below (originated by a Zendesk customer at Zen U.) is a helpful, uncommon application of business rules. It’s offered here by Vancouver and San Francisco Zen U. instructor and Zendesk customer advocate Brandon Knapp.

Hot tip from Zen U.:

Did you know business hours can be used to prevent a response (made by one of your agents, but posted after standard business hours) from going out until the business hours start the next day?

You can do this by:

First, set up your business hours: Under Settings > Account > Localization.

Next, create a trigger with these specs (screenshot below):

Meet ALL of the following conditions:
Ticket is >> Updated
Comment is >> Present, and requester can see the comment
Within business hours? >> No
Current user >> is >> (agent)

Under “Perform these actions”: Add tags >> Delayed_Message

Note: Make sure to put this trigger at the top of your list, and add an ALL condition of Tags contains none of the following >> Delayed_Message to your end user notifying triggers. (By default, Notify Requester of received request, Notify Requester of comment update, and Notify Requester of solved ticket.)

Then, create an automation with these specs (screenshot below):

Meet ALL of the following conditions:
Tags >> Contains at least one of the following >> Delayed_Message
Hours since update >> (business) Greater than >> 0

Under “Perform these actions”: Email user >> (requester)
(This is a placeholder that will send your previously added comment)

Zendesk events are fun, free, and welcoming places to learn and meet great people. Come join us. We hope to see you there!

The post Zen U. and the College of Customer Happiness is coming to a city near you! appeared first on Zendesk.

The way you share product knowledge with your communities varies greatly from business to business and is determined largely by your self-service support strategy. Companies often refer to their “forum” or “knowledge base,” but these terms can have different meanings and connotations.

What’s the difference between a knowledge base and a forum?
When we consider the word forum, it stirs a sense of community. We expect to see a number of other customers participating, as well as brand advocates and representatives. The basic structure of a forum—threaded discussions—hasn’t changed much in the decades since the Internet began; largely because it’s a solid and flexible format and an effective platform for many-to-many communication.

The term knowledge base, on the other hand, evokes thoughts of user manuals and documentation—unchanging information presented in a logical order, as determined by the organization, rather than the community. With online delivery, a knowledge base can also be contextual—customers type out their questions and the knowledge base displays relevant topics to answer the question.

Which one do I need?
Each of these formats is a valid way of providing knowledge to your customers. Which one you choose depends on your product or service and your goals for customer self-service.

If your product is highly configurable, your customers may appreciate the opportunity to browse through a forum to compare what they’re doing with others. Reading about the different implementation types and experiences can inspire your customers. Or, they may discover more efficient ways of achieving an outcome. It’s the range of opinions and anecdotes that are found in active forums that draws customers in and keeps them coming back.

By using categories and topics, community discussions can be grouped into a sensible taxonomy in a forum. And with thoughtful community management, your forum can expand and grow as your customer community needs it to.

A similar taxonomy works for the presentation of more formal documentation, too. If customer engagement isn’t a part of your strategy, you’ll want to tightly control the content that appears in your knowledge base. In Zendesk, for example, you can allow only unrestricted agents and moderators to create topics. You can also define whether your customers can browse through your content or if you will use a search box to direct users to the information they’re seeking (or both).

Can I have it both ways?
Zendesk’s knowledge management platform is built on a forum structure because of the versatility it provides. You can set up your self-service portal in Zendesk to be a community-driven forum, a context-oriented knowledge base, or more in the style of an instructional user guide. Or better yet, it can be any combination that works for your business.

To learn more about how you can increase awareness of your forums and knowledge base, no matter what your style of delivery, read this post in… well… our forums.

The post Knowledge bases and forums: what’s the difference and does it matter? appeared first on Zendesk.

Head to the forums to learn more

The post Tip of the Week: ensuring a timely response to customers appeared first on Zendesk.

The first thing you want to do is let your team know. Explain to them that you’re running short and that you really need them to work with you to deal with the problem. Keep them engaged by explaining why you are behind, not just asking them to work more. It’s also a great time to make sure you are using your rewards and recognition strategies to help keep them motivated through the longer hours.

Cancel all of your meetings and ask your staff to do the same. In fact, any non-essential activities should be postponed. Right now, you need to focus on right now.  If the busy workload is going to be extended past a day.  It’s best to schedule extra hours and set clear expectations regarding how much extra time people can work, and what your expectations are during that time.

Take a look at the day’s work. Are there any tickets that don’t need to be answered right away? If so, don’t. Save them for a day when you’re not understaffed. Are there any simple tickets that someone from a different department can answer? If yes, see if you can get some help from the other department heads. Marketing, sales, product management–often times tickets are directed to them anyway. If you’re customer focused, most–if not all–employees in the company should have some basic training in how to respond to support tickets.

Are you the kind of team that likes to go out for long lunches? Not today. in fact, lunch might have to be on you. If you can, bring in lunch (and other goodies) for your agents on the company dime. It lets your team know that you appreciate their hard work.

The most important thing is to stay calm and focused. One way or another, the day will end. It’s up to you determine what kind of day it will be.

This post is part of an ongoing Zengage series from Pam Dodrill, Zendesk’s Head of Global Customer Support. The Dodrill’s Dojo series will feature best practices that Pam has gathered in her 25-year career managing and advising customer service teams.

Previously in Dodrill’s Dojo:

Rewards and recognition

Acting on customer service feedback

The post Understaffed and extra busy? Here’s how to keep your cool appeared first on Zendesk.