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Challenge

Just over a year ago, Zuora began to outgrow their existing support solution. The interface and workflow were not meeting their service needs, and customization was difficult and burdensome. To add to that, Zuora was facing enormous fees to get the add-ons they wanted—including a customer portal and out-of-the-box integrations. As Zuora looked into four other customer support solutions, they realized no other solution compared to what Zendesk offered in terms of usability and customizations.

“Customer support is a partnership. It’s about building a relationship and making customers successful.”

-Fernando Duarte, Senior Integration Specialist

Zendesk as a solution

In less than 45 days, Zuora completely migrated to Zendesk. Because most of their customer inquiries could not easily be solved by a one-size-fits-all response, they needed an efficient support workflow that catered to each customer’s specific needs. With Zendesk, they are able to:

• Provide multi-channel support via email, Web, feedback tab, phone, chat and Twitter
• Deliver inbound global phone support using Zendesk Voice—powered by Twilio—with local numbers in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Netherlands and local language support in English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Mandarin, Korean and Filipino
• View threaded dialogues to have clear visibility of customer conversations, as well as private comments via agent-to-agent ticket sharing
• Easily and quickly address issues through bulk ticket handling and community announcements—nurturing their customer base through channels beyond email
• Integrate with Salesforce CRM to close the loop between sales and support
• Build a custom widget for two-way integration with Rally development software
• Connect with GoodData in one click for insightful pre-built reports and analytics
• Find new business tools, like MailChimp, through Zendesk’s 100+ integrations

Results

With Zendesk, Zuora is able to achieve a customer satisfaction of 95%, well above the global benchmark of 84%. In addition, they are able to service over hundreds of support inquiries per month with agents across various teams—support, client success management, professional services and product management.

Zuora is out to change the perception of customer support as a cost center. “Our goal is not to have less tickets. We want to hear from our customers—both positive and negative feedback. We want them to engage with us and ask us questions. Zendesk allows us to promote the positive aspects of this engagement via various support channels and offers our customers the flexibility to communicate how they want,” says Marlene Summers, Director of Global Support.

Summers adds, “Since using Zendesk, our customer support has changed a lot for the better. In the past year we have seen triple digit growth in our customer base. The ability to provide support from a variety of channels has enabled more and more customers to engage with us and receive a consistent experience. I don’t think we could have gotten here without Zendesk.”