You’ve read the success stories and are convinced that Zendesk is the way forward for your customer service team. You’ve spoken to some implementation partners and have a rough idea of what you need to get started. You have a few details to finalize, but you’re ready to get started. So, where do you begin? This article will give you tips on how to get started with Zendesk implementation for your customer service team. It is not an exhaustive list of things to consider or steps to take, but there should be enough here to give you a head start.
With many different roles and customer touchpoints in a contact center, it’s important to map out the user journeys for your customers. This will help you understand how best to present information to your customers to guide them through their journey, as well as how to prioritize information for agents to ensure they only see what they need. A few questions to ask yourself when mapping out user journeys include: – What is the customer journey from beginning to end? – What path do customers take through your product or service? – What are some of the challenges they face? – Where are the points of frustration? – What are the agents doing to help?
Before you can get started on bringing your Zendesk implementation to life, you’ll need to find the information silos in your current customer service setup. This will help you understand what information is currently available to your agents and where you might be able to bring this into Zendesk to provide a more consistent experience. Find your information silos by asking yourself questions like: – What are the main pain points that customers are facing? – What are common customer questions? – What information is available to your team?
Now that you’ve mapped out your customer journeys, and found your information silos, it’s time to get to grips with your customer experience metrics. These are the KPIs that will help you measure the effectiveness of your Zendesk implementation and tailor it to meet your customer’s needs. Find your customer experience metrics by asking yourself questions like – What metrics will help you understand the customer experience? – How will these help you get better?
Once you’ve got a handle on your customer experience metrics, it’s time to think about the agents. Your Zendesk implementation will not be successful if you don’t have your agents on board and using it to its full potential. Your agents are the ones who will be using the tools to provide great customer experiences, so you need to think about ways to get them on board. Find ways to engage your agents and get them on board with your Zendesk implementation by asking yourself questions like: – How will you engage your agents? – What tools will you use? – What can you do to build excitement about the new system?
Once you’ve got your customer experience metrics, engagement strategies, and training cadence in order, it’s time to start adding functionality. Depending on your business, you may want to start with different functionality, but in this section, we’ll focus on guide, chat, and voice. Zendesk Guide is an interactive help center for customers to access self-service support. Zendesk Chat allows you to open a messaging channel with your customers on your website or mobile app.
You could also look into WhatsApp automation which allows you to redirect inbound calls to the messaging platform, making it easier for an agent to handle several inquiries at once. You may also wish to implement a chatbot to handle simple or repetitive requests automatically, reducing the manual workload and improving response times.
Congratulations! You’ve made it this far. You now understand what it takes to get started with Zendesk implementation. You’ve mapped out user journeys, found your information silos, defined your customer experience metrics, remembered your agents, and added more functionality. All that’s left to do now is start implementing. Remember that Zendesk implementation is a journey. You will get better with time and it may take a few attempts to get it right.
That’s why it’s important to get your implementation right from the start. If you’d benefit from some guidance from a certified Zendesk Partner then please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us. Our Zendesk Express service is designed to provide you with a fully configured and optimized Zendesk installation, tailored to your specific business needs, within as little as 7 days.
