CX leader launches AI agents, agent copilot, and AI-powered Workforce Engagement Management (WEM) to power exceptional service

SAN FRANCISCO and LAS VEGAS, April 16, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Today at its Relate global conference, Zendesk announced the world's most complete service solution for the AI era. With support volumes projected to increase five-fold over the next few years, companies need a system that continuously learns and improves as the volume of interactions increases. To help businesses deliver exceptional service, Zendesk is launching autonomous AI agents, workflow automation, agent copilot, Workforce Management (WFM) and Quality Assurance (QA) capabilities - all powered by Zendesk AI.

"We've known for years that minimizing customer effort is one of the strongest drivers of satisfaction and believe AI has massive potential to make the customer experience simpler and more enjoyable," said Tom Eggemeier, CEO, Zendesk. "That's why we've seamlessly integrated AI into our products in a way that enables businesses to deliver proactive, personalized service that, above all else, makes it easier for the human on the other end."

Zendesk AI, the fastest adopted product in the company's history, is now used by thousands of companies to manage service quality and accelerate business growth. It automates up to 80 percent of support requests and generates a three-fold increase in immediate, automated resolutions. This contributes to a 30 percent decrease in resolution times and helps agents be at least 10 percent more productive.

"Zendesk AI will provide value by automating tasks and routing tickets, allowing us to respond to customers faster and enabling our associates to focus on high-value activities such as proactive sales motions," said Alicia Monroe, Regional CIO at Ingram Micro. "With Zendesk, we've seen increased productivity for our own associates and improved optimization of our operations overall. As more teams adopt Zendesk, that efficiency has grown, which is a foundational element to provide the best experiences for our customers, vendors, and associates."

Next generation AI Agents and Agent copilot transform CX into a competitive advantage

AI agents are not just a tool, but a necessary and fundamental shift in how businesses engage with their customers. Zendesk is launching AI agents that autonomously interact with customers and provide end-to-end resolutions for both simple and complex inquiries. These AI agents are highly sophisticated, integrate with any knowledge base and offer full customization to handle intricate use cases.

Zendesk is also introducing Agent copilot, a proactive guide that continuously learns from past experiences to help human agents streamline workflows, anticipate customer needs, and improve future interactions. With Agent copilot, human agents can be more efficient and deliver faster, more accurate resolutions to increase customer satisfaction. Additional AI-powered capabilities announced include:

• Personalized intents to provide agents with a granular understanding of unique customer needs to deliver more accurate answers and higher quality service.
• More advanced generative AI tools that give admins easy ways to create robust knowledge bases and use generative search, boosting service efficiency and quality.
• New AI reporting to allow leaders to track and measure key KPIs and AI predictions, enabling businesses to measure impact and optimize operations.

AI-powered Zendesk WFM and Zendesk QA help companies anticipate and act on customer needs

As AI drives up the speed, frequency and complexity of customer engagement, only AI-powered WFM and QA can keep up as companies work to manage high-quality customer service operations. Zendesk is launching Workforce Engagement Management (WEM) and adding WFM and QA capabilities that enable businesses to provide accurate and fast resolutions as they optimize staffing levels and agent schedules in real-time. New capabilities announced include:

• Predictive Workforce Tools with forecasting algorithms and greater control over workforce deployment, so supervisors see change happening real time and quickly adapt agent scheduling.
• Voice QA evaluates call transcripts, scores calls, and identifies outliers for coaching and review.
• QA for AI Agents evaluates 100 percent of AI Agent interactions and uses AI to spot interactions that require human intervention, including churn risks, incorrect workflows, and knowledge center updates.

"We have a complex product that requires continuous agent training and Zendesk QA is essential for us to identify and fill knowledge gaps in the team," said María de la Plaza, Head of Community Operations, SoundCloud. "By analyzing all of our conversations, we can accurately determine what information to add in our macros and update outdated content in our Help Center to offer better support to our Community. This has improved agent performance and increased our CSAT score - all contributing to a transformed customer service organization."

Choice and control help companies build trust in AI-powered technology

Because businesses adopting AI solutions must build trust in the technology, Zendesk offers companies complete control over their AI deployments, with rigorous safeguards to support compliance with security and privacy regulations. The company remains committed to helping customers manage data securely and privately with new features that empower customers to automatically identify personal information for deletion with AI-powered redaction suggestions.

"Businesses are steadily increasing their investments in their CX strategies because they know it's a competitive differentiator, with AI taking the top spot for future investments" said Sheryl Kingstone, Managing Analyst, Head of Experiences at S&P Global Market Intelligence, 451 research. "Companies like Zendesk offering personalized customer service at scale, with trust and security as a foundational layer, are changing CX as we know it, allowing for an exponentially larger volume of inquiries without sacrificing quality. Companies just starting on their AI journey or well-established on their path to intelligent and complex automation will benefit from the personalization and level of customization that was not possible with AI even a few years ago."

For more from Zendesk Relate, watch on-demand recordings of the keynote and select sessions. For a deeper dive into the company's vision for AI-powered service, visit the Zendesk Newsroom.

About Zendesk

At Zendesk, we're on a mission to power exceptional service for every person on the planet. As the industry leader in customer experiences, we help businesses bring together the best of AI agents, workflow automation, and human agents for their customers and employees. With our software and expertise, businesses deliver service that increases customer loyalty and drives revenue at a reduced cost. Learn more at www.zendesk.com.

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SOURCE Zendesk, Inc.