The update puts unification at the forefront. Addressing the fact that many enterprise teams have to toggle between standalone tools, Zoho aims to deliver something closer to a true operating system.

A Connected Workspace Designed for Frontline Service Teams

The most immediate impact comes from the redesigned interface. Zoho One’s new “Spaces” structure organizes tools by context, whether for personal productivity, company-wide collaboration, or functional areas like marketing, sales, or finance. The value proposition here is to reduce friction.

The Action Panel and unified Approvals take that concept further, pulling tasks, sign-offs, and action items from across the stack into a single view. Customer-facing roles, especially those that handle service escalations and sales cycles, often have to pull data from multiple apps. This approach aims to reverse that dynamic by pushing relevant information to the user instead of the other way around.

Dashboards and the new Boards framework also help consolidate operational and customer-related data. Because Boards can be assembled from Zoho’s own analytics or third-party dashboards brought in through single sign-on, customer support and sales teams can combine metrics, from ticket backlog to deal progression to customer sentiment, within one context.

Unified Integrations for Consistent CX Across Systems

Customer-facing operations typically rely on diverse systems covering ticketing, CRM, commerce platforms, payment portals, and engagement tools. Zoho has addressed this with a stronger emphasis on native integrations and an expanded model for third-party connectivity.

The unified integration panel gives administrators full visibility into Zoho-to-Zoho and Zoho-to-third-party connections, including recommendations for additional integrations.

Raju Vegesna, Chief Evangelist at Zoho, said during a media briefing that limits on integrations are typically dictated by outside vendors:

“There are limits in terms of capability and the exposure of their API… technically, as long as they support some of the standard protocols, it’s fairly straightforward.”

The introduction of a unified portal may have the most impact on customer experience operations. Instead of customers juggling multiple logins for CRM updates, support tickets, commerce orders, payments, and more, organizations can merge all their portals, including those from non-Zoho systems. For large enterprises especially, where siloed customer portals are a known pain point, this consolidation could help improve customer effort scores.

Domain verification, authentication records, and other behind-the-scenes tasks can also now be handled centrally. This includes new support for GoDaddy users, who can authorize automatic updates to DNS records, which is a useful capability for customer service and marketing teams that previously relied on IT intervention.

AI Steps Into a More Contextual Role

AI is deeply embedded in the release through Zia, Zoho’s AI assistant, which has an expanded footprint, and new intelligence hubs. Because Zoho One unifies data from more than 50 apps, Zia can take on tasks that span categories, for example, pulling HR, CRM and support information into a single query.

For example, it can help leaders understand how much time each employee spent with a particular account, Vegesna said, which requires cross-system reasoning not typically possible in isolated applications.

Zia Hubs, now promoted to a standalone application, automatically collects content such as signed contracts or recorded meetings into dedicated hubs. Users can then query that information directly. Vegesna explained:

“All the documents that you put in that hub… you can say, ‘hey, here are the same documents. Show me only the documents that auto renew within the next three months.’”

This could streamline contract renewals, customer onboarding, or issue-resolution workflows by exposing the right information without manual digging.

AI also assists in product navigation. Zia is trained on all 55+ Zoho applications, which means a user can ask how to run an Instagram campaign and be guided directly to the relevant tool, in this case, Zoho Social, and receive recommendations on how to use it, Vegesna noted.

Zia is coming into the status bar of Zoho One. Zia will be able to create and plug in widgets because the data is connected to the back end and powered by analytics. Users will be able to select from preset reports and dashboards and they are organized, whether they are CRM, HR or support related, such as a helpdesk overview, and pinned to the dashboard, Vegesna said.

“Because we have a broad suite of applications that are deeply integrated on our stack, and have the context that enables the intelligence… we are basically embedding [AI] contextually so that the user does not even know that they’re using AI here.”

Ensuring Data Sovereignty and Enterprise Control

Security and data sovereignty are becoming an increasing concern for enterprises as they pay more attention to where AI systems source and store data. Zoho made clear that its ability to operate its own full stack from infrastructure to applications enables deployment models that many competitors can’t match. As Vegesna noted:

“In sovereignty… we are doing these on-premise deployments in some countries where your data center has to be set up in that country, because we own … the entire stack … we are able to do it particularly when dealing with governments.”

The demand for national or regional control is growing, especially in markets where critical communication systems must remain within the country’s borders to comply with data privacy regulations. “They want to own some key aspects. For example, communication … I don’t want someone else to … pull the plug on my communication systems, so I want it on my data center within my country … those have come up a lot, and we are doing those deployments as well.”

Encryption and data governance were also focal points. Zoho confirmed that customers can now bring their own encryption keys and assign them at the application level. “On the security side … customers ask, ‘Can I bring in my own encryption keys and encrypt my data within Zoho?’ And now we are enabling that,” Vegesna said. “They can now select which applications can use what encryption key, and they can define encryption keys based on their specific set of applications, like their documents [and] emails.”

Zoho argues that AI governance, especially around permission systems, has been overlooked in broader industry discussions. Vegesna said:

“B2B LLMs are different from B2C LLMs, because the permission layer plays a very critical role. I think nobody can do a solid AI strategy and implementation if you do not have a directory system in there. And we have been saying it for years, and we are one of the very few vendors who do directly in Zoho, because that has the entire permissions structure in place.”

Cloud directory integrations that enable permissions are a granular level should be at the core of enterprise AI.

“If we do not have a directory system, we cannot say we can do good AI that is well protected, and you should not have access to some data that AI just memorized, because that all has to be under a firewall and the permission system.”

“We own the triple A: authentication, authorization and access control,” Vegesna added.

Together, these capabilities reinforce Zoho’s pitch to enterprises, that unified architecture and control over its infrastructure allow for tighter data governance and deployment models that meet stringent regulatory or geopolitical requirements.

The through-line across the release is the shift away from app-centric work toward context-centric work. This is a change that resonates strongly in customer-facing environments where speed, accuracy, and personalization depend on smooth access to data.

By pulling together dashboards, workflows, approvals, and AI-generated insights from across the business, Zoho One offers a way to reduce employee and customer effort. Functions that are traditionally fragmented, including billing, support, onboarding, and renewals, can be unified at the workflow and data level rather than treated as separate systems stitched together by manual processes.

For enterprises looking to consolidate their customer-facing tech stack without compromising on data control or the breadth of tools, Zoho is positioning the new release as a platform that can serve both operational needs and experience-driven outcomes.

Shadow CX offers both opportunities and risks. It empowers customers with fast, community-driven solutions and reduces strain on official support channels. However, businesses risk losing visibility and control over their customer experience, which may impact brand loyalty and trust. With AI, things become even trickier. 

In a recent talk with Martin Taylor, Co-Founder and Deputy CEO of Content Guru, we explored the rise of third-party CX, AI’s role in shaping customer interactions, and how businesses can adapt to this decentralized support landscape. Should companies embrace this shift, or fight to reclaim control? 

The Risks: Misinformation, Lost Engagement, and Missed Insights

While Shadow CX offers convenience, it also comes with significant risks. When customers turn to third-party resources, companies lose control over the accuracy of the information shared. Official support channels are there to provide reliable guidance, but on platforms like Reddit or YouTube, there are no guarantees. 

“If customers follow incorrect advice—say, skipping the manual for a DIY video that backfires—the brand often takes the blame, even if it had nothing to do with the guidance,” Taylor notes. 

Beyond misinformation, Shadow CX disrupts direct engagement. Traditionally, when customers reached out to a company, it was an opportunity to build trust and loyalty. Now, younger consumers—especially Gen Z—seek quick, digestible solutions over long customer service calls. 

“If a business isn’t present in these spaces, it risks losing customers altogether,” Taylor says. However, companies can’t simply drop a 50-page manual into a fast-moving forum. “They need to create short-form, ingestible content that fits the nature of these platforms.” 

Ignoring Shadow CX also means losing valuable customer insights. Without direct engagement, brands miss out on feedback that could inform product improvements and future support strategies. 

What’s the alternative? AI is one part of the answer. 

AI: A Double-Edged Solution for Shadow CX

AI can help reshape customer experience, but whether it solves or exacerbates Shadow CX challenges depends on its use. 

When consumers turn to forums or unofficial videos, it’s often to solve a problem, which AI-powered agents can help with. By offering real-time, 24/7 personalized assistance, AI can help customers troubleshoot without resorting to third-party resources. 

While many businesses already use automated agents for customer communications, most still rely on outdated, rigid chatbots that frustrate users. 

“Organizations need to modernize these chatbots so they’re no longer a barrier to resolution but are actually helpful,” Taylor suggests. 

AI also introduces new risks. Users often turn to large language models (LLMs) like Gemini or ChatGPT, but their AI-generated responses aren’t always accurate; and businesses may still bear the blame if misinformation spreads. 

“To protect against hallucinations, brands can use retrieval augmented generation,” Taylor explains. However, this can only work when the business provides the interaction and cannot be imposed on a third party. 

“To maximize the odds that third-party engines provide users with reliable information, it’s essential to make any official information highly visible and clear,” he says. 

Adapting to Change: Tips and Strategies

To thrive in the age of Shadow CX, businesses must adapt to evolving customer preferences, particularly among younger demographics. 

“Brands need to provide quick, digestible content, such as ‘how-to’ videos and simple FAQs that blend seamlessly into the style of platforms like Reddit,” Taylor suggests. 

By doing so, companies can significantly lower customer effort scores, improve engagement, and avoid issues caused by misinformation. 

Implementing AI can further improve this process by automating routine tasks, allowing the organization’s human agents to help customers by focusing on complex or emotional issues. 

“AI will not replace human agents, but it will supplement them, empowering them with the right information in the moment,” Taylor explains. 

“This combination of AI and human expertise builds trust while reducing operational costs and ensuring a smooth, low-effort customer experience.” 

To learn more about Content Guru’s CX solutions, visit their website.

HubSpot, one of the world’s leading CRM providers, decided to change that with the release of Service Hub.

Introduced in 2018, Service Hub aligns closely with Sales Hub to help unify the work of two critical CX functions: customer service and sales.

Since then, Hubspot has released its “Smart CRM” platform to unify service and sales with marketing, operations, content, and commerce teams.

Indeed, the AI-powered platform centralizes customer data and AI to help teams align CX teams and – ultimately – improve customer experience.

Service Hub proved a first step in this crucial mission. Yet, as an individual solution, it offers many noteworthy capabilities.

Salesforce Service Hub: The Key Features

HubSpot Service Hub is a CRM solution that serves customer service teams.

As noted above, it’s one of six “hubs” within HubSpot’s Smart CRM, which offers an all-encompassing ecosystem for customer experience teams.

The Smart CRM expands its capabilities, so it can offer a more comprehensive customer view and connect cross-function workflows.

However, many businesses leverage Service Hub in isolation. As they do so, they may access the following key features.

A Unified, AI-Powered Help Desk

The centralized “Help Desk” workspace in HubSpot Service Hub gives teams a single pane of glass environment to triage and resolve tickets, track data, and collaborate with teams.

Additionally, it features a full ticketing system, which uses AI to automate ticket prioritization, task assignment, and issue resolution. There’s also native issue-tracking software.

From the Help Desk, teams can also use solutions like Breeze Copilot to identify troubleshooting strategies more quickly and create self-help content to share with customers.

Finally, an SLA Management tool helps staff prioritize requests based on importance.

Customer Success Features

HubSpot sets itself apart from other CRM providers by unifying customer support and customer success.

The Customer Success workspace helps team members monitor and manage customer relationships more effectively, with insights into customer health scores, task tracking, and sentiment.

These tools help customer success managers proactively engage with customers, address issues before they escalate, and enhance customer loyalty with unique onboarding experiences.

Teams can also access feedback management tools for tracking critical CX metrics – like the net promoter score (NPS), customer satisfaction (CSAT), and customer effort score (CES) – alongside creating custom surveys.

Lastly, there’s a customer portal for self-help tasks, and conversation intelligence tools, too.

Omnichannel Support

Service Hub doesn’t just help companies manage customer relationships, it also gives teams the tools they need to engage with leads and prospects.

Companies can manage customer interactions across voice and various digital channels. Meanwhile, users can leverage interactive call routing capabilities and design articles with AI for self-service.

Regarding self-service, HubSpot also recently introduced the Breeze Customer Agent, a preconfigured agentic AI solution designed to provide customers with fast solutions 24/7.

These AI agents can handle multi-stage tasks, update CRM records, assign tickets to staff members, and more.

A Knowledge Base

Within the HubSpot Service Hub, the knowledge base allows companies to create customizable support resources for both team members and customers.

Indeed, businesses can use AI to auto-generate knowledge articles based on previous interactions and business insights.

Plus, they can design a centralized and branded set of “portals” for specific customers, too.

Finally, there are embedded analytics tools to help businesses identify gaps in their self-service strategy.

Reporting and Analytics

Within Service Hub, Companies can use out-of-the-box reports for guidance or create their own custom dashboards to enhance decision-making strategies.

Moreover, there are AI tools for diving into deep data sets, so teams can learn more about customer preferences and trends.

Meanwhile, companies can use Breeze Intelligence to bolster their data ecosystems.

As such, HubSpot leverages data to improve its AI and AI to bolster its data sets. That’s a potentially powerful cycle.

HubSpot Service Hub: Pricing Options

Smaller companies can start experimenting with basic features for free. Indeed, Service Hub’s free plan includes contact management, basic ticketing tools, team emails, and a basic AI chatbot.

After that, there are three central plans to choose from:

• Starter: Starting at $20 per month: This includes all the free plan features, simple ticket automation and multiple ticket pipelines, multiple currencies, and a calling SDK. It’s great for smaller businesses with limited CRM requirements.
• Professional: Starting at $100 per month per seat, this plan is for advanced customer service teams, with all the features of Starter, plus the Help Desk workspace, knowledge base, customer success workspace, and customer portals.
• Enterprise: Starting at $150 per month per seat, this plan offers all the most advanced features of HubSpot Service Hub, including playbooks for teams, advanced SLAs and routing capabilities, single sign-on, and multiple knowledge bases.

Notably, there are a few extra fees to consider. For instance, Professional and Enterprise plans might come with onboarding costs. Plus, some teams may consider working with a partner to set up custom integrations.

HubSpot Breeze features (Copilot and Agents) come included in most paid plans. However, Breeze Intelligence has extra per-credit fees.

In addition, companies that wish to combine HubSpot Service Hub with other Engagement Hubs can purchase those hub plans separately.

Alternatively, they can align all six hubs with a “Customer Platform” plan. These plans start at $15 monthly for the Starter option, $1,170 for Professional, or $4,300 for the Enterprise option.

HubSpot Service Hub: Transforming Customer Experience

HubSpot provides a unified platform designed to bring all customer-facing teams together through its Smart CRM.

Service Hub is one of the six CRM apps within Smart CRM.

The CRM doesn’t just focus on supporting buyers with queries, but it also gives teams the necessary tools to maintain a 360-degree view of customers, personalize service strategies, and proactively boost retention rates.

With new AI-powered capabilities delivered by the Breeze ecosystem, companies can also automate more tasks.

Additionally, they can resolve tickets faster, generate real-time insights and personalized content, and serve customers 24/7 through autonomous agents.

With scalable pricing, HubSpot gives companies an easy way to deliver next-generation customer service.

Ready to learn more about the HubSpot ecosystem? If so, check out the article: HubSpot Smart CRM: Everything You Need to Know

The layoffs equate to 660 employees, with the company stating that the realigning of its global workforce will allow the business to have a more significant impact on its customers.

The decision followed the release of “strong” Q3 results that saw Freshworks achieve 22 percent year-on-year revenue growth.

Following the results and layoffs, the vendor saw its share price jump 15 percent.

Nevertheless, in an open letter to employees posted on the vendor’s website, Dennis Woodside, CEO of Freshworks, stressed that the decision was “difficult”.

Moreover, it was intentionally made at a time when the “business is profitable and our AI-powered products are providing increasing customer value.”

We believe this will help us accelerate our growth and simplify the way we work, so that we’re running Freshworks in a way that’s efficient and scalable.

Having taken over the reins less than five months ago, Woodside explained that the decision to make the cuts was linked to an evaluation of the company’s strategy to ensure that it is “focused on the most critical drivers of our business.”

The review led to the company defining three strategic imperatives: its employee experience, AI, and customer experience businesses.

Woodside was tasked with ensuring that each area was as streamlined and efficient as possible.

For those employees who have lost their jobs, the CEO confirmed that various forms of support will be available.

These include severance pay based on tenure, extended healthcare coverage, Employee Assistance Program access, career transition assistance, and, if needed, immigration support.

The specifics of these benefits will differ according to local laws and customs.

“The decision to part ways with members of our team is heavy. These colleagues and friends have been instrumental in building the company we are today,” he stated.

While words alone can’t soften this news, we are committed to treating all impacted employees with dignity, respect, and thoughtful support as they transition.

Nevertheless, a skeptic might conclude that the vendor was attempting to bury the news, announcing it just a day after the presidency of the United States was decided.

Another CX vendor that may have had a similar play is Avaya, which also initiated another round of layoffs this week.

The plunge occurred after the CRM stalwart made a spate of significant announcements during its Q1, 2024, earnings call.

These included a CEO transition, the acquisition of Device42, and a cut back on its revenue guidance for the financial year 2024.

Covering the news on May 2, 2024, Bloomberg Television stated:

Investors [are] bailing out of the stock, sending it down on its worst day since it went public about three years ago.

The extreme market reaction may come as somewhat of a surprise. After all, Freshworks did beat earnings estimates in the last quarter, achieving revenues of $165.1MN. That’s up 20 percent year-over-year (YoY).

However – alongside the announcement slew catching everyone off guard – investors appear concerned that generative AI (GenAI) and automation may threaten user numbers across Freshworks’ bread-and-butter customer service offerings.

Indeed, Brian Schwartz, Managing Director at Oppenheimer, wrote in an investor note: “The issues with the customer service business and product-led growth motion look more structural than transitional, with generative AI adoption a threat to seat-compression.

In our view, Freshworks has become a transition story with new leadership and execution challenges pushing out reinvigorating top-line growth anytime soon.

That said, some may disagree with such assertations. After all, 61 percent of customer service leaders expect headcount reductions of only five percent or less due to GenAI – as per Gartner.

Given such research, there is a case for the market over-hyping GenAI’s short-term impact on seat counts. Indeed, it may have overreacted.

Nevertheless, the other announcements may have also incited the fluster, as explored below.

The CEO Transition

On May 2, Freshworks named Dennis Woodside its new CEO, taking over from Girish Mathrubootham, who will become Executive Chairman.

Mathrubootham led Freshworks from a startup to a global CX player, with 67,000 global customers.

That’s quite the rise, and – given the now former CEOs success – his transition perhaps did have a significant impact on the stock.

However, Mathrubootham has pledged to remain engaged with Freshworks’ product vision, customers, and employees.

Moreover, his replacement has spent 18 months under Mathrubootham’s wing as President.

Now, Woodside – who has leadership experience at Dropbox and Google – aims to defy Schwartz’s prediction and quickly reinvigorate growth.

First, he strives to do that with a mid-market expansion while building out its portfolio of enterprise-grade products.

That slow progress to enterprise will mark a strategy shift. After all, as Mathrubootham stated in 2022: “We hunt for deer and rabbits. We don’t hunt for elephants.”

A $230MN Acquisition

As announced in the earnings call, Freshworks has agreed to acquire Device42 for $230MN.

Device42 specializes in IT infrastructure management, providing organizations with insights into the performance of their systems. It also recently added carbon emissions tracking to its services.

While the acquisition is Freshworks’ first since going public, it has kept the fanfare to a minimum. Indeed, the vendor has yet to share a formal press release to inform customers and partners.

Nevertheless, Mathrubootham told analysts that the acquisition chiefly aims to strengthen its Freshservice offering with enhanced IT asset management capabilities.

Lower Revenue Guidance

Finally, Tyler Sloat, Chief Financial Officer at Freshworks, revealed that the business had lowered its revenue guidance during the Q1 earnings call.

Indeed, his Q2 revenue outlook of $168MN to $170MN fell short of the anticipated $172.1MN.

Moreover, for the full fiscal year, Sloat shared a revenue forecast of $695MN to $705MN – lower than the $703.5MN to $711.5MN Freshworks estimated in February.

When a business lowers its guidance, a stock drop often occurs. Yet, as it sunk 27 percent, many factors seemingly came into play.

In better news, Freshworks recently featured as one of the 20 top vendors to consider for CRM in 2024 in the CX Today Marketplace.

To deep dive on more of the major CX providers, check out our complete Marketplace Series, which extends beyond CRM and across the customer experience space.

The offering comes after Zendesk’s July 2023 acquisition of the workforce management (WFM) provider Tymeshift and its January 2024 roll-up of quality assurance (QA) powerhouse Klaus.

Now, after months of building their solutions into a cohesive suite, Zendesk has presented a deep workforce engagement management (WEM) offering.

While it might not yet cover areas such as learning management and gamification, it encompasses all the fundamentals of WFM and QA.

In addition, it offers several innovative features that most CCaaS vendors – let alone CRM players – do not deliver.

Paxton Cooper, SVP & Global Head of Product at Zendesk, showed many of these off – as shared below – during his opening keynote at Zendesk Relate 2024.

Zendesk Workforce Management

There are several differentiative features within the Zendesk Workforce Management solution.

For starters, it not only automates a forecast but also utilizes the latest contact volume data to continually optimize it, ensuring greater forecast accuracy.

Meanwhile, by leveraging the latest forecast data, Zendesk WFM automatically schedules and reschedules agents across channels in real-time, enabling enhanced scheduling efficiency.

Planners may also make manual tweaks to the forecasts and schedules based on their experience and know-how. But, ultimately, WFM plans are ready in a fraction of the time they once took.

Moreover, like many others, Zendesk offers real-time and historical WFM reports, which track metrics from schedule adherence to average handling time (AHT).

Yet, the vendor takes this further. As Cooper said:

It can even track back office activity outside of your tickets, like work that your team may be doing on their knowledge base, so you have a complete picture of where they spend their time.

Finally, with Zendesk, planners get a much more granular view of their contact volumes – which may influence their WFM strategy moving forward.

For instance, they can see how much of the contact center’s traffic runs through a specific channel, support tier, agent type, or any other category they should please.

In addition, planners may even split that traffic between intents, spot specific customer queries that are on the rise, and share that data with the broader team for action. That’s next-gen WFM!

Zendesk Quality Assurance

Zendesk Quality Assurance starts with Auto-QA, scoring all customer conversations across channels (including voice), languages, and operations.

Such scoring covers grammar, empathy, and the resolution – all things Zendesk’s new Agent Copilot can help with.

Yet, it stands out in its ability to automatically detect service quality issues, coaching opportunities, and knowledge base gaps.

The latter is particularly helpful as agent-assist models and autonomous customer-facing virtual agents – which feed from the knowledge base – become more widely implemented.

Zendesk QA also recommends conversations for manual review and surfaces burgeoning interaction trends – with the help of Spotlight.

Spotlight is an analytics-driven conversation discovery engine powered by Zendesk AI that pinpoints potential problems within customer conversations. In doing so, it prompts actions to escalate the issue or coach the agent.

Supervisors may then take such actions via a dashboard that provides a full conversation view, including sentiment, churn risk, customer satisfaction, quality scores, ticket details, etc.

Lastly, a QA for AI Agents tool is available within the solution. According to Paxton, this is “something that no one else in the industry has.”

The tool allows businesses to run QA for automated conversations, just as the contact center does for live agent interactions.

“You can be confident that [the AI agents] are really accurate, fast, and – most importantly – achieving resolutions,” said Cooper.

And – of course – Spotlight will tag churn risk and negative sentiment in AI-based conversations as well.

“[As a result,] you know when you need to update your source content, refine automated workflows, or follow up with unhappy customers.

The Strategy Is Threefold

The development of the Zendesk Workforce Engagement Suite provides three insights into the CRM and helpdesk stalwart’s strategy moving forward.

1. Zendesk Recognizes a Broader Opportunity In WEM Data

Zendesk has a robust reputation for pulling the contact center and its data into the broader customer experience ecosystem.

Now, after moving into the WEM space, the vendor brings even more data into that ecosystem and better powers the AI models across it.

Moreover, it can do so without blowing up the tech stack.

Yet, Zendesk also spots the potential of putting WEM data to work within contact center workflows.

For example, Cooper shared how a service team may leverage Zendesk’s intelligent triage together with its QA platform’s Spotlight solution.

By doing so, the contact center can route customers based on their query’s urgency – determined by its general impact on sentiment – or by agent proficiency to their specific intent.

2. Zendesk Senses A Chance To Centralize Contact Center Staff Management

In his presentation, Cooper doubled down on how the Zendesk Workforce Engagement Suite allows an organization – with service operations across the globe – to centralize staff management.

For instance, he noted how Wyze – a provider of smart home cameras and devices – leveraged Zendesk WFM to optimize their contact center teams across time zones and BPOs.

Later, he highlighted how Zendesk QA could evaluate all customer conversations across an entire enterprise’s service teams and outsourcers.

In these examples, Cooper flaunts one of Zendesk’s advantages over several market rivals, which offer similar WEM solutions within their CCaaS platforms: Zendesk offers elasticity.

After all, many enterprises leverage different contact center platforms across service locations – which means they often leverage multiple WEM solutions, making it a siloed activity.

Yet, Zendesk Workforce Engagement integrates various telephony environments as a vendor-agnostic overlay, enabling businesses to pull their global operations together and spot broader WFM and QA improvement opportunities.

3. Zendesk Is Going All-In On The Contact Center

While it offers products for sales and marketing, Zendesk is becoming increasingly service-centric.

That’s obvious in its new WEM suite, Ultimate acquisition, and other innovations released during Relate 2024.

Despite how crowded the service market is, Zendesk seemingly senses an opportunity there – and Simon Harrison, Founder & CEO of Actionary, agrees.

During a recent episode of CX Today’s Big News Update, Harrison said:

The biggest threat to the CCaaS landscape is the customer engagement center vendors because ServiceNow, Zendesk, all of these guys go in to do a demo for a customer, and they show such a deep, rich experience across all kinds of use cases.

“If I were a CCaaS vendor going in after them, I’d expect the customer to go: where’s the rest? Because what we just saw was so much broader and deeper. And, when organizations want to feel safe, they buy ecosystems.”

More from Zendesk Relate 2024

Alongside the Workforce Engagement Suite, Zendesk shared many more announcements at its Relate 2024 event.

To catch up on all the other headlines, check out our articles:

• Zendesk Announces AI Service Suite Revamp, Claims to Offer the “Most Complete Service Solution”
• Zendesk Announces Anthropic and AWS Collaborations – Targets AI Improvements

In Which?’s survey, a quarter (25 percent) of respondents expressed dissatisfaction with their most recent customer service experience with their energy provider. This dissatisfaction rate was the highest among the energy, financial services, retail, and telecom sectors.

The consumer advice organisation analysed data from its 2023 customer service survey and annual energy customer satisfaction survey to evaluate how well energy firms are performing in customer service and resolving customer problems promptly and effectively. Scottish Power, Ovo Energy, and British Gas were identified as the worst performers in providing quick responses and practical solutions.

“Customer service is in a dire state in vital areas, and some companies are routinely failing their customers – leaving them frustrated and stuck in endless loops trying to get help,” said Rocio Concha, Which? Director of Policy and Advocacy.

Scottish Power, Ovo Energy and British Gas all fared poorly in Which? research on which firms are best for giving quick and effective solutions when things go wrong. Failings in this area are particularly unacceptable when sky-high energy prices have left families and households struggling to make ends meet.”

Which? noted a prevailing frustration in many of the customer accounts surveyed was the lack of prompt responses and resolutions from companies when customers reached out about a problem. Too frequently, Which? underlined, this resulted in customers being kept on hold, trapped in endless chatbot loops, or transferred from one department to another without receiving a satisfactory resolution or helpful answer to their query.

Which? also highlighted that this was “particularly unacceptable” considering that soaring energy bills have significantly contributed to the cost of living crisis, leading to substantial profits for many energy suppliers.

“While many consumers will rightly consider switching, these firms must urgently make improvements so all customers are getting the standard of service and support they need and deserve,” Concha added.

Damning Findings For Scottish Power, Ovo and British Gas

Scottish Power received the lowest satisfaction score of -13 for contact wait times and 3 for issue resolution. Which? cited one customer who experienced sleepless nights and anxiety over unresolved billing problems after being left on hold and encountering unhelpful agents. Another Which? mentioned feared bailiff visits due to Scottish Power’s failure to rectify an incorrect bill.

Ovo Energy closely followed with a score of -7 for contact wait times and 7 for issue resolution. A customer Which? noted switched providers due to rudeness and unhelpfulness from Ovo staff during a billing issue call.

British Gas performed better, scoring 16 for contact wait times and 23 for issue resolution. However, one British Gas customer Which? cited recounted spending 43 hours on the phone and sending 24 emails over more than a year to resolve a billing issue. Despite her repeated attempts, she found the staff lacking empathy, causing her distress as she had to repeatedly explain her situation following her husband’s passing.

According to Which?’s dual surveys, the energy businesses that performed the best were Octopus Energy and E.On Next. Octopus performed most impressively for quick and effective customer service, with a satisfaction score of 46 for how long it took to get in touch with a person who could help and 55 for how long it took to get an answer to an issue. E.On Next achieved 35 for how long it took to get in touch and 25 for how long it took to get a query answered.

• HMRC Tries to Shelve Phone Customer Service, Backtracks Amid Furor
• Holland & Barrett’s Director of CX On Customer Satisfaction and The Importance of Market Research

In an acquisition that Zendesk says will allow it to deliver the most complete AI offering for CX in the market, with Ultimate, Zendesk will provide AI agents with advanced intelligence, empowering them to be proactive problem solvers and reactive responders. This complements human expertise, creating a powerful synergy between AI and human agents.

“AI is the future of CX, and the next generation of AI agents are not just a tool, but a necessary and fundamental shift in how businesses will engage with their customers,” said Tom Eggemeier, CEO of Zendesk.

With Ultimate, we will help our customers set a new standard, with AI agents giving customers the support they need quickly and effortlessly. This means human agents can focus on what they do best: building relationships, resolving complex challenges, and applying innovation and creativity to move businesses forward.”

The acquisition was driven by the unprecedented demand for AI, which has accelerated the speed and frequency of customer engagement. AI agents now go beyond traditional bot capabilities, allowing brands to transform CX into a competitive advantage.

Ultimate’s AI agents automate up to 80 percent of support requests, drawing from myriad knowledge sources and offering complete customisation to address complex use cases. Their automation platform seamlessly integrates with any backend system and offers comprehensive analytics and reporting.

With Zendesk and Ultimate joining forces, Zendesk insists that companies gain tremendous flexibility and control in delivering customer support. Whether through fully autonomous AI agents, workflow automation, or human intervention, businesses can cater to customer needs according to their preferences.

“Our mission has always been to help businesses use AI to deliver joyful support experiences. We’ve seen 99 percent of CX organisations who adopt AI shift permanently to a hybrid human and AI agent approach,” added Reetu Kainulainen, CEO and co-founder of Ultimate. “As part of Zendesk, we now have the scale to drive this transformation for every business.”

This acquisition expands upon the launch of Zendesk AI, the business’s fastest-adopted product to date. Alongside Zendesk AI, Ultimate, and the company’s AI-powered Workforce Engagement Management solutions, Zendesk says it now offers the “only complete CX platform that elevates customer experiences, manages service quality and accelerates business growth”.

How Has Zendesk’s 2024 Been?

In January, Zendesk announced its acquisition of Klaus, the contact centre quality assurance (QA) platform provider.

Klaus automates quality scoring and utilises conversational analytics to provide deeper insights into each contact centre conversation. This streamlines manual evaluation, enabling supervisors and quality analysts to pinpoint coaching opportunities more efficiently.

Additionally, Klaus offers learning management solutions to capitalise on these opportunities through targeted coaching, thereby enhancing agent performance. Contact centres can then gauge the effectiveness of coaching through automated quality scoring.

Also, in January, Nucleus Research published a report showing businesses that switched from Salesforce Service Cloud to Zendesk managed to reduce their Total Cost of Ownership by 43 percent.

The study also found that, on average, Zendesk implementations are 53.7 percent quicker than Salesforce Service Cloud. Furthermore, Zendesk rated 26 percent higher than Salesforce in its ease of use and 54.5 percent faster at adapting to new requirements.

The CRM vendor claims to be the first SaaS company – which has never accepted external funding – to reach this milestone.

The news follows the company’s achievement of one billion in annual revenue last year, alongside making it into 41^st place on the Forbes Cloud 100 list last month.

Sridhar Iyengar, Managing Director, Zoho Europe, commented on the achievement: “I want to thank all of our customers for trusting us with their business and helping us reach 100 million users worldwide.

This is an impressive milestone for any organization, but it’s particularly sweet for us as a bootstrapped company that’s never raised external capital. And we are not done yet.

“We have an impressive innovation pipeline covering the next 10 years, investing in deep technologies to serve billions of users around the world.

“We’re working towards it, and we want to thank all of you for your continued support.”

Zoho has increased its user number from one million users in 2008 to 100 times that amount over a 15-year period, with the last 50 million users joining in the past five years.

The company also has 700,000 customers across more than 150 countries.

Zoho explains that it has managed to raise its user numbers to such a high figure by “providing accessible technology” and “promoting sustainable growth”.

The company also says it is proud that it has never taken on any external funding and has grown “steadily and responsibly”.

Financial Freedom

As a result, Zoho is able to work towards its long-term vision for the company without any external pressures or influences that they may otherwise have to compromise with along the way.

Moreover, Zoho believes that it is this financial independence that enables it to keep the company “centered on its values”, which include debt-free growth and offering service to customers in their area.

The latter is a result of the company’s move towards transnational localism, which Sridhar Vembu, CEO and Co-founder, Zoho commented on:

“Today, it’s possible for the daughter of a rural, landless worker to learn how electrical motors or Javascript frameworks work.

There are talented local people in rural areas around the world to help, so that communities can work together, at home.

Upcoming Conferences

Over the next two months, Zoho will be running its Zoholics conferences around the world, which it views as “transnational localism in action”.

Having completed 13 Zoholics conferences already this year, it will shortly host a further 18 Zoholics in 16 countries over the next eight weeks.

Zoho says it is looking forward to celebrating its 100 million user milestone with its customers at the events.

Earlier this year, Zoho entered the UCaaS space, marked by the launch of Trident.

The new suite lets businesses use an internal communications hub with all the essential features of a UC platform and some clever innovations to boot.

Towards the end of 2022, Zoho launched new tools for Zoho Desk that help customer service teams meet business expectations while adapting to the changing needs of customers.

These include agent-assist, voice of the customer, and loyalty management tools.

Yet, in recent times, Thankful has invested significant time and resources into generative AI and no-code automation to streamline customer communication.

Gladly will now transfer these capabilities to Sidekick, its new AI and automation solution that works on the shoulder of contact center agents.

In doing so, Sidekick will suggest responses to customer queries – which incorporate customer context and stored information – for personalization.

The move is significant for Gladly, as it strives to build upon its helpdesk platform – which places on G2’s Top 50 list for customer service products.

Underlining the value Thankful and Sidekick will add to the broader portfolio, Joseph Ansanelli, CEO of Gladly, said:

By layering Thankful’s AI and automation on top of our people-centered platform, we’re making the customer service ecosystem more personalized for consumers in a more scalable way for brands.

Already, many companies use both brands’ software, with the two tech providers partnering in 2020. These include businesses such as Bombas, Breeze Airways, and Crate & Barrel.

Yet, both vendors will now work in lockstep to automate customer queries with Sidekick while maintaining a degree of personalization.

What Differentiates Sidekick?

What perhaps differentiates Sidekick most is its ability to create automated conversation threads.

These threads help customers find resolutions to common queries relating to order tracking, returns, subscription cancellations, and more.

Across these contact reasons, companies can ensure that Sidekick has the best material to draw from by updating entries within Gladly Answers, the vendor’s knowledge base.

Leveraging these, Sidekick can mold responses to the specific customer.

For example, if one customer suggests they’re in a slightly sticky situation, Sidekick can a smidgeon of empathy to deliver a more meaningful reply.

That’s personalization that goes beyond referencing the customer’s name or details. Instead, Gladly strives to ensure each response results in the customer feeling valued as a person, not a case number.

Picking up on this point, Ted Mico, CEO and Co-Founder of Thankful, stated: “Gladly has the team, product, and strategy to deliver Thankful’s vision.”

And, we’ve already proven the value of offering personalized service at scale with our shared customers.

Much of that value comes from Gladly Hero, the company’s hallmark helpdesk platform, which comes with the mantra: “Built around people, not tickets.”

Within that platform are also several agent-assist solutions, including conversation summaries, copy revisions, and reply suggestions.

Both Mico and Ansanelli will hope to considerably extend upon these capabilities– particularly the latter – with Sidekick.

And customers will soon be able to test out for themselves in a fashion where businesses only pay for what they use.

Indeed, Gladly plans to implement a consumption-based pricing model that considers the number of interactions Sidekick supports.

If there does prove a significant value-add, Gladly may further enhance its reputation in the contact center space.

Last month, this earned the business “high performer” status in The G2 Enterprise Grid Report for Contact Center, Summer 2023.