Lockdown changed organisations’ customer service needs. Consumers now want to interact with companies through a wide range of communication tools, whether chat, telephone, email or social media. Yet despite this widespread awareness, only 23% of customer service professionals feel genuinely supported by the solutions they use (source: Forbes). Against this backdrop, Mazars Switzerland migrated its processes to an innovative customer relationship management solution developed by Zendesk. Here is what they learned.
Zendesk is a cloud-based customer service solution designed to make communication between a company and its customers easier. It works by optimising and personalising customer support thanks to an intelligent system for assigning tickets and automating replies.
Whether by telephone, chat or email, this platform makes it possible to interact with customers across every communication channel from a single workspace, thereby centralising all interactions for optimal management.
More than a simple management tool, Zendesk is also a powerful channel for interaction and for anticipating needs. It offers the possibility of talking directly with customers, turning their feedback and comments into levers for continuous improvement in customer service, support and even the company’s products.
The solution also includes a chatbot platform compatible with Messenger and WhatsApp, as well as a workflow automation tool (Flow Builder) that makes it possible to automate replies to customers by drawing information from third-party systems such as stock management, orders and discount eligibility.
In addition, Zendesk offers a range of customer support analytics tools for even more effective management.
Agent workspace
This is the interface agents use to handle support requests and exchanges with customers. Agents are free to choose the most appropriate channel to resolve issues (chat, email, telephone, messaging, etc.), regardless of the channel the customer initially used to get in touch.
Help centre
This portal is intended for customers: it gives them the opportunity to find solutions to their questions without contacting the support team. It brings together a documentation base, blog posts and FAQ sections.
Community forum
On the forum, customers can interact and share their thoughts, feedback and opinions. Agents are also able to monitor this forum in order to address problems and answer users’ questions.
Live chat and messaging
Zendesk’s live chat guarantees smooth, effective exchanges between agents and customers. It gives agents the ability to handle several conversations simultaneously, which allows them to assist more customers.
Analytics and reporting
With Zendesk Explore, you can track and analyse the customer experience using ready-made, customisable dashboards. This makes it possible, for example, to identify your customers’ preferred contact methods, so you can prioritise channels and optimise how tickets are handled.
This service offers a range of solutions suited to a wide variety of companies, from large enterprises to small, growing start-ups.
An omnichannel solution
We now know that customers want to use a broad range of communication tools to contact customer service: live chat, telephone, email, social media, and so on. Zendesk gives customers the option of contacting the company through their preferred channel, which translates into greater customer satisfaction.
Flexibility
Zendesk is also a flexible solution that is easy to implement. There is no longer any need for external tools to access or supply customer data: everything is centralised and manageable directly from the platform.
An intuitive, easy-to-use interface
The Zendesk platform is both simple and user-friendly, which makes support teams’ work easier and contributes to the company’s overall productivity.
On the customer side, Zendesk’s intuitive interface makes it easier to create tickets, search for information in the knowledge base and communicate with support. This translates into a positive customer experience, where customers feel confident and taken care of.
A unified workspace
Zendesk’s workspace allows agents to devote more time to interacting with customers, because it simplifies and streamlines their workflow. It encourages collaboration between teams by enabling them to work together more effectively. Thanks to intelligent workflow automations, Zendesk streamlines internal processes, which translates into greater fluidity and better harmony in how tasks are carried out.
About Mazars Switzerland
Mazars Switzerland is a company specialising in audit, accounting, tax, advisory and financial services. It provides its services to a varied client base, ranging from large corporations to SMEs, and from government organisations to family businesses.
At Mazars Switzerland, we had begun a project to digitalise the recruitment process. While the project was under way, we had the opportunity to talk with the manager of the outsourcing team, who told us about some of the difficulties they were encountering in managing the onboarding of their clients into the information system (ERP). This team’s objective was to configure and manage dedicated client environments.
Key challenges
Before our involvement, the team was using a project management and collaboration tool that raised certain compliance issues following new Swiss regulations that had come into force. Sensitive information was being stored and shared there, which created compliance problems for Mazars Switzerland and their clients.
Besides the compliance issue, the team was struggling to:
- Manage absences and therefore resource backup
- Accurately track the time spent handling a client’s requests in order to invoice that client correctly
- Build a knowledge base in order to capture as much of the team’s knowledge as possible
After comparing various solutions, Zendesk emerged as the preferred option. Several members of our team had previously had the opportunity to work with this tool, which played a decisive role in our decision. Opting for a solution already mastered by part of the team makes adoption easier, reduces resistance to change and accelerates the ramp-up in skills.
We therefore examined the solution and its functional coverage against the client’s expectations. All of the requirements were covered, subject to installing a few extensions (notably integrated time tracking and absence management).
After demonstrating the tool to the team, the solution was approved and then integrated by us. This mainly involved configuring access, teams, clients, workflows and dynamic business rules.
A positive outcome
The new Zendesk platform has been live since 2023. Zendesk has genuinely been a major asset in improving customer management at Mazars Switzerland. The Mazars Switzerland teams praise the platform’s ability to streamline and simplify ERP onboarding management processes, thereby contributing to better operational efficiency. The intuitive interface, the live chat features and the knowledge base have enabled Mazars Switzerland to resolve recurring problems while improving their clients’ satisfaction.
“Numendo is a professional team that implemented the Zendesk solution for us. We then received training that was recorded and could be watched on demand, and we appreciated their fast, effective support. We highly recommend Numendo, a team with real expertise in the Zendesk solution.”
— Daniel G., Senior Manager, Mazars Switzerland
