Zendesk unveils AI-powered tools to enhance customer service

Zendesk has announced a suite of innovations designed to augment customer service capabilities, featuring AI-powered tools and enhancements across various digital support channels, including voice.

The company has introduced a voice solution in partnership with Poly.ai, aimed at leveraging AI to improve the efficiency and personalisation of customer conversations. The enhancements promise to aid agents in managing more complex issues and providing a more human-like interaction.

"AI is now bridging the gap between high quality service, at a lower cost, while delivering much more personalised experiences," said Tom Eggemeier, CEO of Zendesk, citing that 73% of consumers believe AI enhances customer service quality. He elaborated, "Our latest innovations, including voice AI, assist human agents in working efficiently alongside AI to deliver tailored, efficient service. This partnership leads to faster issue resolution, higher customer satisfaction and provides valuable business insights."

Additionally, Maureen Chong, Regional Vice President, Asia for Zendesk, commented on AI adoption in the Asia Pacific region. "Consumers in Asia Pacific are warming up to AI, to the point where most are open to interacting with either AI or a human agent, as long as they receive quick assistance. For businesses to meet growing consumer expectations and truly unlock the potential of AI, it must be seamlessly integrated across all the channels their customers are on. We're confident that our latest AI innovations–trained on the world's largest CX-specific database–will deliver measurable value and significant efficiency gains that deliver competitive differentiation, to ultimately drive long term business success."

The update comes at a time when the Zendesk CX Trends Report indicates a significant preference among APAC consumers for bot interactions over human ones for quick assistance. The report also highlights that the majority of APAC business leaders expect all support channels to be AI-driven by 2027, with many increasing their investments in generative AI for customer experience.

Zendesk's new AI tools are set to be available across digital channels, ensuring compatibility with various platforms and enabling autonomous operations either independently or alongside human agents. New capabilities include delivering responses with generative replies, automating voice interactions, and providing an AI agent builder for businesses.

The company is also enhancing its agent copilot feature, which anticipates customer needs and provides autonomous recommendations. This tool is designed to improve the efficiency of more complex customer interactions by syncing and following procedures automatically.

Further, Zendesk is rolling out AI-driven insights that offer detailed analyses of customer interactions and surface key trends, enabling teams to optimise workflows and enhance customer satisfaction metrics.

Steve Franklin, Head of Global Operations at Siemens Financial Services, shared his insights on their experience with Zendesk's solutions. "With Zendesk, we've seen a major increase in agent productivity, with nearly double productivity gains in key markets like France while achieving increased customer satisfaction," Franklin said. "As AI agents handle basic requests and populate tickets with data, our human agents are freed up to focus on value-added customer interactions. This is all critical to providing a holistic and streamlined customer journey, powered by AI."