Genesys and Zendesk Form Alliance to Bring Voice to Customer Service Solutions

Customer experience and contact center solution provider Genesys has formed a strategic alliance with Zendesk, a company that delivers cloud-based customer service solutions. Once Genesys' cloud contact center solution is integrated with Zendesk's platform, customers who call for support will still be able to use self-service options, but will eventually be routed to the best-skilled Zendesk agent if they require additional assistance. The alliance, company executives agree, will cut down on transfers and improve the overall customer experience.

For Zendesk, an alliance with Genesys means the promise of greater expansion into enterprise territory. With roughly 40,000 customers, Zendesk serves primarily small and medium-sized businesses, but has begun working with larger companies as well. "They needed a vendor to help them serve their bigger customers," Ethan Francis, the virtual contact center offer lead for the Genesys Premier Edition, says. "By allying themselves with Genesys, Zendesk can scale up and give those customers what they need. Zendesk has an opportunity to extend our offering, and we have an opportunity to extend theirs," he adds.

Genesys will benefit as well, Chief Marketing Officer Reed Henry says, because the company will now be able to inject a powerful voice solution into its customer support offering. "When customers can't find what they need on their own, they want to talk to a human being," Henry says. "You can't really deliver a good multichannel support solution if you don't incorporate voice," he explains.

As the two companies' solutions come together, there's no concern about solution overlap, according to Henry. "In terms of our solutions, I would say it's about ninety-eight percent alliance and two percent overlap. We do, however, have a lot of personnel overlap. We've got people working [at Genesys] that used to work for Zendesk, for example, so working together is going to be a natural fit," he says.

Currently, there is already a deep integration between the Genesys Premier Edition cloud contact center solution and Zendesk, and further integration with the business edition is in the works as well. The development relationship, however, will eventually reach across all of the Genesys Customer Experience Platform editions.

"Nothing matters more in the contact center than customer relationships," Bill Macaitis, chief marketing officer at Zendesk, said in a statement. "Zendesk builds a beautifully simple customer service platform that brings companies and customers closer together. Working together with Genesys, we're able to deliver advanced voice capabilities for companies of all sizes that enable them to focus on helping customers, not integrating technology," he added.

Moving forward, Francis suggests that the alliance might eventually contribute to a "leveling of the playing field" in the customer service space. "Small companies have to start competing with bigger companies to deliver the best solutions to customers and deliver enterprise-class solutions with the simplicity of small business," he says. "This is a move in that direction," Henry agrees.

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