Zendesk Talk Partner Edition Expands Amazon Connect Support

Zendesk, Inc. has announced a strategic, go-to-market solution package based upon an enhanced integration between Amazon Connect and Zendesk Talk Partner Edition. The enhanced integration allows both Amazon Connect customers and Zendesk Support customers to leverage multiple sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) services from Amazon Web Services (AWS) to improve contact center agent efficiency while reducing the time end-customers spend interacting with customer service. This solution is designed to allow businesses to deploy the latest generation of proactive, anticipatory customer service.

“We are excited to continue our work with AWS to help companies provide some of the best proactive contact center experiences for their customers,” said Adrian McDermott, president of products, Zendesk. “By tapping into AI and machine learning, businesses can easily create an intelligent contact center customer service experience that allows businesses not only to resolve questions and issues more quickly and efficiently, but also in some cases, even eliminating the need for their customers to wait to speak with an agent at all.”

According to the Zendesk Benchmark Report, AI-enabled teams see 21 percent faster resolution times while handling about six times the volume of requests compared to their peers. Companies using the enhanced connector in contact centers can benefit from AWS’ AI and machine learning services such as Amazon Lex, Amazon Polly, Amazon Transcribe and Amazon Comprehend. This allows companies to provide a more proactive, anticipatory customer experience in which agents are more efficient in anticipating and solving customer issues, as well as helping businesses to address routine problems and questions through intelligently automated self-service.

“The updated connector for Amazon Connect and Zendesk Support is designed to offer the next generation of customer service by empowering businesses to anticipate and intelligently address their customer needs in real-time using AWS Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning services,” said Pasquale DeMaio, General Manager, Amazon Connect, Amazon Web Services, Inc. “We look forward to delighting customers around the globe with this integrated customer service solution in 2020.”

Zendesk has chosen Amazon Connect as a preferred contact center voice solution to deploy with Zendesk Talk Partner Edition globally. As a result of the enhanced capabilities delivered by Zendesk and Amazon Connect, current Zendesk customers such as Carsales.com are already benefiting from the new capabilities. Additionally, AWS Service Delivery Program-accredited Amazon Connect SI partners including Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), VoiceFoundry, Mission Labs, USAN, Conn3ct, and tecRacer, will be able to integrate an existing contact center solution with Zendesk Support using Talk Partner Edition, in all major geographies globally.

“AI and machine learning have absolutely changed how we work in our Customer Contact Centre. In a matter of months we implemented efficiencies within our own working practices and started to observe real benefits which of course translate into a better, more cohesive  experience for our customers,” said Muhammad Masri, Customer Service Manager, Carsales.com. “I’m confident that by integrating the new enhanced Zendesk integration with Amazon Connect, our teams will have more informed and productive conversations with our customers.”

This is the latest integration between Zendesk and AWS. In June 2019, Zendesk announced the Zendesk Events Connector for Amazon EventBridge. These connectors are part of a larger effort for Zendesk’s open and flexible CRM platform, Sunshine, to further accelerate the ability for companies to free customer data and allow developers to build out functionality with the tools they love – entirely on open standards with the security, scalability, and reliability of AWS at its core.

The enhanced Zendesk connector for Amazon Connect will be available as a pre-integrated solution starting in late January 2020. It will be deployed directly and through trusted partners globally. More information can be found at zendesk.com/apps/amazon-connect.