Beautifully simple customer relationships
With Tom Keiser, COO of Zendesk
The customer experience is a true north for many companies, and customer engagement nearly an obsession.
While customer service has always been a vital component of creating exceptional experiences, the advent of the cloud and Software-as-a-service (SaaS) customer service tools make it possible to far exceed traditional approaches like 1–800 numbers and email exchanges. Today’s leading brands interact with customers in positive, dynamic ways throughout the buyer’s journey.
While most companies realize what they need to do, how to reimagine the customer experience remains an area of competitive opportunity. Paul Chapman, CIO of Box, recently sat down to discuss radically enhancing customer experiences with Tom Keiser, COO of Zendesk, which builds software for better relationships.
Relationships are complicated, as Zendesk’s tagline goes, so what new ways to work and manage IT best support the entire customer lifecycle? How can CIOs and other executives strategically assemble teams, processes, content, and tech stacks with this key priority in mind — as they reinvent themselves to champion increasingly mission-critical roles? Highlights of the illuminating discussion are below.
Apply agile methodology to yourself first
While Paul and Tom began their careers as COBOL programmers, they’ve since reinvented themselves as professionals in varying ways, and each considers constant adaptation to be table stakes for the modern executive.
Before joining the tech industry, Tom spent a decade and a half in retail, most recently serving as CIO of The GAP, Inc and L Brands. During that time, his day-to-day mostly consisted of building end-to-end processes and making big platform plays with lots of data standardization underneath. Consensus was built gradually, and projects were implemented over the course of years. Such activities required a certain style of management and interpersonal approach.
When Tom joined Zendesk, he was impressed with the team’s foundational software capabilities, as well as its ability to reach consensus and roll out multiple initiatives in days. To respond more effectively in his new environment, he learned to flex his leadership style to support the rest of the organization in making courageous decisions and delivering results to their customers with speed.
“In big companies, [the CIO] has to be a change agent [who] leans hard. In younger tech, you can actually over-lean and knock a bunch of things over.”
— Tom Keiser
Much like legacy tech once had many benefits and now prevents companies from being flexible and morphing quickly, tried-and-true approaches eventually impede exceptional customer service. Executives self-adapt.
Construct a nimble IT organization
Having built an IT team that’s young and energetic, Tom attributes much of the speed at which Zendesk operates to Millennials’ thick skin, ability to lean in and listen. All are important skills for ultimately serving customers — whether company representatives literally interact with prospects and long-time Zendesk users, build product, or bounce ideas off of other colleagues.
While a fast-growing technology organization, Zendesk certainly isn’t a century-old enterprise — where it’s common for employees to celebrate work anniversaries of 15, 25, even 30 years. Sometimes, however, this employee loyalty creates challenges: Operational inertia can crop up when people have done their jobs for decades, especially when they didn’t grow up with technology currently at the center of digital transformation.
“Unlike the IT teams of yesteryear, digital natives comprise today’s workforce. Their mindset is forward-thinking.”
— Paul Chapman
Founded in 2007, Zendesk literally isn’t “old enough” to have legacy workforce problems. Digital natives drive the company’s potential for innovation to reimagine solutions that delight current and future enthusiasts of Zendesk’s services and technology.
Build new operational models
This new style of IT organization also drives a new style of IT. Zendesk was born in the cloud and has grown up a digital first company, so constant change is part of its business model and infrastructure. The young company, says Tom, has matured around the concept of collaborating directly with business owners who drive sales or marketing, finance or HR. Small teams work side-by-side to quickly build foundational sets of services, using best-of-breed, integrated SaaS tools that can be configured quickly.
“We grew up with the unicorns of San Francisco. We’ve had a front row view of building capabilities [for how] they provide customer service, for trying things with them, for partnering.”
— Tom Keiser
Much like the companies it serves, Zendesk avoids complicated and expensive investment in IT infrastructure. Teams laser-focused on productivity share content in real-time and use open source APIs. They are strongly encouraged to use specific tech shared across the entire Zendesk org. Says Tom, this standardization is crucial, since the company has doubled since he joined.
Keep IT strategy beautifully simple
“Standards and foundations, as opposed to more of a bottoms-up approach [where] everyone uses their own tools, is important.”
— Tom Keiser
Constant interaction and collaboration benefits the Zendesk team and customers: Because Zendesk is committed to operating on modern technologies, it frequently incorporates workforce feedback and suggestions; evaluates new, best-available options; and often moves from one technology to the next — and then builds that technology into its own product. It bites off chunks of capabilities to constantly take advantage of the most modern technology.
The key to the SaaS industry, says Tom, is to be your own customer and build business operations around a forward-thinking business idea.
Today, IT strategy increasingly fuels business strategy. When companies use software and structure their teams to bring the business closer together, and to their customers, they put themselves in a powerful position respond to competitive pressure.
The blueprint for designing customer loyalty in the cloud
- Envision a customer service model based on immediacy and accuracy at every touchpoint
- Choose tools with machine-learning capabilities to give customer service representatives the information they need in real time
- Build a technology stack based on best-in-breed SaaS solutions
