This document discusses OpenDNS's transition to using Zendesk for customer support over the past year. Some key points:
- OpenDNS migrated from an in-house helpdesk to using Zendesk in under 3 months to support the launch of their new Umbrella cloud security service.
- Zendesk has allowed them to streamline support processes, gain customer intelligence, and integrate support into their product dashboard.
- While there have been some growing pains with customization and content control, OpenDNS has been able to maintain branding and see improvements in customer satisfaction rates and support metrics.
- OpenDNS is now using Zendesk to support both consumer and enterprise products, and is looking forward
3. Located:
• Boise, Idaho, USA
Experience:
• 4 year @ OpenDNS
• 10+ years in DNS
• 15+ years in
Support/Customer
Service
• Hobby Programmer
since QBASIC
• Wrote 1st
Zendesk/PHP API
library
Senior Support Manager
@tresni
tresni
tresni
14. 1 year ago…
The goal: Introduce
• Build a new suite of products
• Build a brand new management UI
• Launch the new brand
…in 6 months
15. • 9-5 Pacific email support only
• Phone support only for a select
few customers
• Running our own homegrown
forums, knowledgebase, feature
request system (IdeaBank)
• Email support using a local
instance of Cerberus – no web
interface for customers
18. 1. Cloud-based Helpdesk ticketing system that:
• Improves customer experience
• Gives us intelligence we can manage by
• Replaces Cerberus (first for Enterprise, later for
Consumer).
2. Cloud-based documentation & knowledgebase
with user forums & feature requests that can
integrate with our Web Dashboard.
3. Deliver v1 in less than 3 months (in time for the
Umbrella launch).
19.
20. • Focused only on Umbrella (e.g. enterprise)
• Support began using Zendesk for all Umbrella-
related tickets and beta-tested in the weeks
leading up to launch
• Using SSO, integrated support portal into our
Dashboard (will show you shortly)
• Seeded small amount of valuable
documentation
21. • Customers wouldn’t be able to track their tickets
• We’d still have no idea how we’re doing (and
how to improve) in Support
• Have no home for supporting content for the
product (e.g. searchable documentation/KB)
• No customer community
• …It would NOT have been pretty
22.
23. • Streamlining
support processes
• Scratching the
surface on
analytics
• Next month:
Adding a full-time
resource dedicated
to content creation
& management
24. • Both Umbrella & Consumer products:
– Supported through Zendesk (email & web portal)
with their own custom workflows and tiers/teams
– Have their own branded instances of
documentation, KB, feature requests
– Zendesk + Good Data provide stats & metrics that
are helping us improve our products & service
– Integrated into our SalesForce instance
25.
26.
27.
28. Using anything but Enterprise
• Multi-brand management & unlimited light
agents forced us to upgrade from Plus to
Enterprise.
29. Flexible ticketing system
• We’re able to define our roles and customize
our workflow accordingly to optimize
coverage and response time.
30. Multi-Brand Management
• Hub-and-spoke model too restrictive and
we’ve had to do some custom
JavaScript/CSS to achieve multi-branding.
(Looking forward to improvements here!)
31. Fast integration
• We were able to integrate Zendesk with our
product and processes VERY quickly with
little Engineering effort.
32. Content control
• Not enough granularity to control exactly
who sees what content (it only works on a
forum-level granularity).
(Looking forward to improvements here as well!)
33. Branding/Customization
• We were able to maintain a consistent
experience from the product into Zendesk
with a small Engineering effort.
34. Feedback Tab
• Generates too many support requests
• We want to funnel people through content
first, and understand where they are coming
from at the same time…
35. Integration with SalesForce
• We’ve successfully integrated with our
SalesForce instance; it was easy and it works
great!
(new integration didn’t work for us though)
36. Customizing content
• Currently you must log in to view Umbrella
content, and you will only see content for
products you are licensed for.
• Considering making everything public
37. Satisfaction Ratings
• We've gone through 4 iterations of
how/what to send & when.
• We now get ~40% response rate to our
rating requests.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44. • Anxiously awaiting some of the new Zendesk
features:
– Help Center (beta looks good!)
– Improved support for multiple instances (branding)
45. Looking for guidance & experiences here:
• How to beta or A/B test with select group of customers?
• Settings expectations and organizing teams with respect to
voice & chat?
• Impact on support load with the introduction of voice & chat?
SOCIAL MEDIA
Editor's Notes
Scott Cressman has almost 15 years of experience in the information technology industry, focusing on product management, software development, network & systems administration, and consulting. Scott’s passion is creating great technology products that make people’s lives better.
OpenDNS wanted to shift to expand their enterprise offeringsWanted to launch Umbrella in 6 months (visuals?)Complete re-vamp and expansion of product line – lots of work to do
One of two Product Managers sprinting with Engineering teams to deliver Umbrella in 6 monthsCreated a brand new web interface for the new Umbrella product3-4 prior to launch, I began wondering “How are we going to deliver documentation? An improved support experience?”Support had been considering replacement systems and had even trialed Zendesk a year before but found it wasn’t ready at that point
I knew we didn’t have enough time to build our own systems, and didn’t want to (not our core competency)After a bit of poking around, myself and our Support Manager decided to look at Zendesk & Desk.com (after a short look at MindTouch)Talked with Support Manager, pushed and prodded on whether they wanted to team up and choose a solution that solved both our problemsRisky, a lot of change right before a big launch, but we believed our processes were simple enough and the gains would be great enough to potentially take the risk, so we decided to looking into itDone an eval on assistly before, zendesk had come out as the leader but at the time got a commitment from Engineering. A year later when re-evaluating there weren’t enough changes to warrant looking seriously at desk.com
Aren’t fully leveraging Zendesk as well as we could (we are not power users like many of you probably are!)Still streamlining our support processesJust scratching the surface on analyticsRecently hired a full-time person to create, manage, and organize our content, and integrate it more seamlessly with the product as well as monitor the stats & intel coming out of Zendesk re content usage
Still early in the relationship but we are happy with things so far and are optimistic of what’s to come
We are an agile shop, so we do retrosWhat worked, what didn’t, what needs improvement
Broke reportingMight be different than what most people thing about here – it’s the presentation and linking back to the product dashboard. We want to share some content between spokes and that wasn’t possible.
Example: Release notes
Using the old integration
We’re planning to begin providing phone support, and are entertaining whether we can use Zendesk or not? (looking for advice here)Some anticipated shortcomings here already