How Zendesk and Marigold Engage by Sailthru Are Breaking Down Data Silos and Improving the Customer Experience

In many ways, customer support professionals are the front lines of your organization. When someone is super happy with a product or service — or if something goes wrong — they’re often the first ones to hear about it. Unfortunately, the wisdom, insight, and data collected by the customer service team is generally not available to their colleagues on the marketing side.

Likewise, the marketing team, through its communications with customers, is continually learning what an organization’s customers adore and what they can’t stand. Using Marigold Engage by Sailthru, they’ve learned which customers are happy with a small premium and which customers seem to want everything for free. But there’s seldom a systematized way for that information to be transferred to the customer service team.

Both the customer service team and the marketing team are in possession of unique data that holds uncommon value. Just as marketing could better persuade its customers if they had access to some of the insights of the customer service team, customer service could do a better job if they could learn from the data compiled by their colleagues in marketing.

The Solution? A Zendesk and Marigold Engage by Sailthru Integration

We’re pleased to announce that we’ve integrated our systems with Zendesk to better leverage the knowledge collected both by marketing and by customer service. This partnership will ultimately help our clients provide better customer service and experiences, whether those interactions are coming through the marketing side or the customer service side.

On Zendesk, customer support staff can rate how people are feeling. Marketers can now bring that, as well as other information, into Marigold Engage by Sailthru, enabling communications with customers to be better informed by a customer’s interactions with the customer service team. Here are some examples of how that could happen:

How to use Zendesk Data for Sailthru Campaigns and Marketing Activities

• If a customer is unhappy with their customer service experience, a marketer could learn this via Zendesk and use Sailthru to send them a coupon offer.

• Does Zendesk show that a customer has recently closed a ticket with the customer support desk? Marketers can use Sailthru to send messages reminding them that they’re a valued customer.
• If a customer is doling out lousy service scores, their marketing communications can be suppressed. Likewise, if a customer currently has an open support ticket, marketers can hold off on sending some communications until the issue is resolved.

How to Use Sailthru Data in Zendesk for Customer Service

• Customer service professionals using Zendesk can easily opt people out of communications that are sent via Marigold Engage by Sailthru, rather than requiring customers to contact the organization through another channel.

• Individual product recommendations, generated by Marigold Engage by Sailthru, show up in the Sailthru app in Zendesk. This allows the customer service team members to see what items the customer is interested in and provide recommendations for those specific products.

• Reps can also use Sailthru data to help prioritize tickets. Marigold Engage by Sailthru predictions on yearly revenue allow customer service reps to devote to their attention to high value customers.

Better Marketing + Better Support = Happier Customers

By providing customer service professionals with information about a customer’s history with a brand, including recent purchases and lifetime value, Marigold Engage by Sailthru can help support staff easily identify and prioritize their top customers. Customer service staff can then use that information to help customers on additional levels, going above and beyond simply fielding concerns and addressing complaints.

We think this integration shows the best of what technology implementations can be: allowing two different teams of people to join forces, using data to provide insights that ultimately lead to superior customer experiences, improved customer loyalty, and the steady revenue growth that brings.