Businesses need to become trustworthy, transparent and prompt, and put customer experience at the centre of their strategies to help meet rising expectations. As a fall out, companies increasingly have to up their CRM game while building richer and better solutions.
From an overall CRM growth POV, how was calendar year 2018 for global and India market?
When it comes to the growth of the overall CRM industry, we are seeing a couple of key trends that are shaping the industry. There are several companies that are engaged in conventional CRM but are in reality contact centers providing point-solutions that help deal with customer enquiries.
Another notable trend is the move to public cloud and the accelerating pace of digital transformation that we are witnessing across industries today. Companies are increasingly shifting from traditional ways of doing business to more modern platforms and processes. This coupled with the move to the cloud also reflect today’s tectonic shift towards SaaS technologies.
How was Zendesk’s performance for this calendar year, from a global as well as India perspective?
Year on year, Zendesk is still maintaining approximately 40% growth, with India in our top 10 fastest growing countries. We are seeing growth in India as a result of the digital economy and the government’s exciting initiatives. A large percentage of the 1.3 Billion population is part of the digital economy and has greater access to the internet and mobile communications.
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CIOs were made to stand up to the test while documenting their actions. This gave an opportunity for a lot of CIOs to take a hard look at their data, where they were storing it, and how they handled the information.
Adrian McDermott
President of Products
Zendesk
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As a result, consumers are more willing to embrace technology in the new economy, and I think that is in turn helping drive business for Zendesk. We love to work with growing businesses, and India is a hotbed for incredible innovation. Interestingly, we not only work with new age companies in India, but are also with traditional businesses moving towards digital transformation.
How was your customer acquisition growth? What were the customer engagement programs of the year and what was the outcome?
We believe organic means of discovering customers is an incredibly important source of business and continues to drive our revenue. In fact, many companies are out there searching and trying to find better customer solutions and when they see other companies use our products it prompts them to sign up for Zendesk solutions.
At the same time, there are several large companies who are looking for a high touch experience and want to be guided through the process in a more personalized manner. This is what we define as the enterprise segment which is typically larger businesses. One of the strategic directions we set out following our IPO in 2014, was to develop the enterprise capabilities of Zendesk to support such larger organizations. This is a deliberate approach to work with larger, often traditional, businesses and brands to meet their expectations for a more targeted and personalized customer support experience.
Which are the verticals that have embraced your solutions maximum and why?
The vertical that remains the fastest growing are the digital-native disruptive businesses. It could be a food delivery brand or a transportation brand or an accommodation brand, and these businesses all over the globe turn to Zendesk. Digital native disruptor-type business is where we got our start and these businesses are very dear to our heart.
Name some of the best customers and why those were best?
We today have over 125,000 paid customers around the world. In India, we are proud to be working with leading digital brands like Ola, Foodpanda, 1MG, VFS Global Visa Services, OLX, Vodafone, etc. We also work with traditional brands in the US, where you can see us in the NFL app or find us working online with Airbnb, and other ride sharing companies around the world. Similarly, you can see us in the very first traditional utility business in the UK. We are fortunate that we are in so many verticals and in so many countries around the globe.
In fact, because of the global perspective and demands, over 50% of our engineering team is based outside of the United States today. At Zendesk, we are sensitive to the differences in each market and towards the needs of diverse customers from around the world.
Point out some of CIO challenges in 2018 and your experience in mitigating them?
I think most CIOs today come face to face with an examination of their privacy policies with respect to data. In fact, the next big security breach is only a news report away, as the saying goes. We are all becoming attuned to a level of hostility and sophistication that is out there in the networks, with cases of spoofing and nefarious activities.
I think it was visceral and real, and CIOs were given a hard deadline to deal with how to manage user data this year. CIOs were made to stand up to the test while documenting their actions. This gave an opportunity for a lot of CIOs to take a hard look at their data, where they were storing it, and how they handled the information. We handle so many businesses across the web and a key goal for us is to maintain the trust of our users by meeting regulations on time, while also enabling tools that meet their needs.
