Zendesk has announced the general availability of its CCaaS platform: Zendesk for Contact Center.
The news comes after the company closed its acquisition of Local Measure.
Zendesk for Contact Center represents a relaunch of the Local Measure Engage CCaaS solution. Yet, it’s now "properly integrated" into the Zendesk ecosystem.
Interestingly, Zendesk isn’t marketing the solution as "CCaaS". Instead, it’s positioning the platform as "Un-CCaaS".
Think back to 2013 when T-Mobile announced its "Un-carrier" campaign to frame itself as a disruptive market alternative.
Similarly, Zendesk indicates that it’s the disruptor the CCaaS space needs.
The terminology comes as many large contact centers experiment with several contact center solutions.
Having perhaps not made the best choice when moving to CCaaS the first time around, rushing to sign "COVID-contracts", many enterprises are reconsidering their options.
Zendesk hopes to help enterprises cut through this experimentation, implement an Un-CCaaS solution adjacent to their Zendesk CRM, and focus on delivering resolutions.
Ultimately, it’s wagering that many of its 110,000+ customers will resonate with this message and deploy a contact center offering that sits inside the broader Zendesk Resolution Platform.
Indeed, Tom Eggemeier, CEO of Zendesk, hopes to secure between 10,000-30,000 CCaaS – or "Un-CCaaS" - customers.
Jonathan Barouch, GM of Contact Center at Zendesk (formerly Founder & CEO of Local Measure), previously shared this objective with CX Today.
Reaffirming the company’s ambitions, he celebrated the platform’s launch by stating: "This marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter for Local Measure, transforming into Zendesk for Contact Center.
We believe the Zendesk Resolution Platform is the number one AI service solution, and with our new Contact Center capabilities, is set to reimagine what a great contact center experience should look like.
The Zendesk Resolution Platform – which comes with a unique pricing model - includes AI agents for service teams that learn over time to automate more customer queries.
Yet, the vendor also offers a workforce engagement management (WEM) suite comprising quality assurance (QA) and workforce management (WFM) solutions.
These capabilities extend the value of Zendesk for Contact Center.
Indeed, Zendesk and Local Measure are both close AWS partners, and Local Measure brings deep knowledge of Amazon Connect, Bedrock, and other AWS solutions to Zendesk, which will help continuously evolve the offering.
With Zendesk also built on AWS, the Un-CCaaS platform slots seamlessly into the Zendesk ecosystem.
Zendesk now hopes to "redefine" the contact center landscape with its integrated stack. As Barouch summarized:
Customers think: I want to buy where my data is. I want to buy from a brand that has customer trust. I want to buy from a brand that has a multi-product portfolio. I think in that converged world, Zendesk wins.
Finally, it’s critical to note that Barouch & Co. – alongside their knowledge of AWS - also brings that core enterprise contact center expertise, which they’re busy extending across Zendesk.
While the company offers "Zendesk Talk for voice" – a CCaaS lite – Zendesk for Contact Center is a solution for larger organizations with more complex needs.
Now, Zendesk will strive to serve contact centers of all sizes, and – if they instead opt for NICE, Genesys, Five9, or another prominent alternative – it will still offer close integrations.
