When Zendesk acquired Singapore-based live chat vendor Zopim a few months ago, it was pretty obvious the deal was made to enable a layer of real-time customer chat within the context of the broader Zendesk customer service offering. Beyond the obvious commercial drivers (a newly public Zendesk needs to keep the markets happy by increasing revenue) there are some mega-trends at work here.
As consumers increasingly leverage mobile devices and applications, they expect an immediacy in terms of their customer support activities - that immediacy needs to cover all the different channels they use to communicate with a vendor.
One of those channels is chat - according to analyst firm Forrester, online chat adoption among US online adults has significantly risen in the last five years -- from 38% in 2009 to 43% in 2012 to 58% in 2014. The Technorati might suggest that live chat is dying, but in the real-world (i.e., everywhere beyond the Bay Area) chat is still an important communication modality.
While Zendesk already had integrations with chat vendors, they needed to own that communication channel within their platform. That is where the Zopim acquisition came in. It was bad enough relying on third party providers when chat was but a tiny proportion of customer service interactions, as it grew in importance it was critical for Zendesk to own the channel. Acquiring Zopim enabled them to add an important new revenue stream to their existing customer base of some 52,000 paid accounts.
So in order to maximize that increase in revenue, it seems natural that Zendesk is today releasing Zopim Premium, an advanced version of the regular Zopim product that is aimed at larger teams. The offering provides new workforce management tools that improve visibility so that team leaders can better track the performance and productivity of their chat agents and multiple departments. Larger teams need this visibility in order to report on metrics and give management some clarity around the efficacy of the support function.
Zopim Premium includes real-time monitoring of metrics, including chat volume, visitor experience, and agent performance. It also provides a dashboard for better managing peak periods of chat volume. This goes far beyond simply enabling chat on a website - using Zopim, customers can engage with their users and customers on websites, embedded in mobile apps, or into native experiences using Zendesk's Embeddables. Sam Boonin from Zendesk told me via email that the company is adding Facebook Messenger to enable companies to reach the 600M users of that product. Looking forward there are opportunities to integrate with Snapchat, WhatsApp, etc.
In another nod to the requirements that enterprises have, Zopim Premium includes; new integration and customization options, 24/7 live chat support with Zendesk, and the ability to restrict agent logins by location for enhanced security.
The Zopim acquisition and this roll out of a value-added product is a no-brainer. Expect to see Zendesk report on the effectiveness of the acquisition of Zopim in terms of bottom line growth, at its next reporting date.
