zendeskZendesk, Inc. launched Sunshine, an open and flexible customer relationship management (CRM) platform built completely in the public cloud on Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS).

Zendesk Sunshine enables businesses to connect and understand all their customer data, wherever it lives, and gives their developers the ability to build and deploy customer apps and services faster. Sunshine is built entirely on open standards, with the security, scalability and reliability of AWS built into its core.

In addition, the launch of Zendesk Sell has been announced. Zendesk Sell is a sales force automation (SFA) tool to enhance productivity, processes, and pipeline visibility for sales teams. Sell stems from Zendesk’s acquisition of FutureSimple Inc., the company behind Base, in September 2018, and marks the first step in integrating the SFA software into the Zendesk family of products.

Businesses are trying to keep up with customers’ changing expectations but are being held back by legacy technology. Traditional CRM platforms force companies into proprietary technologies that limit their view of customers and make it difficult to connect customer data spread across internal and external systems and services. At the same time, these closed CRM tools are directly at odds with developers’ need for flexibility and freedom.

“It’s time to break free from CRM platforms that think they’re the center of the universe and lock you into an outdated view of the world,” said Mikkel Svane, Zendesk founder and CEO. “We built Sunshine to shed light on the many different dimensions of customers and their data, while giving developers the freedom to build the way they want in the public cloud.”

The platform is be built on AWS - allowing the security, scalability, and reliability of AWS - making the CRM platform more modern, flexible, and open than traditional platforms. Businesses can now gain the benefits of the cloud for quickly and easily moving data between Sunshine and their systems and applications.

Sunshine launches with powerful capabilities (including Profiles, Events and Custom Objects) that allow customers to store and connect to all their customer data: With Profiles, businesses can create a single, unified view of the customer across all applications. Using Events, companies can capture any customer activity such as customer service interactions, website visits, purchase transactions, and shipping history in a historical timeline. Custom Objects allows companies to collect additional relevant information like products owned, equipment rented, or even telemetric from a connected car from outside sources, then store this data directly within Zendesk.

With this information, customers can use Sunshine to not only create a complete picture of their customer but also model the relationship customers have with the data and the business.

Zendesk Sell and integration with Sunshine

With the launch of Zendesk Sell, a new sales force automation (SFA) tool built to enhance productivity, processes, and pipeline visibility for sales teams is available. Sell marks the first step in integrating SFA software into the Zendesk family of products. Information will be able to flow seamlessly between support and sales on the Sunshine CRM platform, resulting in a single conversation with customers and better alignment between teams.

“Delivering a great customer experience is a team effort, requiring integrated tools,” said Matt Price, senior vice president and general manager for Zendesk Sell. “But salespeople won’t use tools they hate. Zendesk Sell is a tool that salespeople love to use, which means better data and better decisions so the whole team hits their targets. And with the new integration with Support, every conversation with a customer is visible across the organization.”

Introduction and Integration of Zendesk Explore


As data and analytics become increasingly important to how businesses build and scale personal, connected experiences for their customers, Zendesk also announced the general availability of its data analytics tool, Explore. Integrating seamlessly with all its products, Zendesk Explore makes it easier for companies to see and analyze data across all Zendesk support channels. With Explore, businesses can now get a single view of the customer across all teams and channels, so they can focus on measuring and improving the experience they deliver. (Source: Zendesk)

By MediaBUZZ