How to create better employee experiences with Zendesk Marketplace apps

Most people familiar with Zendesk understand it is an AI-powered software solution that enables businesses to deliver excellent customer experiences—but did you know it can power excellent employee experiences, too? For many companies, investing in the employee experience (EX) is a strategic priority, and for good reason. Zendesk research shows a direct correlation between positive employee experiences and better business outcomes, including higher employee satisfaction, retention rates, and customer satisfaction.

Yet most employee experience platforms provide less-than-ideal employee experiences. The EX tools you’ve been using may not be well-suited to the changing needs of your business. While HR and IT teams face tighter budgets and increased demand, they still use outdated tools to address new challenges, resulting in inefficient and disjointed experiences. This makes it difficult for employees to do their jobs well and increases the risk of burnout and turnover.

Zendesk research shows a direct correlation between positive employee experiences and better business outcomes.

Companies can avoid this situation by using a tool like Zendesk to modernize internal support and enhance EX. Many software features that facilitate great customer experiences—such as AI-powered ticketing and knowledge base creation—also contribute to great employee experiences. In addition to the core functionality, users can leverage EX Extenders in the Zendesk Marketplace to provide better employee service.

Our EX Extenders are integrated partners that give our customers extended functionality in employee experience, enabling them to customize Zendesk for their unique HR and IT needs.

Here are the integrated apps that make up our EX Extenders:

• AssetSonar
• Myndbend Process Manager
• SnapCall
• SweetHawk

Below, we outlined the five ways EX Extenders help teams that already love Zendesk to become employee experience superstars.

1. Technical support

Providing technical support often necessitates screen-sharing, voice, and video interaction. SnapCall is a Zendesk EX Extender rich in technical support capabilities.

With SnapCall, you can navigate a bug or set up a new device using AI-powered communication features right inside Zendesk. Capabilities include:

• Screen-sharing

• Co-browsing

• Call scheduling

• Audio call support with transcription

• Video call support with transcription

• AI-generated summaries

• Messaging with audio and video clips

This EX Extender is intuitive and quick to install, making technical support easy.

2. Equipment and system administration

When providing equipment to a new or existing employee, there are many factors to consider. To ensure no task gets overlooked, integrate Zendesk with AssetSonar and SweetHawk—this combination is powerful.

Admins can:

• Highlight child tickets and assignments

• Assign hardware assets via AssetSonar

• Create a new hardware checklist via SweetHawk

• Approve, assign, and ship new devices

AssetSonar and SweetHawk extend your Zendesk instance by consolidating service requests and assets, streamlining repetitive workflows, creating consistent experiences for all parties, and keeping teams accountable for their part of the process. Users can also track all hardware and software assets by service, location, and more.

3. Maintenance and compliance

Device maintenance and compliance can be challenging for IT support teams, and being able to unify support tickets with device and compliance information is a crucial step to avoiding complexity.

AssetSonar is one of our most-adopted EX Extenders due to its ability to standardize and automate asset-related workflows. The software license management tool also offers comprehensive software license tracking so companies can ensure license compliance and become audit-ready.

With AssetSonar, you can:

• View requester profiles, along with the items in their custody

• Take fundamental actions like creating a purchase order, scheduling service, starting service, and extending checkout

• Search for other items in the AssetSonar database

• Request a new item

As a result, teams can fulfill the most important IT service management workflows with unprecedented control and context when working on requests and incidents.

4. Onboarding and offboarding

Onboarding and offboarding employees involve various tasks that must be executed in a specific order and often by different teams. With Zendesk and SweetHawk, you can streamline onboarding and offboarding processes and easily track all tasks so nothing falls through the cracks. For instance, the integration allows you to create employee onboarding and offboarding checklists, where you can add steps such as:

1. Ensure the provision of assets like hardware and software.

2. Print office badges and manage access.

3. Ship and distribute swag and merchandise.

4. Create a 30/60/90 plan for the employee and customize their onboarding booklet.

This structured approach provides a seamless experience for internal support teams, new hires, and exiting employees alike.

5. Management of leave and life events

Whether it’s a honeymoon, medical leave, or family leave, many employees will need to take time off from work at some point. The Myndbend integration enables employers to create efficient and repeatable workflows for managing employee leave and life events.

Here are steps you might see in a maternity leave checklist developed by Myndbend Process Manager:

1. HRIS component: Securely update the employee’s records to reflect the official maternity leave period.
2. Benefits coordination: Seamlessly connect the employee with the benefits provider.
3. Employee action items: Facilitate the submission of all required paperwork by providing an easy-to-follow checklist.
4. Payroll administration: Accurately mark leave dates in our system and adjust the employee’s salary records accordingly.
5. Legal confirmation: Allow for expedient verification and processing of necessary legal documents within the workflow interface.

With standardized processes in place, businesses can be better prepared to support their employees through life-altering events.

Get started with Zendesk EX Extenders

To learn more about EX Extenders and Zendesk as an employee experience management software solution, check out the extensive app collection on the Zendesk Marketplace.